I am in the e-reader market. I have some PDF files like the free books on Mises that I think would be more easily read on an e-reader.
How does reading on a kindle/reader compare to reading on a computer screen?
What reader best handles your own PDF files?
From what I hear, the computer screen doesn’t even compare to the readers. I haven’t spent a lot of time with readers myself, but the personal reports I’ve heard are quite good. For one thing, you can actually carry the thing around with you, and use it like a book. Even the smallest laptops don’t have that functionality (e.g. you can’t comfortably lie in a hammock and hold up your Macbook Air while you engulf yourself in your Danielle Steel.)
But I’ve heard fatigue isn’t even an issue on the better readers. Some have even said it’s better than physical books. But it’s not even a comparison to a computer screen.
There isn’t much of a physical difference between eReaders and tablets, so the first thing you’ll need to decide is whether you would get your money’s worth out of a tablet (with eReader capability) versus just a reader.
I always check reviews from these sources:
PC World:
PC Mag:
(if you decide on a Kindle…New Kindle? Amazon Rounds Up Best Apps, E-Books, More)
Consumer Reports:
Next, I hear the .epub tends to be easier to deal with on e-readers (or at least some…and depending on what the PDF looks like/how it’s formatted). Mises.org books are being uploaded in epub format all the time. You’ll find plenty. The only drawback is Kindle doesn’t support the format. (And it just happens to be the most popular eReader. Go figure.) But, the original Kindle doesn’t support PDF either (later models do). However, you can convert PDF and epub to a Kindle-readable format.
Wikipedia has a great collection of charts to compare the features and abilities of eReaders.
And here is a comparison of e-book formats.
news:
I’m sure it’s embedded somewhere in John James’s links but a “gotta have” piece of software is calibre. I used it to convert gocrew’s novel Withur We from pdf to epub and I just finished reading it on my nook. Some of the formatting got screwy but it was otherwise readable.
From everything I’ve read if you absolutely need to be able to read a non-text pdf e.g. a scanned document you need to consider a tablet. Personally I choose not to go this route as text clarity, battery life, and eye fatigue were my primary concerns and on that front e-ink has no competition.
I’ve got a Kindle 3G and it can handle pdf’s very well. Plus you get free internet access wherever you go. It’s absolutely incredible, and affordable to boot.
…but the only thing you can do with this “free Internet access” is download books and such, yes? It’s not as if you can surf the www, as with a tablet…right?
You can’t do anything fancy on the internet such as watching videos, but it has a web browser on it which enables you to browse regular websites.