Archive for the ‘eBook Readers & PDF’ Category
Irex DR800SG Ereader Update – First Impressions no comments
I love reading books on the DR800SG. The e-ink screen with its 16 grayscales and 768 x 1024 resolution is gorgeous. I also find that I much prefer reading on the 8.1 – inch screen to the usual 5 – 6 inch ereader screens. The larger screen does add a little width to the device though, which may impact portability for some.
I am also a fan of the minimalist design of the DR800SG ereader which does not waste space and which is devoted to and complements the display screen. I hope other designers of new ereaders will take a close look at Irex’s design choices here and maybe stand on Irex’s shoulders, as Steve Jobs would say. The DR800SG definitely has some qualities worth emulating. I would like to see some more ereaders with this screen size format for one thing. That being said however, the DR800SG’s design as executed does lead to some control awkwardness that I think could have been avoided by Irex.
Page turning and menu navigation are accomplished via the flipbar on the left
side of the bezel and the Menu button underneath it. If you hold the flipbar to one side for a longer period it will turn five pages at a time instead of just one.
To use the DR800SG with one hand you will need to hold your ereader in your left hand and use thumb power to turn pages. This works fine, unless you want to shift hands for awhile. This control scheme will also not work if you are left handed and want to hold the ereader in your right hand so you can have your left hand free. Adding a couple of small page turning buttons on the right bezel might have impacted the aesthetics of this ereader, but it would also have greatly increased its functionality.
You can navigate through most menus and make selections without the stylus by using the flipbar and menu button, but sometimes it does feel a bit awkward. Since there is no docking bay for the stylus on the ereader it is good to be able to do as much as possible without it.
Unlike most ereaders that come with a stylus, you cannot turn pages with a swipe or touch of the stylus on the edge of the screen. There are a couple of small arrows at the very bottom of the screen (you can just see them at the bottom of the picture) you can touch with the stylus for page turns, but they are quite small and inconvenient. It feels as though the Wacom digitizer is minimally implemented at best.
There’s Not Enough “There” There
The DR800SG has five four different font sizes to choose from, but only one font style. The
pic shows the largest font size, which is about 3/16 inch height for capital letters. You can also set the page margins from 0 to 1/2 inch.
The search function so far seems to work quite well. You will need to use the stylus for this. It would have been nice if Irex had added a Go To Page function as well.
You are able to sort through your library or documents by Name (title), Author, Date Added or Recently Added. It is also possible to delete content from the ereader itself without connecting to a computer, which is nice.
With its larger screen, Wacom digitizer and $400 price tag you would assume that Irex is targeting users who need to handle a lot of PDF or other documents with this ereader. Judging by what is missing you would be making a wrong assumption. There are no annotation, note taking or even highlighting functions. Bookmarking is as good as it gets. It kind of makes you wonder why Irex bothered to use Wacom technology on the DR800SG at all. At the moment it seems like the digitizer is wasted.
PDF zooming is unavailable on the DR800SG as well. Even viewing a PDF in landscape mode does not seem to achieve any magnification – you just get the same size doc with very wide margins. With PDF’s made up only of text you may be able to enlarge the font as long as there are no graphs, schematics or tables, etc.
So far my take is that the DR800SG is a wonderful ereader for general book reading. But is that enough to justify paying $400 for it – especially in view of all of the soon to be released competition? True, Irex will hopefully have a firmware update soon that will add some of the missing functionality to their new ereader, but I can not recommend buying one based on that expectation/speculation alone.
If there were a dictionary on this ereader it would probably have a picture of the DR800SG next to half-baked.
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enTourage eDGe eReader/Netbook no comments
Entourage has an interesting device they are calling the eDGe (somebody really needs to get ereader names under control), which is supposed to be available in February 2010.
As you can see from the photo, it is half netbook and half ereader.
The netbook has internet browsing, can play movies and lets you view pictures from books you are reading on the ereader in color. It has a 10 inch screen and also comes with a video camera and audio recorder. Wi –Fi is built-in, but 3G requires an optional EVDO or HSDPA modem. There is a virtual keypad, but BlueTooth is also included, so you could add an external keypad. There is an SD card slot and you can also use a USB flash drive. The eDGe is based on Google’s Android. Battery life is not that great, but the battery is removable so you could carry a spare.
The ereader has a 9.7 inch e-ink screen with Wacom tablet technology. This gives you a stylus based touchscreen without glare issues. There appears to be a robust set of study tools including annotations and freehand drawing, etc. Your are also able to email your notes and journals to others.
Currently only ePub and PDF are supported. Entourage says they will have their own ebook store, but support for Adobe Digital Editions would add access to DRM’ed content.
Obviously at 2.5 lbs the eDGe would not be good for reading in bed, or for carrying around in your pocket, and all the bells and whistles the eDGe comes with are not cheap. The eDGe will sell for $490.
What interests me is that Entourage was able to put together a package like this for the same price as the Kindle DX. And if you just look at the ereader half of the eDGe equation it is pretty impressive. Full on study tools like the eDGe’s ereader has are what are needed in order to be embraced by students in the classroom. If Amazon is serious about being accepted in schools and used for etextbooks the DX needs to have features like this. And with Amazon’s much larger resources and sales volume they should be able to bring it to us at an acceptable price.
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Reading PDF Files on the Sony PRS 600 no comments
I’ve been experimenting with several PDF documents on the Sony Touch Edition ereader, and I have to report mixed results.
The default display mode for PDF pages on Sony’s new ereader is to display the whole page on the screen. This makes the font so small that it is impractical to read on the PRS 600’s 6″ screen. You can zoom, of course, but this worked a little differently on each of the three documents I’ve tried so far.
First of all I tried a text only PDF. As should be expected, reflow worked fine on this: I could use the font size keys to enlarge the text and there were no chopped off words, etc. Reading this file was pretty much like reading an ebook in any other format.
Things were not so easy when I moved on to an aeronautics text with schematics, charts and equations. First of all, if I used the font size keys on this document most diagrams and equations where not shown at all or were Sony PRS600 Touch Edittion PDF Zoom and Panmessed up. Also words were chopped off at the right margin and unceremoniously finished on the next line. The best results were acheived with this file when I used the
zoom-in feature with the screen in landscape mode. You can see this in the short video I made.
In the zoomed-in mode diagrams and equations were shown as intended, and being able to use your finger on the touch screen to pan around is quite cool. Being able use the stylus to annotate PDF’s on the Sony Touch makes for a great study tool; but you cannot annotate or make notes while you are zoomed in. Another annoyance is that when you turn the page your zoomed in setting is reset and you have to zoom in all over again for each new page. This will probably work fine for a limited number of pages, but I cannot imagine having to read a whole book like this without the process becoming exceedingly tedious.
The last PDF I tried was a Google scanned book with drawings. The font zoom keys had no effect whatsoever on this file. The only way to enlarge this one was to use the zoom-in feature, which worked fine, but again you have to redo the zoom for each new page.
I think that the PRS 600 ereader just has a screen that is too small to work with a lot of PDF files that are filled with diagrams, etc. It is, however, fine for text only files where you can use the font zoom keys, or if you just need to view a few pages with schematics, etc. at a time. On the other hand if you need a portable device to view your PDF files while on the go, then this ereader may well be a good choice for you. If the feature set stays the same, the Daily Edition will be somewhat more practical for graphic rich PDF files because of its larger 7″ screen. The Daily Edition will purportedly cost around the same amount as the upcoming iRex DR800SG and a little less than the Kindle DX though, so it will remain to be seen how those three ereaders will compare when it comes to working with PDF documents. The Kindle DX has a 9.7″ screen and also has 16 gray scales, which means that graphics look better than with the Sony’s 8 gray scales. The iRex DR800SG will come with an 8.1″ display.
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Reading PDF Files on eBook Readers no comments
If you primarily use your ebook reader for reading fiction, then you most probably are seldom if ever concerned about how good a job your ereader does at displaying PDF files. If, on the other hand, you are a technician, scientist, or work in academia, and use your reader to read technical literature, this feature will become increasingly important to you.
Most of the recent ebook reader models have at least some PDF functionality, but which are best?
Kindle 2
- Send the PDF file as an attachment to your Kindle’s email address. Amazon will convert the file and deliver it via Wispernet to your Kindle. Amazon charges 10 cents per email for this service.
- Convert the PDF file for free by sending it as an attachment to “your kindle email”@free.kindle.com. Amazon will do the conversion and email it back to your computer at the email address on file for your account.
- Convert the PDF file yourself by using MobiPocket Creator . You can also try saving the PDF document as a Word Doc, and then open the new file with Word and save as txt file which you can then transfer to your Kindle.
Conversion often does not result in perfect documents. PDF docs with DRM can cause problems, being difficult or even impossible to convert. The conversion process often messes up charts, tables and images. Formulae and equations don’t fare well either.
Jesse Vincent’s Savory program, which is a hack for the Kindle 2, seems to do a good job of converting charts, etc. Besides PDF files, Savory also converts epub files to the Kindle format. On his web page there is a shot of a converted scientific paper that looks quite nice. If you go this route, be sure to read all of the instructions and warnings.
Kindle DX
Update: 08/18/09; This post on Gadgets and Toys has some nice screenshots of the Kindle DX displaying medical journals on pdf.
Sony PRS-700BC
Foxit eSlick: If reading PDF files with lots of graphs and schematics is the primary purpose you will put your ebook reader to, then this might be a good choice for you. It allows zooming and panning of PDF documents. This ereader is still nowhere as polished as the Kindles or the Sony products, and should probably only be a first choice if you only want to use it for technical PDF document reading. To read files other than txt or PDF format you will need to convert into PDF using your computer.
iRex Digital Reader 1000S
Which of the current ebook readers will perform best for you when it comes to reading PDF documents will depend of course on your specific needs. Are your PDF documents full of intricate graphics and schematics that you need to make annotations on? Also you may want to balance PDF needs against the other uses you plan to put your ereader to such as general reading; unless, of course, you plan on using it strictly for “business”.
My picks would be as follows:
If heavy duty technical PDF document handling with full featured zoom and panning and the ability to add handwritten annotations is the most important feature set for you, and if you can afford it, go for the iRex iLiad.
For light to medium duty PDF document handling with some graphics, but where tilting to landscape mode will be zoom enough, and if annotating on the device is not a priority, and if you also plan to use your ebook reader for magazines, newspapers, and general reading; go with the Kindle DX.
If you want a smaller and therefore more portable device, consider the Kindle 2 with the Savory software.
