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E Paper or LCD electronic e-book reader?

Holytomato

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
Hi. :grin: I'm looking for a gizmo that reads books in word pad, note pad, microsoft word, or pdf formats.

I don't care about internet connections, memory (I only read one book at a time), or if its a touch screen or not. I care about battery life before recharge needed, and weight. I also want the viewscreen to have a black background, and colored letters (symbols) a'la Star Trek.

I've been to Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, and Target. They have nooooooo idea what I'm talking about.

Any ideas?
 
The Sony Reader is probably the leading digital book... but I don't think you're likely to get something with a black background and white text (for one, it's not as easy to read!). I think it's about $300.

I've no idea how good it is. I still like paper.
 
I just want to thank you guys for proving that you can devote a discussion to the topic. One forum up, and this thread would have degenerated into a war zone by the second post.

So thank you. As someone who's got e-Books in their bibliography, I truly appreciate seeing sincerity and rationality in this discussion.
 
A microsoft PPC (Pocket PC) such as an Ipaq or HP Jornada will accomodate most of these requirements.

MS Pocket Word is native to these devices. Microsoft Reader is free for download and will read their .lit file format.

The Notes program included will read plain text files, but I find the interface a little clunky for just reading. However:

A program called uBook is available that will read palm, txt and other formats. It's a pretty decent program.

There are PDF viewers available for PPC as well, though I don't have any experience with them. Mostly because the ones I looked at long ago provided a sliding window over the full size document, which I found pretty annoying. I don't know if any PDF viewers for PPC reformat text, since that sort of defeats the purpose of pdf files anyway.

My current PPC is also my phone! Samsungs SCH-I730 runs Windows mobile 2003 or 2005, and provides all the functionality of a phone, PDA, MP3 player, wmail terminal, web browser, etc, etc, doo-dah, doo-dah.

Check out ebay for PPCs or smartphones if you're interested in functionality and don't care if it's shiny and new. It dosen't take much horsepower to put a text on a screen, and some older PPCs fit the bill and are darn cheap these days.

Good luck!

AG
 
I read mobipocket books, word documents and pdf on my phone (a standard nokia n95). I used to do the same on my treo, though that could also handle palm documents. My nokia is the same sort of all-purpose doodah as alpha_geek's

I find them more convenient for taking into work than carrying a hard copy, and much better for aking on holiday - though nothing beats the feel and smell of a 'real book'. I just wish more text books and the like were available in digital formaat.
 
What ebook readers are available for the Mac?

And: Will all the Trek novels that have been coming out as ebooks be covered under the above question?
 
e-book readers are like mp3, a kind of technology that has the potential to turn an entire sector of industry upside down. Actually it's happening as we speak, it's just not really apparent yet.

E-books are like the drm-controlled AACs, or low-quality mp3s that used to be sold through ventures like iTunes; heavily specialised, controlled formats that are sold in a way that tries to distract the consumer from the fact that they are more inconvenient than other formats on purpose.

What's so great about 'e-books' that you can't copy and can only read using specialised software? Not much.

Publishers, at the same time, don't like e-books because their main role is that of a middle-man between writers and printers and distributors. In the digital domain, all they can add is quality control, which is not such a unique service.
 
I just wanted to pop in because I happen to have a Sony Reader (for about a year now) and love it. I've been reading ebooks for awhile, and used to use my PDA. It was okay and convenient in that I didn't need an additional device, but for me the PDA screen was just too small.

The Sony Reader has been really great for me. It is a good size, thin, lightweight, holds a ton of material on its internal HD) plus has an SD expansion port (which I have to date not needed). It supports MS Word, RTF, JPEG, and PDA formats (and a few others, I believe). I read all my favorite Trek fanfic from this forum on it, as well as work documents.

Unfortunately, it does not allow for reading white letters on a black background. It also does not have a backlight (which is part of the reason the battery lasts so long.) I don't mind this at all, and simply use the same little clip on book light that I've used (with paper books) for years.

The downloading and syncronizing system is very fast and simple (works sort of like iTunes, only simpler). One downside for some is that it only supports ebooks purchasd from Sony's ebookstore. When I first got it, the Sony site's selection of ebooks to buy was a bit limited, but that problem seems to have been eliminated for the most part over this past year.

It's especially great for travelling, with one exception (which applies to all ereaders): flight attendants make you turn it off during takeoffs and landings. I just make sure to have a *gasp* paper magazine with me. ;)

Anyway, just wanted to give a hands on report. This has been a great addition to my "toybox".

Happy hunting! :bolian:
 
I actually read ebooks (text or html format, or converted from other formats) on my iPod Touch. Its using a 3rd party app though, but you can adjust text size.

Usually the big limitation with devices like this is, with a smaller screen, at a readable text size, you would only have a little bit of text viewable before you'd have to switch pages, or constantly push buttons to scroll, it's like a paragraph is a page literally.

However, because of the multi-touch gesture interface, there are no pages or buttons to distract, you just scroll with your thumb onscreen while reading. It's very 'liquidy' scrolling and how fast you use your fingers is how fast the page scrolls - you can basically keep reading and scroll through without interruption. The text resolution is very good too.

This is one area where multi-touch and gestures are really fantastic. Proper ebook readers need to adopt this technology.



as far as e-ink goes, the actual screen quality looks fantastic. The technology around it though sucks, the interfaces are all clunky and there are still lots of limitations (like the "screen refresh" in between pages, oh dear god that's annoying). Of course I'm really only basing this on the Sony eReader.
 
Babaganoosh said:
TerriO said:
Take your flak jacket.

Huh? :confused:

Asking about Trek novels coming out as eBooks really should be in TrekLit, but bringing up eBooks there tends to start a war between the Dead Tree Society and the Early Adopters.

It's part of the reason I've quit writing for the Trek fiction line. I'm tired of having my work dismissed or told it's not "real" purely for the format it's in.

That's why I made a point of thanking everyone for having a rational, sane discussion on the subject. As someone with half of their bibliography in eBook format on first release, it's wonderful to see a discussion of the format not degenerate like they usually do up in TrekLit.
 
^ I have nothing against e-books, of course. I was just concerned about readers for them, being available for the Mac. I know that there are a number of different e-book formats, and I didn't want to risk being left out just because a particular e-book is only available for a reader I can't use. :(
 
My Mac wasn't operational long enough for me to find a good eBook reader, so I'm afraid I can't help on that front.

If iPhone had an eBook reader, we might find the eBook frontier changing altogether.
 
TerriO said:
As someone with half of their bibliography in eBook format on first release, it's wonderful to see a discussion of the format not degenerate like they usually do up in TrekLit.

First, my apologies for responding to your post in reverse order but, well, I guess my mind just works that way.

Second, I wanted to comment that, somewhat ironically I suppose, I first began reading e-books so I could read the SCE series that I was hearing raves about (in TrekLit at the time, believe it or not.) So, in a way, I guess I owe you my thanks for helping me make the jump. It's also ironic to me that I had no idea at the time that the person with whom I was engaging in good natured Yankees-Red Sox ribbing on TBBS during the day was the same person whose work I was reading on my PDA at night. :cool:

All of which makes me more sad to hear this:

It's part of the reason I've quit writing for the Trek fiction line. I'm tired of having my work dismissed or told it's not "real" purely for the format it's in.
:(

And finally (re: TerriO, anyway), I had to say that I found this comment very amusing:

... bringing up eBooks there tends to start a war between the Dead Tree Society and the Early Adopters.

I just happen to be a combination of a "green"-Oregonian-tree-hugger and an early adopter, so I guess e-books were absolutely made for me. :p

On another point ...,

Stone_Cold_Sisko said:
Usually the big limitation with devices like this is, with a smaller screen, at a readable text size, you would only have a little bit of text viewable before you'd have to switch pages, or constantly push buttons to scroll, it's like a paragraph is a page literally.

This is one of the things I really like about the Sony Reader: the screen size is big enough that you're not constantly flipping pages or scrolling ... unless you have it set at its largest type size. Which leads me to another feature I like: that you can change the type size from small to medium to large with the touch of a button. It's nice, for instance, if I've forgotten my reading glasses somewhere or if I want to read in bed but don't want ot wear them.

... limitations (like the "screen refresh" in between pages, oh dear god that's annoying). Of course I'm really only basing this on the Sony eReader.

I also just wanted to say that, at first I thought this would bother me, as well, but I very quickly got used to it and find that I don't even notice it anymore.

And honestly, I am not on Sony's payroll. I am aware there are limitations to the Sony Reader, and there are other alternatives out there. Heck, I actually got it as a gift and was looking at other alternatives, myself, at the time. But, as an owner of the device, I have really come to like it quite a lot and wanted to be a resource in case anyone had any questions about it.

Carry on folks. :angel:
 
I've got a Sony Reader and I use it with my Mac. Sony doesn't make their software for the Mac, but you can download a free tool that can copy files from your computer to the Reader and also delete files that are already on the Reader:

http://labs.docudesk.com/latest-technologies/2007/4/26/docudesk-prs-browser-for-os-x.html

I absolutely refuse to buy an e-Book unless it's DRM-free in a format that any word processor can read. So, I've been sticking to e-Books available on Project Gutenberg, WikiSource, and The Literature Network. It's old stuff, but it's free! (Free from DRM and also free of cash transactions!) :)

For the most part, I'm pretty happy with the Reader, but one minor disappointment is that the screen isn't especially white. It's more of a light gray, which makes for less contrast and also makes it a little harder to read than it would have been if the screen were a true white. But, I can still deal with it.
 
Check this out guys, Amazon Kindle:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/official/amaz...ding-324129.php

unfortunately, it's sort of ugly (though not as ugly as the early press photo made it look) but it sounds like a cool device, e-ink screen, and amazon will sell new "hardback" e releases for 10 bucks and less.

What's cool is that it doesn't require a PC, you can connect wirelessly free from anywhere (via something called Whispernet) to buy books.
 
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