Best handheld PDA for reading ebooks

Re: Luddite

PDA are bad for reading ebooks beause the battery life is always going to be pretty poor, the CPU is marching away processing the OS messages and the screen is constantly being refreshed, that bit is the battery killer.

Anyway, there is a solution. Sony (and probably others) do ebook reader devices with battery lives based on the number of page turns, this is because they come alive to turn the page and display the text, then switch off, leaving the text on the screen. Fantastic! The Sony PRS-500 has about 7,500 page turns per charge.

So for the size of a thin paper back, you could take a shed load of reading material. Good eh!

HTH
 
I've got an Archos AV 400 which holds, at the moment, a dozen films and 8 talking books and a load of music. It works very well on those long night passages when you need a bit of entertainment to stay awake and there aren't any stars to oooooh over. Battery lasts 12 hours, chargeable via a cigarette lighter. Also downloads directly from the box so you can take all your favourite soaps.....
John
 
I use an IPaq and find it fine for ebooks. They are all pretty much the same in the things you specifcially ask.
Observations:

- It is not much good in bright sunlight, but with the backlight turned up outside is easy to read in the slight shadow of ones body ie back to the sun (backlight up increases the power drain, of course). But I never read sitting in the sun so not an issue for me.
- I carry two batteries. I get the impression some forumites don't understand that one can recharge the battery /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif so is only an issue if one is somewhere with no power (eg often on aircraft). I find 2 batteries easily gets me reading time (other than meals and sleeping) on aircraft from East Coast USA to NZ, say (around 20 hours flight time less meals, sleeping etc). I have never timed how long the battery lasts but easily more than 3 hours (I get more than 3 hours playing mp3's on it which I would assume are pretty intensive power wise). At the moment I am flying an international route comprising 9 hours flying time in 3 sectors evey couple of weeks. I haven't flattened one battery on those yet (remembering to take off meals time, etc from the flying and on ground time).
- A small problem on planes is that you cannot turn them on until into the climb to cruise and have to turn it off for the last of the descent to land (as for other electronic devices).
- I find it no problem reading it compared to a paper book (assuming it is a proper ebook in .lit or whatever format). The pages are shorter so is more page turning. Wished they were around when I was a kid - much easier to read hiding under the blankets than book with torch /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.
- pdf's are generally not much good as they are usually not formatted for a small screen (even though the PDA version of Acrobat reflows the text). Although, if one is really keen can copy into Word and convert to .lit (as described below)
- Technical books are basically out because the small screen is a problem with diagrams, etc. Maps the same (I don't know how peeps claim to navigate with them on boats, I find a 15 inch screen the minimum for serious stuff).
- But both the above are fine on a notebook providing you can find technical books, pilots, etc in .pdf or other readable format in the first place. But your comment for them on a PDA is a no goer in my view, both from the point of view of availability, and diagram/map readability.
- If you get a Pocket PC OS one (only way to go IMO) then there is a little utility on MS's site which will convert Word files to 'lit format for reading on PDA (it is a Word plugin). There are thousands of books available in txt format, but they are much easier to read if converted to an ebook format.
- If you have not explored the Project Gutenburg or Blackmask sites yet, do so, they will give you a good idea of what is about free for reading (Project G does them mainly in txt and html both of which are bad for reading but Blackmask follows up with most of them in ebook formats. Alternatively, one can get them into word and convert them to .lit oneself (only a simple 1 minute job). I converted the Riddle of the Sands off your (I think it was) internet site to .lit and read it no problem (except the maps a bit bitsy to read). These are all out of copyright books, but, of course, one can buy copyright ones.
- If you get one and looking for a very good read, may I suggest going to Project Gutenburg's Australia site and trying "For the Term of His Natural Life".

You mention just interested in ebooks, you may find that expands - I am not a person inclined to keeping lists, etc (I tend to remember appointments, etc) but I got hooked on the PDA's abilities in that direction. I keep all my contact addresses on it (synchronised with my office PC and my notebook), reminders for tasks, and blocks of time booked by clients, etc, encrypted files with important information and personal information such as packing checklists (I never forget my toothbrush now), . I built simple applications for recording billing time, business expenses and business car milage use (if interested have a look at the Grandasoft site, free development application in beta for building flat datbases for Pocket PC OS PDA's - only untidy thing is it does not sort on dates entered infields, but does sort in internal ID date for record creation). Never use it for emails, etc as is kinda messy with stylus creating them, but I do load my latest inbox emails on it before I go away if will be out of GPRS coverage for the much easier notebook.

I find that I don't need a flash high powered PDA for these usages - just one or two steps up from the bottom rung does me fine.

Whoops, better go and do some work /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

John
 
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