Sometimes the B&N Nook Glowlight+ (which is waterproof and has essentially the same screen as the Paperwhite) can be found factory-refurbed for under $100. The software is not as good as on the Kindle, but it is otherwise a nice piece of hardware. Kobo also has some waterproof e-readers that are excellent quality, but they are overpriced compared to comparable Kindles.
Yup, happy with my Sony as well, thought they had the best unit in the running, bummed they stopped making them. Surprisingly non-DRM friendly, especially for Sony.
It took me a while to get into having one, especially since I have a pretty long list of authors for whom over the decades I always bought their first edition hardcovers and tried best I could to get signed.
I kept that up for a little bit when I got my paper white, but now I don’t buy any novel other than on my kindle. My collection still makes me happy when I look at it, but the slow growth stopped.
I travel a fair amount, so even lugging around a couple of paperbacks seems silly now.
I’m probably quite an outlier, but I like(ed) to read scientific publications for pleasure. Ok, I also read them for work, too, but I’d still say I read mostly for pleasure. At least nowadays, as I am unemployed, again.
All kindles suck for papers and scientific text books, massively.
In fact, the sole reason I haven’t bought on is that I can’t use it for the most common reading I do.
Fuck, I did.
That said, anyone ever who sees a remarkable e-reader/sketchbook in action and can tell me if I could read pdfs of scientific papers on that thing, give me a loud and clear shout. I’m really interested, but apparently, again, a total outlier.
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Papers yes (which are in PDFs), but I read a lot of scientific books, and haven’t seen any problem in reading those on the Kindle. If they are either in the Kindle’s native AZW/MOBI format or in EPUB (and converted to MOBI by means of Calibre) they are fine.
I was thinking about this the other day and I think that I’ve started reading more books since getting a Kindle. When I finished reading a book I used to have to go to the library or bookstore or wait for a new book to be shipped to me. Now I can just get a new book without even leaving my bed.
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As a developer on the Kindle, we received letters and emails from many people writing about how the adjustable font size has gotten them or their elderly parents back into reading again. The selection for large print books is pretty limited, but when you have ebooks you can make the type any size you need. It was a rather unexpected demographic that we picked up, and they’ve been a substantial and loyal customer base ever since.
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Sadly, a lot of the textbooks I already have (or have access to) are PDFs. And some of it multi-column. It’s a mess. Especially, if you got stats books which come with code snippets interspersed. Alternatively, footnotes, endnotes and reference lists kill the fun. I feel like in two out of three cases, they are in a different layout than the text. If the text is single col, the refs are in two cols, or vice versa.
There must be a god of scientific text layout, and apparently the hot tears of undergraduates and postDocs alike are not accepted as a sacrifice.
What Sony is that? My PRS-350 (pocket sized) has an insanely awesome set of built-in dictionaries. Also read on Kobo app on Android.
PRS-300. It’s not a touch screen like the Kobo Touch, so even if it did have a dictionary there would be some sort of cumbersome navigating down to the relevant word.
One of the problems I have with amazon kindle books is this:
here, the exponent in 2.18x10^-8 doesn’t stand out. And the equation is rendered as a low resolution graphic…
so I’m kind of leary of buying scientific books for the kindle as it’s not up to the standard of a pdf.
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Because it’s hard to be happy when you’re not using the Metric System.
I still use my first gen. Apart from replacing the battery, it’s been going strong.
displaying all the recording wisdom of a punk producer, I see.
ten year anniversary great and I am over 13 years that I have had an dedicated ereader device.
In Nov 2004 when whilst on a visit to Japan I got my hands on a Sony Libre (you know the original invention …) I thought it was fantastic (but limited) still I used it extensively for travelling, then I got a Sony PRS-505 in 2007 and never looked back, upgraded to a Sony Touch Edition PRS-650 in 2010, I have used the 650 with out a problem for past 8 years,. worked out I have read on the 650 for approx 18 hours every week. I also now have a barely used PRS-T2 in reserve which I was given in 2012 by someone who went over to Kindle (“cause they have milliions of ebook”) mine is all supported with a calibre library of about 9500 epub books so still got plenty to read find I very rarely read ever paper now … pdfs and technicals are on a 10" tablet , fiction on the 650.
I remember Sony having made an A4 US letter sized e-reader that handled PDFs well, but I haven’t seen anything similar since.
Their smaller readers also handled PDFs, but I don’t know how well the reflow works with scientific papers.
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The Sony 650 was the closest thing to a usable PDF e-mail reader I tried. Reflow was terrible, but it had a column mode.
Sony has a new version (DPT-RP1) which is faster and cheaper and is reputed to be amazing for working with pdfs. There are also a couple of 10.3" ereaders out there, including a new one that was discussed on BB:
For a proper A4 one, it would have to be 14.4" with an aspect ratio of 1.414. I can understand there wouldn’t be a big market for them but reading scientific papers would be a lot easier.
