Seeking a Good eBook Reading Device?

Quimbly asks: "I'm an avid reader, and I find that downloading books is much more convenient that trying to get them from the bookstore or library. However, I'm tired of sitting in front of a monitor to do my reading. I'm looking for a hand-held device to do my reading on, and I'm hoping the community has some suggestions. It seems to me that most PDAs have too small of a screen for convenient reading, and a notebook / tablet computer is too big and bulky for this simple task. So, I've been looking at a few devices designed specifically for eBook reading (e.g. the RCA REB1100, the eBookwise-1150, etc.). These look more promising, but I was disappointed to discover that the RCA device ONLY reads an encrypted, propriety eBook format, making it essentially useless. (Has anyone ever hacked one of these?) Similarly, I believe both of these devices have been discontinued by their manufacturers. I want a device that can read a variety of file formats, especially scanned, non-text PDFs. A large screen, long battery life, and good interface are other attributes I'm looking for."

Comments

PSP?

[AtariAmarok]

Seeing all the PSP hype, with the screen that even looks great when someone holds it up to a camera on TV, I wonder if that will make a fantastic ebook reader.

Re:PSP?

[macshit]

The PSP looks good on TV because it has a fairly colorful and bright display, but it doesn't seem particularly well suited to being an e-book reader:

• The screen is the wrong orientation (you can turn it, but then the controls are awkward), and the long-and-skinny format a bit odd
• The screen is somewhat low-resolution for displaying a reasonable amount of text (though fine for games). I'm not sure how much better you can do with a cheap unit, but a higher-resolution grey-scale display would be much more suitable.
• The PSP is really heavy, it's like a brick, and most of this weight is probably due to components which are completely unnecessary for reading (massive batteries, lots of chips for high-speed graphics).
• It's very expensive -- ideally an e-book reader should be something cheap enough, or robust enough, to just throw in your pocket and always have handy.
• Is there any software for this?!?

You need rbmake

[damiangerous]

Free, Open Source .rb format creator: http://rbmake.sourceforge.net/

print it out

[St. Arbirix]

I have a PDA that I used to read books on, and then an iPod that I used to read books on. Then I discovered book folds.

Print that sucker out. Our campus labs use Word which does two things I've never figured out how to replace on Linux:
1) Text editing on linux (as far as I can tell) only does things line by line. In Word I can treat the whole document as one big string which makes converting a Project Gutenburg text to a sensibly formatted document involve 3 find&replace commands. (newline to |, || to newline, | to space)
2) Book fold printing. I put the text at a <8pt font (i can read at 4pt), give it 0.2" margins, and set the page as a book fold of 12 pages. It prints out double sided and I simple fold every three pages together to create a physical book. The latest Harry Potter book cost me 35 pages which folded down into a neat little booklet I can fit in my interior coat pocket.

Re:print it out

[DougWebb]

There's lots of text editing programs for Linux, with a wide variety of features, and I'm sure some can do the find and replace commands you mention. You can do it from the command-line too; here's what I'd do:

$ perl -i.bak -0e '$book=<>; $book=~s/\cM//g; $book=~s/\n/\x01/g; $book=~s/\x01\x01/\n/g; $book=~s/\x01/ /g; print $book'perl -e 'undef $\; $book=<>; $book=~tr/\n/|/;' book.txt

That'll format the book with one line per paragraph. If you do this a lot, you can put all of that into a script instead, so you just have to remember the name of the script instead of the whole command

In file named process_book:

#!/usr/bin/perl -i.bak -0

my $book = <>;

$book=~s/\cM//g; # Unix line endings
$book=~s/\n/\x01/g; # Collapse lines
$book=~s/\x01\x01/\n/g; # Separate paragraphs
$book=~s/\x01/ /g; # Insert whitespace

print $book;

To process a book:

$ process_book book.txt

By the way, notice that I used \x01 instead of |, since | characters might appear in the book.

Sharp Zaurus SL-5600

[andrews]

I read a lot of books (several a week) on my Sharp Zaurus SL-5600. I convert to Plucker from HTML, and it works great. Still not as good a reading experience as a dead tree version, but the screen is good and I can carry several hundred books around on a CF card and still have plenty of room for MP3s. I can read at night without an external light too. Don't rule out the PDA until you try it.

e-ink!

[n0d3]

I think you are looking for something that uses e-ink. The only one that currently is out on the market is sony's E-book

I know Philips (One of the main minds behind it) isn't ready to mass produce because they want to increase the switching speed (from black to white and inbetween) aswell as adding color.
However I've seen them work, at let me tell you, it's sweet technology. It reads very comfterably.

iPAQ

[madstork2000]

I have enjoyed reading on my iPAQ.

At first I did not like the small screen relatively low res. screen; however, after using it for a while I got used to it and prefer it for a couple of reasons.

1. The small screen, means there are fewer words per page. The smaller word count helps me read faster, because I am not getting lost or distracted.

2. Backlight for low-light conditions. Its nice to read at night with out having a light on in the room. I think it is easier on my eyes when I get tired.

3. one hand operation. It is a lot easier to turn pages one-handed on an PDA. I can generally be more comfortable, and have good posture longer when reading off a PDA than with a book.

-MS2k

HiEbook

[Marticus]

If you can still get your hands on one, the HiEbook (by some Korean manufacturer) is fairly decent device. I've been using mine for 10 months now, and my friend and his wife have theirs for at least twice as long. It's mainly designed just for reading ebooks, and is about A6 in size.

It can use html, doc (if you have MS Word to autoconvert) and its own format. Upload via small USB cable with (windows only) software; or via a card reader if you get a SmartMedia card for it (only up to 128MB though).

It also has some minimal PDA functions, although the CPU is underpowered, and the touch screen a little insensitive. It can, however, play mp3s through the headphone port; and has an inbuilt microphone for voice recording (can't vouch for the quality, never used it).

It comes with a few apps such as text/draw memo (no graphiti input), calendar, address, schedule; and 4 games: othello, omok, sokoban and puzzle. There is a version of minesweeper available, and my friend is wrighting Taipei for it.

It also has a decent backlight (which unfortunately has a soft whine, so there are contraindications for using it in a quiet room), and a nice pleather holder with wrist strap; and if you do get one, use the strap, as the screen can crack if you drop it from a metre or so.

Pros:

• Decent sized (touch-)screen
• Doesn't require proprietary formats
• 3 font sizes
• Pretty pleather holder
• Pretty green backlight
• SDK available
• Charge lasts quite a while if just reading without backlight

Cons:

• Backlight whines slightly
• Contrast changes when environment is hot (have to jump to system to change it)
• Hard to find (there were only 2 left in my small city when I got mine)

Overall, although the design is a few years old now, it's the best ebook reader I've managed to find that doesn't have bad DRM. (I really wanted the sony LibrIe when I read about it, mmm e-ink, but the DRM was horrible so I didn't bother spending all that money.)

Re:Priorities

[quiddity]

also libraries are useful creatures, and utilizing them helps convince those who fund them to continue to do so.

Cheap Solution

[carrowood]

I spent the last year trying to find the right ebook reader for me;

My requirements:
- cheap
- mulitple formats: txt, pdf, doc, isilo, mobi, etc;
- color screen bigger than most palms, smaller than laptop

My Solution:
- used NEC MobilePro 780 off ebay running WinCE: about $99 from a reputable seller;

So far I am happy; Using serial instead of USB kinda sucks, but for the price, I am pleased. I am about to get a wireless card for it and connect it to my home network.

Worked out great for me but do you own homework first ;-)

Palm Tungsten / Windows CE / Franklin EBookman

[rsclient]

I've read e-books on handhelds for years; they are especially good with small babies -- you can walk up and down in the living room for hours, holding the baby in one arm and the handheld in the other. All of them have backlights so that you can read in the dark. Get aquainted with Project Gutenberg -- I can recommend "Mr. Midshipman Easy" as a very fun book.

The Palm Tungsten E is very, very nice: a sharp, good resolution screen, very fast, and decent controls for reading. You can also get the very excellant "Tradewinds" game for it. I haven't dropped it yet, so it still works. Bad points: I managed to get it on special but didn't type in the special code, so I didn't really get the special deal, and too many of the HTML readers won't read "local" html files. There's lots of free software for the Palm, but too much is lame.

The Franklin E-Bookman is good because it was cheap ($50 at Costco; they were selling them out) and has a big screen, good controls, and has very simple to use reader software. Bad points is that I dropped it and it broke, and the software wasn't quite done (and never will be; Franklin dropped the line). The desktop software was a little odd, and isn't fully compatible and regular files can't just be dropped in: you have to "convert" them. There's very little software.

The Phillips "Nino" CE machine was junk, more so after I dropped it and it broke. The ActiveSync software runs from mediocre to awful -- Windows CE machines are designed to be popped into a cradle for recharging, but every time you drop it in, it freezes and resyncs for five minutes. The software was all bad: lots of features, but all the features were done with no usability in mind. You can't just add files: in general files have to be processed before using. There's lots of software, but only if you know which processor you have and the OS version.

Lastly, my old Sharp Wizard OZ9000 was decent but had terrible connectivity software. The keyboard was good, and the IR worked (I transported all my data to another identical unit after I dropped it, and it broke). Not recommended since you can get a better, faster, smaller unit of almost anything else.

The Everlasting Newton

[IpseDixit12]

The Newton's large screen makes it wonderful for reading text, even though it is in green.

REB1100 and ebookwise-1150

[zonem]

I have been using the REB1100 to read ebooks for years, and have recently purchased 2 ebookwise-1150 models for myself and my girlfriend. They are priceless! For the reb1100, I used the rbmake tools in Linux and the old rocketlibrarian in windows. Other shave posted links to rbmake.

Now, the ebookwise-1150 has a number of advantages over the REB1100. The battery life isn't quite as good, but it makes up for it in features. The interface is a little nicer, and the book won't lose your place if you keep reading past the "warning, battery low" message. There are other small things I like about it. Overall, I would highly recommend the ebookwise-1150. It contains all the good of the REB1100 and adds a polished interface and upgradeable firmware (this is VERY important).

Now, you can hook it up to your computer with a USB coord and, without even having to register your ebookwise, load books onto it with the "GEB eBook Librarian" (http://www.breeno.org/eBook/). Otherwise known as "ebookwise librarian", this little piece of software can convert many different formats into the ebookwise ".imp" format: txt,html,rtf,doc,etc (including those documents that contain images and hyperlinks). It also becomes the "online bookshelf" you log into from your ebookwise device, from which you will download the books themselves. There is a $15 registration fee but it is well worth it. There's also a shareware/demo version so you can try it out free. Note that unless you have a smartmedia card for your ebookwise, you won't be able to use it in Linux. This is a very small price to pay, imo.

Any more questions, send me an email.

- Eugene