3 ms·

>Get yourself an e-ink display of 10" or 13" (standard dimensions offered by the patent-monopoly vendor across multiple OEMs), and discover that online reading

>Get yourself an e-ink display of 10" or 13" (standard dimensions offered by the patent-monopoly vendor across multiple OEMs), and discover that online reading of PDFs is 1) quite pleasant (so long as the underlying PDF formatting itself is sane) and 2) vastly preferable to either HTML or "fluid" ePub or Mobi file formats. Notably this is not the standard size for most e-ink devices though, on which pdfs are a pain to read. Mobi/epub files, in contrast, are fantastic on my kindle (and on my phone, and on desktop). If your argument has to boil down to "this file format is great if you just buy a specific device for viewing them, and eschew viewing them on any of the other devices you already own and use more frequently", I'd say your argument provides more evidence for the counterpoint than for the one you're arguing. I'm happy you found a good way to consume a fundamentally outdated format, but PDFs are a bad format for the majority of use cases.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Oddly enough, my purchase decision was driven specifically by considerations of size, resolution, and suitedness to task. Again: at 8", e-ink is pretty broadly useful. If you're frequently reading scanned-in journal articles, the 10" or 13" devices shine, though these can be accessed on smaller screens using in-page zoom-and-scroll. (Onyx BOOX has several settings for this in its NeoReader app.) Note-taking, which was not a use I anticipated using, also happens to be really well-suited. Yes, you can read on a smaller device if you must. However you're making the same sacrifices for mobility that are present in pocket-sized printed books, and the format is best suited to largely unformatted text (e.g., prose). Diagrams, tables, and other layout translate quite poorly, and this is intrinsic to the display itself. The one task to which the tablet format seems best suited is precisely e-book reading. So I've ditched the "smartphone" (a pocket snoop) and settled on laptop / desktop (productivity) + tablet (ebooks), and dedicated devices for specific other applications, most especially capture (audio, images, video). "The Case Against Tablets" https://joindiaspora.com/posts/880e5c403edb013918e1002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/880e5c403edb013918e1002590d8e...

dredmorbius 5y ago

Oddly enough, my purchase decision was driven specifically by considerations of size, resolution, and suitedness to task. Again: at 8", e-ink is pretty broadly useful. If you're frequently reading scanned-in journal articles, the 10" or 13" devices shine, though these can be accessed on smaller screens using in-page zoom-and-scroll. (Onyx BOOX has several settings for this in its NeoReader app.) Note-taking, which was not a use I anticipated using, also happens to be really well-suited. Yes, you can read on a smaller device if you must. However you're making the same sacrifices for mobility that are present in pocket-sized printed books, and the format is best suited to largely unformatted text (e.g., prose). Diagrams, tables, and other layout translate quite poorly, and this is intrinsic to the display itself. The one task to which the tablet format seems best suited is precisely e-book reading. So I've ditched the "smartphone" (a pocket snoop) and settled on laptop / desktop (productivity) + tablet (ebooks), and dedicated devices for specific other applications, most especially capture (audio, images, video). "The Case Against Tablets" https://joindiaspora.com/posts/880e5c403edb013918e1002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/880e5c403edb013918e1002590d8e...