eBook READERS

[tina21]

I'm a fan of the physical copy but I find myself searching for more and more eBooks, simply 'cos I can't afford every book I want to read with the risk of not liking it also...

So I was wondering what are the opinions of people that have eBook Readers, pros and cons of their device and such

I know I can find the info in the net, but I prefer YOUR opinion for the simple reason, that you have tried reading when its extremely sunny or cloudy, with not much light or too much of it etc...

So have it, rant too

[KarumA]

We had a thread a long while ago about Ereaders and some guy who wanted one to read comics on.
I own a Sony Ereader so I can explain some details for you.

For instance the Ereader uses this E-ink or something allong that line which means there is no lighting in the device itself, this is better for the eyes if you read books so you have a more natural lighting and do not damage them or have them sting after a long period of time. The bad thing is that this way you cannot read in the complete dark (you need a night light) but you have no problems in sunlight or other bright lights, the screen does not reflect much at least mine doesn't. This way you can read hours on end without having soar eyes.

Another aspect that I would like to add, it isn't the super best for reading comics, you can zoom in with the device and enlarge parts, drag over the page but it is all in black/white/greyscale. It is possible to read manga on it but I do not recommend it because of the lack of colour and the fact that I haven't used it for this either. I have only used it for books and scripts.

What I like about it all is the fact that you can create your own books for the ereader, if you import a .pdf file containing a book you might be troubled by the fact that it only reads pages as images and so if you enlarge you enlarge the entire page, lines do not get cut off at the ends etc. so you have to zoom and drag through the pages to read.
The good thing is that there are programs that convert those kind of files to more suitable ereader extensions .epub (the program is free and called Calibre). Another is that with some basic webscripting you can create your own .epub which is what I do with long stories from fanfiction.net, I convert them and upload them to read them in the train.

Reading on this device may take a little while getting used to, I still prefer book books over the device just for the sake of having books on my plank but for long articles online, traveling and vacation it is a great feature. When I go visit my parents I prefer taking the reader on train trips because of its compatability. Also because I like reading a large variety of books/articles/fanfiction and also older classic books it is perfect because in many cases the books are avaliable online (just know where to look), Sony has its own store set up for books as well but I would rather buy the book itself rather than the data.

As for cons, there are a few. The battery life on my ereader is good it takes about a week of daily use to run out. However if I leave it lying around my room for 2 weeks or so and then want to use it then I find out the battery's empty. So if you go out make sure to have charged it before hand.
Another would be size, Ereaders are still quite small in size which is handy but sometimes they feel like they are just a little too small.

Also remember that an Ereader should not and cannot be compared to the Ipad, I remember int he last thread everyone recommended an Ipad for reading comics, which is good for that instance (and only because of size and colour screen) but remember the Ereader is functional just for reading books and no other extra applications (you can enter sd cards and listen to music on it as well but no internet and all the shiney overprizing of the Ipad).

I'd suggest looking up that thread which was posted here in this section witht he search function =)

[Fuji]

I own a Kindle, and I love it. It is E-ink, so I can read it under sunlight, and I bought the lighted cover, so it is also very convenient to read at night. In fact, one time our plane had a pre-flight blackout and everyone was miserable except me who was reading on my Kindle with its attached lamp turned on. (Keep in mind it's an extra $60 for the lighted cover, but I found it 100% worth it.)

Pros: light, convenient, large Amazon store, weekly free books (so much, I can't keep up!), made up the cost of it in 1 month by saving on the cost of my textbooks, easy to read books, very easy to read newspapers, built in web browser (can check my email on this), unlimited 3G and wifi capabilities (if you pay the extra $50), very good for eyes (like a real book), can install own manga expansion software, extremely long battery life (up to 1 month daily reading, plus I can leave it on "sleep" for many weeks, and the battery is still fine).

Cons: hard to read poorly scanned pdfs, no touch screen so browsing the net is tough

[tina21]

@KarumA why I didn't search for the thread is beyond me ><... hmm importing pdfs read like an image? that sounds like a prob to me, I know its easy to convert to whatever file type these days but still you never know when a prob comes up...

@Fuji you know Sony and Kindle were the choices I was between but with what you and KarumA said Kindle kinda wins tell me sth though you can import pdfs to it? And do they read as such?

[Fuji]

Yes, you can import pdfs into the Kindle. However, there are two types of pdfs and two types of Kindles.

For the pdfs that are converted from text (e.g. saving your word document into pdf), the Kindle 6" reads them very well, and basic highlight and note-taking capabilities work. For the pdfs that are scanned in as entire images, the Kindle 6" does not read them well as is, but the trick I use is to change layout to horizontal, zoom in, and divide the page in half so that the forward and back buttons still work.

I do not have a Kindle DX, but the screen is much larger than the Kindle 6", so I heard that people do not run into the same problem. For me though, the difference in cost ($400 vs $200) was enough for me to buy the Kindle 6" for all regular pdfs and print the poor quality pdfs.

Edit: I just realized I forgot a con in my first reply. The Kindle does not read epub format. This is inconvenient for some, but never was an issue for me, so it kinda slipped my mind. I mean, Amazon gives me a LOT of free books. *O* Another semi-con that I don't know if it's limited to Kindle is that with DRM protection, the only way to share books with family members is to register all your kindles to the same account or lend it to them 1 time only for a max period of 14 days.

[DeepSeaCreature]

I have a Sony and a Kindle.

My Sony is very durable. It has a metal frame (versus Kindle's plastic frame) so that's a plus. Sony can read ebooks you borrow from your public library (and Kindle cannot).

But I prefer the Kindle because I can do a lot more with it. It has a dictionary (which I use a lot now that it's built into the reader), has a "find" feature (which Sony didn't have), the Kindle store has a lot of free books, has internet (so you can surf the web). I read a lot of fanfiction on my Kindle, too, because it has internet connection.

They both kind of suck at reading pdfs because both their screens are small, but you can set both to horizontal viewing. And with Kindle, you can increase the contrast to make reading easier (which I find myself doing a lot).

Both readers are very good. I think you'll be happy with either one.

[tina21]

Yes, you can import pdfs into the Kindle. However, there are two types of pdfs and two types of Kindles.

For the pdfs that are converted from text (e.g. saving your word document into pdf), the Kindle 6" reads them very well, and basic highlight and note-taking capabilities work. For the pdfs that are scanned in as entire images, the Kindle 6" does not read them well as is, but the trick I use is to change layout to horizontal, zoom in, and divide the page in half so that the forward and back buttons still work.

I do not have a Kindle DX, but the screen is much larger than the Kindle 6", so I heard that people do not run into the same problem. For me though, the difference in cost ($400 vs $200) was enough for me to buy the Kindle 6" for all regular pdfs and print the poor quality pdfs.

Edit: I just realized I forgot a con in my first reply. The Kindle does not read epub format. This is inconvenient for some, but never was an issue for me, so it kinda slipped my mind. I mean, Amazon gives me a LOT of free books. *O* Another semi-con that I don't know if it's limited to Kindle is that with DRM protection, the only way to share books with family members is to register all your kindles to the same account or lend it to them 1 time only for a max period of 14 days.

I don't think I have any pdf that was scanned, the quality of them are really good, and I think I have seen pdfs that are scanned and I was so I can safely say that I don't

ePub aren't that of any issue for me either simply 'cos i prefer pdfs any day ^^
Neither the DRM is a problem 'cos my family doesn't read all that much, much less an ebook and from an eBook reader

thank you all the info were very helpful

one more thing so that I have them clear in my head, Kindle reads un-DRM protection pdfs right? Like from other sources than Amazon?

I have a Sony and a Kindle.

My Sony is very durable. It has a metal frame (versus Kindle's plastic frame) so that's a plus. Sony can read ebooks you borrow from your public library (and Kindle cannot).

But I prefer the Kindle because I can do a lot more with it. It has a dictionary (which I use a lot now that it's built into the reader), has a "find" feature (which Sony didn't have), the Kindle store has a lot of free books, has internet (so you can surf the web). I read a lot of fanfiction on my Kindle, too, because it has internet connection.

They both kind of suck at reading pdfs because both their screens are small, but you can set both to horizontal viewing. And with Kindle, you can increase the contrast to make reading easier (which I find myself doing a lot).

Both readers are very good. I think you'll be happy with either one.

I don't think I have a library where I live and the only I'd might borrow is the one at college, but even so I'm a buy-person and not a borrow-person

Suck at reading pdfs? They are supposed to be Readers... I wish I could do a test drive first

Anyways I think Kindle is winning

[KarumA]

True the Kindle wins over Sony. I agree, specially if you are in America then Kindle is the way to go because of the massive support it has from Amazon. Since I am not American and in a country where Amazon is very small (we don't even use ebooks for school or anything like that either) I decided to go for durability =)

You also had the Nook from Barnes and Noble but I never looked into it because that company doesn't even exist in my country and only in the states. I don't even think the kindle was on sale in normal stores here and for Amazon you needed a credit card, or at least something alike (I remember I couldn't put in paypall or use my bankaccount it had to be credit card) because of that I was pretty much stuck with smaller brands and picked Sony's durability over it all.

As for the .pdf files, if you want to read manga you're prob stuck with converting the image pages to .pdf's
But I would remember the Calibre program, if you downloaded a book and you find out that all pages are image based then you can use ot to convert it properly to .epub or whatever kindle uses as an extension

[makiyuki]

I have a Kindle DX; it has a slightly larger screen than the Kindle. I love it for reading books; the e ink is easy on the eye and it "feels" like a real book. I do not like it for manga or images and have not used it much for web browsing.

[Fuji]

Yes, the Kindle can read non DRM protected books and pdfs. It's just that other Kindles cannot read your version of a DRM protected book, but I know many ways to get around that.

Ah, yes, I forgot that the convenience of the Kindle is 10x better in America than elsewhere. The book selection, for one, is different. Then again, my family members just use my US address to use Kindle, so we get around that too.

The Mangle for Kindle software lets you read manga without converting it to pdf. The software is really easy to use~~

It's a little hard to type symbols on Kindle. If I had to suggest some sort of software update from Amazon, I wish they'd give us shortcut keys for symbols like they have for numbers. Then again, I'm a big notetaker on my books and docs (I really like how you can choose to just view only your highlights and notes in a book/pdf- it makes writing essays really easy!).

...gee, I really sound like a PR rep from Amazon now. x_x They should pay me commission fees lol!