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e-readers

Quo Fan

Quo Fan

don't make me kick your ass
Mar 31, 2006
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Here. I'm just not sure where "here" is.
So, I've decided that I maybe want an e-reader. I'm going to be doing some traveling soon, and I spend a lot of downtime on my job. I can't always bring my laptop to the jobsite, so I'm thinking an e-reader would be a good thing.

What I want in a reader is native PDF support, so I don't have to convert any publications, and decent battery life. Expandable memory would be a plus, as would color. I'm not opposed to the idea of a tablet, and I'm pretty sure I don't want an ipad. Just because I'm not a huge fan of Apple products (unless it was run by 4 guys from Liverpool).

What says the monkey?

Edit: I really don't want to spent a couple of weeks pay on this thing either, so inexpensive is good.
 
stevew

stevew

resident influencer
Sep 21, 2001
41,067
10,017
uhhh...kindle...$114, $139, $164, and $189.....

oh...and the dx for $379.
 
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jonKranked

jonKranked

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Nov 10, 2005
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eaterofdog said:
Check woot right now. Cheep?

No experience with it. I have an ipad.
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i picked one up. can't beat the price. there's a mostly stable cyanogen build with gingerbread, and there's a manual upgrade to gingerbread as well, but someone is working on a build of honeycomb for it.


also, for something that's just an e-reader, get a kindle.
 
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I Are Baboon

I Are Baboon

Vagina man
Aug 6, 2001
32,702
10,512
MTB New England
Wife has a Nook. It was between the Nook and the Kindle. The deal breaker was that something like 40 million books are available for the Nook versus 31 million for the Kindle.

I have no idea if it's PDF compatible or any of that stuff. I just wanted to reply to the thread.
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

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Nov 10, 2005
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I Are Baboon said:
Wife has a Nook. It was between the Nook and the Kindle. The deal breaker was that something like 40 million books are available for the Nook versus 31 million for the Kindle.

I have no idea if it's PDF compatible or any of that stuff. I just wanted to reply to the thread.
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if you lived for 70 years, you'd have to read 1500 books a day to get through 40million books. not really a deal breaker if you ask me.
 
DirtyMike

DirtyMike

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Aug 8, 2005
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Stay away from the kindle, you will find yourself limited on were you can purchase books from, or like in our case, you will buy a book, and the kindle will not let you read when it is not from the aproved source.

The nook is great, the sony is great, the kobo is great. All three have a great battery life, they all charge via usb, our current kobo charges off my cell phone charger as well.

Pretty much all you need to know is if it is PDF Native, which almost everyone of them out there is PDF native. if it isnt PDF native, then you can change it in the settings. Both the kobo and the sony you can choose which format you want to use, and you can go back and change it should you end up with a book that is for some reason different, not sure about the nook on that one.
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

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DirtyMike said:
Stay away from the kindle, you will find yourself limited on were you can purchase books from, or like in our case, you will buy a book, and the kindle will not let you read when it is not from the aproved source.

The nook is great, the sony is great, the kobo is great. All three have a great battery life, they all charge via usb, our current kobo charges off my cell phone charger as well.

Pretty much all you need to know is if it is PDF Native, which almost everyone of them out there is PDF native. if it isnt PDF native, then you can change it in the settings. Both the kobo and the sony you can choose which format you want to use, and you can go back and change it should you end up with a book that is for some reason different, not sure about the nook on that one.
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best thing about the nook is that it can be hacked into a full blown android tablet
 
narlus

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
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behind the viewfinder
DirtyMike said:
Stay away from the kindle, you will find yourself limited on were you can purchase books from, or like in our case, you will buy a book, and the kindle will not let you read when it is not from the aproved source.
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what did you buy that you couldn't read on the Kindle?
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Color e-Ink and mirasol displays are right around the corner - those displays are huge over LCD for eReaders and a nice upgrade over existing e-ink displays. Looking forward to that.
 
mandown

mandown

Poopdeck Repost
Jun 1, 2004
21,361
8,797
Transylvania 90210
Quo, are you presently in possession of a smart phone? Have you considered getting the Kindle and/or Google Books apps? Free app, instant reading on the phone. I got Kindle on my Droid and it works fine. Mom got the same app on her iPod Touch and uses it.
 
Total Heckler

Total Heckler

Beer and Bike Enthusiast
Apr 28, 2005
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Santa Cruz, CA
I highly suggest the kindle. Handles PDF's and battery life is around a month on one charge. Prices mentioned in a earlier post, they are cheap. I got my wife the wifi only version and she can barely put it down. She is a read-aholic.
 
B

bean

Turbo Monkey
Feb 16, 2004
1,335
0
Boulder
I heart my Kindle. It's really great for travel. My wife bought it for my birthday, so I didn't get any input on it vs the Sony or Nook, but I think I would have made the same choice at the time. The Nook was supposedly buggy then, and the Sony store wasn't as good as Amazon's.

However, it's not great for reading .PDFs. It's been a while since I tried one, but I think it was just displayed one page at a time on the screen. So text was quite small and difficult to read. I believe the color Nook is supposed to be better at displaying them. But with it you lose the e-ink display. And if you're going to lose that, you might as well look at iPads because you'll be able to do a lot more with them. I have heard about some first gen iPads selling in the two hundred dollar range, so you'd be at roughly the same cost there as well.
 
Total Heckler

Total Heckler

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Apr 28, 2005
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bean said:
I heart my Kindle. It's really great for travel. My wife bought it for my birthday, so I didn't get any input on it vs the Sony or Nook, but I think I would have made the same choice at the time. The Nook was supposedly buggy then, and the Sony store wasn't as good as Amazon's.

However, it's not great for reading .PDFs. It's been a while since I tried one, but I think it was just displayed one page at a time on the screen. So text was quite small and difficult to read. I believe the color Nook is supposed to be better at displaying them. But with it you lose the e-ink display. And if you're going to lose that, you might as well look at iPads because you'll be able to do a lot more with them. I have heard about some first gen iPads selling in the two hundred dollar range, so you'd be at roughly the same cost there as well.
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There is free software available to convert PDF's to .mobi files (the kindles book format) that helps a ton with the slight wackiness of how it reads PDF's.
 
Sandwich

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,683
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i own an ipad. i wouldn't buy one for use as an e-reader.

honestly, I wouldn't buy one.

why the **** doesn't it have flash?

otherwise it's pretty cool as I get to internets while the wife watches awful TV.
 
IH8Rice

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
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bought my mom a Kindle and she reads 4-5 books a week. its easy to use, has a nice screen and battery does last a while. we've had pretty good CS with amazon too when the first gen one died
 
DirtyMike

DirtyMike

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Aug 8, 2005
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narlus said:
what did you buy that you couldn't read on the Kindle?
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Most books not purchased from amazon........ wife had probably a dozen or so that would come up unable to read, unlicensed software, ETC....



MtnBikerChk said:
Nook.

can you read library books on the kindle? (honestly I don't know) I can and do on my color nook.

the new nook looks neat too.

first decided if you want to read color or if e-ink works for you. then go from there. totally different reading experiences.
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No you cannot...... another downer for us with the Kindle
 
DirtyMike

DirtyMike

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Aug 8, 2005
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Oh and on top of that, there are TONS of free books out there, Kindle wont read most of them, not offer them.... yet teh Sony, the kobo, the nook all do......... Also better pricing than the Kindle books.
 
TreeSaw

TreeSaw

Mama Monkey
Oct 30, 2003
17,806
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I have a Nook Color and I absolutely LOVE it! Now there are apps too so you can play games and do more than just read on it. I have a few magazine subscriptions and lots of books, games and stuff for Syd.
 
MtnBikerChk

MtnBikerChk

Squeaky Wheel
Aug 3, 2001
5,478
38
Southern New England (where there ain't no TITUS d
narlus said:
what the hell is a 'library' e-book?
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My library participates in a an online library:

http://libraryconnection.lib.overdrive.com/203EEC52-696D-4811-96D1-30F7DAB2B9AF/10/401/en/default.htm

You can download books and read them and then you check them back in when you are done (or 2 weeks, whichever occurs first).

Btw it also works on my moms e-ink nook as well as my color. That alone would push me towards nook if I were shopping today.

When I did my research the only "plus" in the Kindle for me was battery life. But in the grand scheme of things, the color nook battery lasts long enough for me. And the NEW one is boasting a 2 month life! Check that one out!
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

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ok, so i've actually been using my tablet as an e-reader. Got a few freebies through google books (they've actually got some decent ones, especially if you're into classic literature). I think I might actually be sold on the whole concept. But I'm still kinda torn. I still like the feeling of a real book. Just something satisfying about it. I'm planning on starting reading the "song of fire and ice" series, and i'm torn between getting a physical copy or a digital copy.
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

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MtnBikerChk said:
HOORAY!!

"New NOOK beats Kindle" -CNET 06/01/2011
"Blows the current Kindle out of the water" -ZDNET 05/24/2011
"Nook is the best ereader" -CrunchGear
"This is the eReader you want" -Gizmodo
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i would say the kindle is due for a refresh, but amazon has been working on an android tablet, might serve as a next gen fully tablet functional kindle
 
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