Kindle Touch looks really similar to the Nook Touch, which is a truly excellent product. But Nook Touch still has a killer feature for a ebook nerd like me: it reads epubs. I'm assuming the KT will still be locked in to Amazon's ridiculous .mobi format, so I'm sticking with my NT for now.
What's ridiculous about it, apart from the competing DRM schemes and Amazon vs. all others aspect? Both formats are essentially zipped XHTML ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats#Mo... ), and are offered by many free ebook sites (feedbooks.com, manybooks.net, gutenberg.org etc.)
The BN Nooks were not available outside the U.S. (and Canada?) last time I looked.
The Nook STP runs Android, and it's pretty trivial to get Android-native PDF readers up-and-running on it. None are yet optimized for the e-ink screen, of course, but some have an option to turn off animation which helps somewhat.
Something like mupdf (which has already been ported) combined with some button/touch bindings and perhaps a touch-friendly zoom feature seems to me like it would do the job perfectly... and be an easy weekend hack for much of this site's target audience?*
I think you'd have to look long and hard for an e-ink reader with truly decent out-of-box PDF support and no serious failings in other areas — my search so far has been unfruitful, but please do tell if you've come across anything which fits the bill.
*edit: If someone actually does/has done this/something similar, please post about it here!
Yes, I did see videos of rooted nook, and you could use android apps to view PDFs, but the problem with that is, of course, rooting the device.
I think Kindle 3 is better for PDFs than the Nook Touch, because you can zoom in. It is clunky, but at least you can do it. On the Nook you can only change font sizes, and that reflows the PDF and messes everything up.
The solution, as I see it, since they have a touch screen is to implement something similar to ezPDF, which is my favourite PDF reader for Android. Just a double tap on a section, and it'll zoom exactly on the section of text you want to read. You don't have to fiddle with fixed zoom settings and clunky movement to try and fit the viewport to include the portion you want to see.
Of course, they probably aren't interested in doing this at all, since they'd be very happy if you only read books bought at their store.
PS. The Kindle DX is probably the best for PDFs, but its price and size are big downpoints.
Actually the ectaco jetbook, a cheap ebook reader I got over a year ago as superb PDF support. It automatically zooms in past margins, loads all graphics and text, turns pages quickly, even on monster sized textbook PDF files. This cheap piece of hardware handles PDFs better than my (albeit cheap) android tablet. If only they had a version with a decent screen size, it would be the killer device for textbook reading.
Thanks for the tip, but the jetBook seems to use a TFT screen: "jetBook uses a huge, state-of-the-art 5-inch VGA reflective monochrome TFT screen" (http://www.jetbook.net/specifications). No word about resolution but I'm skeptical that it could compare in any way to e-ink, especially the new Pearl panels.
Oh definitely not. But its not bad in its own right. It's not backlit, it uses ambient light to display the picture. So battery life is quite good. Personally I found it easy on the eyes, but then again I don't particularly have trouble with backlight LCD's for extended periods of time either.
The resolution of my 5'' is 640x480. The size definitely kills it for anything other than standard novels. If they came out with an 8inch version I would be all over it.
It seems to me that PDF is not a format suitable for much more than printing on paper.
A very important feature of Kindle is to allow choosing font size. It make it an ideal tool for elders. But PDF documents have a fixed layout that won't allow resizing font conveniently, or you have to break it in pieces.
You are right. But, I have an extensive library of PDF files that I'd like to read. I expect many people do too. Most are technical documents with equations, graphs and other images. I would love to have an e-ink based reader that will render such documents correctly.
But, Amazon are probably more interested in selling their content, so I understand the lack of PDF support.
I have an older Kindle DX which can do technical PDFs. Aside from the cost (nowadays triple the smaller Kindle), it's still not entirely satisfactory for three reasons:
- It's cumbersome to do anything other than reading sequentially.
- The screen is still not big enough for letter/A4 pages - it does perform decent scaling, but you know how scrunched many technical papers are. Can go landscape and read half a page, which is a pain in two column layouts ...
- It's a tad heavy, almost like a hardcover textbook that needs to be held in both hands.
I understand PDFs aren't a great format for books, but there are some cases in which it'd be fantastic to have them on an e-reader.
For graphical content, such as technical drawings/illustrations, wireframes or just B&W document proofs, the resolution and fidelity of an E-Ink Pearl screen combined with the true WYSIWYG nature of the PDF format across digital/print would be a dream come true for me...
Great price point. It's basically in impulse zone: "This book is 6 dollars cheaper at Kindle price... if I buy 12 it pays for itself..." but note there's no physical keyboard. Without a touch screen, it looks like it won't do note-taking, which is a bummer.
I'd be interested to see what % of Kindle users make use of the Keyboard. I'm pretty sure that I've only ever touched it for inputting URIs when web-browsing from abroad.
I find the keyboard invaluable for the search functionality on a given text. Simple examples: searching the Economist for all references to the ECB (i.e. looking for euro crisis related news); searching A Game of Thrones for Kinslayer to figure out which character was introduced with that nickname.
I don't take notes and tweet them, but I do search for books in the online store via whispernet. I have no idea how that's going to work on this device, probably something like registering your name on Zelda, which will be a pain and probably not worth the real estate.
I've always thought it was retarded to include a hardware keyboard on a device that will be used ~95% of the time for reading stuff. It's a really smart move to remove it.
Agreed. This might be ex post rationalization, but the keyboard helps me form thoughts. I've got no problem with it (but we definitely agree on the stylus).
I use the keyboard quite a lot, for writing notes. It's amazing how reading a non-fiction book is so much more rewarding if you make highlights and notes. If you're thorough, you can read just your highlights and notes and effectively re-read the same book a year down the line in about 10% of the time; and still refresh your memory well.
Not to mention some textbooks which are $50 less in Kindle format. That brings the total cost of the Kindle hardware to $29 for a college student with one required book.
If more than one textbook is available for Kindle, it could actually be a net bonus.
The textbooks may be cheaper but if you're like most students and only use a textbook for one class its more expensive than buying the book used and selling it when you're done with it.
I'm not too hot on the touchscreen. I don't need it. I like the physical page turning buttons on my wife's Kindle 3... they have a satisfying weight to them and they sit nicely where your fingers already are. I don't want to tap tap tap my e-ink screen all day.
That's the news I've been waiting for. I mean, other than the new tablet, I was interested in their plans for the e-ink reader, so that I can decide whether to wait for a new version, or buy the Kindle 3. Kindle 3 and Kindle Fire are two very different devices and it's best for them to announce their plans regarding both.
