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Small monochrome e-readers are great for reading pure text, e.g fiction. But they’re quite hopeless for textbooks with lots of images/diagrams/tables and more

Small monochrome e-readers are great for reading pure text, e.g fiction. But they’re quite hopeless for textbooks with lots of images/diagrams/tables and more complex layout. Zooming and scrolling is hopeless on an e-ink screen.

Tagbert 5y ago
That's why we don't use ink devices for those kinds of documents. I have a range of tools that I use for various use cases. In depth reading fiction - Kindle. Casual browsing of large documents with complex layouts and images - iPad. Working on documents - laptop/desktop. I would almost never mix linear reading with those other kinds of documents so I don't need devices that handle both kinds of documents.
- westurner 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_tablet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_tablet > The Adam is set to be the first Android device marketed to contain Pixel Qi's low-power, dual-mode display Was it that there wasn't a market for Pixel Qi dual-mode displays? IDK how well you can scroll a (monochrome) PDF textbook on a PineNote development unit yet, given that the eInk display driver didn't work yet last I heard. https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/high-end-e-ink-tablet-pinenote-announced-with-powerful-internals https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/high-end-e-i... Nobody reads the whole PDF on even a large phone in landscape mode. There's a new server-side liquid PDF reflowing solution that could help solve the fixed font sizes and margin issues on mobile devices. ePub is basically just HTML, by comparison. But certain walled gardens feel like it's necessary to convert epub to mobi, rather than just integrate one of a number of existing open source e-reader apps with support for multiple document, eBook, and textbook formats.
girvo 5y ago
My 10" Boox Note 2 works surprisingly well for technical documentation, as a combination of its size, it's high resolution and its ability to set the refresh of the e-ink display to what you need. Want to pan around quickly? Set full-refresh lower, and it will let you pan around and zoom quickly (somewhat messily, of course) and then full refresh when you stop. It's quite remarkable. Expensive devices though.
dredmorbius 5y ago
There are large e-ink devices. I've been reading this particular thread on a 13.3" Onyx device. (I switch to an emissive device to reply, in part to try reducing my distractions on the reader.) A chief reason I'd selected that size was to read highly-formatted textbooks and scans of old, tiny-font articles. Three-column magazine and journal layouts are almost always highly readable without zoom, even where scan quality is imperfect.

Tagbert 5y ago

That's why we don't use ink devices for those kinds of documents. I have a range of tools that I use for various use cases. In depth reading fiction - Kindle. Casual browsing of large documents with complex layouts and images - iPad. Working on documents - laptop/desktop. I would almost never mix linear reading with those other kinds of documents so I don't need devices that handle both kinds of documents.

westurner 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_tablet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_tablet > The Adam is set to be the first Android device marketed to contain Pixel Qi's low-power, dual-mode display Was it that there wasn't a market for Pixel Qi dual-mode displays? IDK how well you can scroll a (monochrome) PDF textbook on a PineNote development unit yet, given that the eInk display driver didn't work yet last I heard. https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/high-end-e-ink-tablet-pinenote-announced-with-powerful-internals https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/high-end-e-i... Nobody reads the whole PDF on even a large phone in landscape mode. There's a new server-side liquid PDF reflowing solution that could help solve the fixed font sizes and margin issues on mobile devices. ePub is basically just HTML, by comparison. But certain walled gardens feel like it's necessary to convert epub to mobi, rather than just integrate one of a number of existing open source e-reader apps with support for multiple document, eBook, and textbook formats.

girvo 5y ago

My 10" Boox Note 2 works surprisingly well for technical documentation, as a combination of its size, it's high resolution and its ability to set the refresh of the e-ink display to what you need. Want to pan around quickly? Set full-refresh lower, and it will let you pan around and zoom quickly (somewhat messily, of course) and then full refresh when you stop. It's quite remarkable. Expensive devices though.

dredmorbius 5y ago

There are large e-ink devices. I've been reading this particular thread on a 13.3" Onyx device. (I switch to an emissive device to reply, in part to try reducing my distractions on the reader.) A chief reason I'd selected that size was to read highly-formatted textbooks and scans of old, tiny-font articles. Three-column magazine and journal layouts are almost always highly readable without zoom, even where scan quality is imperfect.