4 ms·

These prices coming down have pretty much guaranteed an ebook reader is the next thing I'm buying. When they were $300 reading on my computer screen didn't seem

by samdk 16y ago

These prices coming down have pretty much guaranteed an ebook reader is the next thing I'm buying. When they were $300 reading on my computer screen didn't seem too bad, but for (soon) under $100 I'm sold. Anyone have any particular recommendations that aren't the Kindle? I avoid devices that are as locked down as it is. I don't really care about wireless, I want an e-ink (or comparably easy-on-the-eyes screen), and decent PDF support would be nice. The Sony Reader Touch and the Nook both interesting, although there seem to be a ton of other ones out there made by companies I've never heard of. Any suggestions?

potatolicious 16y ago
I'm puzzled that you think the Kindle is locked down - it supports almost all of the major ebook formats. Only buying Kindle books on Amazon will entail DRM, supplying your own files is as good as it is on any other e-reader.
- samdk 16y ago
  EPUB isn't exactly a minor omission. Amazon wants to control the whole experience from content down to the physical device. They want to do the same thing Apple's done with iOS. They're not Apple, so they may not succeed, but I'm not going to support them until I'm reasonably confident that's not the way they're heading. I don't own an iP{hone,od,ad} either for the same reason.
  - Goronmon 16y ago
    It's a fairly minor omission when you can use a tool like calibre to convert your EPUB files to MOBI.
mquander 16y ago
Watch out if you're looking to read mostly PDFs. I'm in your position, and I found the Nook to be a beautiful device that was completely unsuitable; since the device can't reflow or scale fonts on PDFs, the screen just turned out to be too small to read all the PDFs I tried it with (even after manually trimming off all the margins and page numbers.) I'm considering buying a Kindle DX, which I believe would be ideal, but it's hard for me to justify that when Pixel Qi hybrid tablets may be coming out in the next year.

by samdk 16y ago

potatolicious 16y ago

I'm puzzled that you think the Kindle is locked down - it supports almost all of the major ebook formats. Only buying Kindle books on Amazon will entail DRM, supplying your own files is as good as it is on any other e-reader.

samdk 16y ago
EPUB isn't exactly a minor omission. Amazon wants to control the whole experience from content down to the physical device. They want to do the same thing Apple's done with iOS. They're not Apple, so they may not succeed, but I'm not going to support them until I'm reasonably confident that's not the way they're heading. I don't own an iP{hone,od,ad} either for the same reason.
- Goronmon 16y ago
  It's a fairly minor omission when you can use a tool like calibre to convert your EPUB files to MOBI.

mquander 16y ago

Watch out if you're looking to read mostly PDFs. I'm in your position, and I found the Nook to be a beautiful device that was completely unsuitable; since the device can't reflow or scale fonts on PDFs, the screen just turned out to be too small to read all the PDFs I tried it with (even after manually trimming off all the margins and page numbers.) I'm considering buying a Kindle DX, which I believe would be ideal, but it's hard for me to justify that when Pixel Qi hybrid tablets may be coming out in the next year.