It seemed that e-reader screens would converge to 6 inches, but considerably bigger devices keep being produced too.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3ZwqIAn-ME[/video]
Amazingly, after new year I still had money left, so I bought myself an e-reader. It turns out that the screen is indeed very nice to have when you read a lot of pdfs and epubs (which I do), even though the devices tend to be short on other functionality. The screen is wonderfully convenient compared to a night lamp and a book, and better than a mobile phone's LCD screen.
Insofar as e-readers are meant to display text, there should be font settings (types and sizes) everywhere. My e-reader doesn't permit changing fonts in pdfs, not even when the text reflows. There's no changing of font types and sizes in the web browser either. There should be.
The web browser should permit saving pages as text or HTML. Web-to-PDF would be nice to have. These things are easy to do in a computer and then load onto the e-reader, but it seems like a natural function for the e-reader itself.
Text-to-speech (and saving the file, i.e. conversion of text formats to audio) should be standard in sound-capable devices. Producers of e-readers should be pioneering the speech software for other languages than English. It's an accessibility thing.
More dictionaries too, particularly from other-than-English to English. And more non-Latin scripts/fonts. Producers of e-readers should be actively developing these things.
Even though e-ink screens have only shades of grey, no colours, there should be colour settings to adjust contrast and such. At least there should be a setting to invert the text and background colours. It's again an accessibility thing. Koreader is a program that fixes this particular aspect on my device, though not globally. Settings like this make sense globally.
I mostly hate how e-readers are all locked down. Those Onyx devices are interesting in that iirc they have a relatively regular Android on them.
From the device producer point of view, it makes kind of sense that the device would be pointing to the producer's own e-book store. From the user's point of view, it makes perfect sense to avoid the built-in e-book store completely. I personally already had a library of about 200 pdfs and epubs and I bought the e-reader specifically to be able to finally get around to read them all.
As to installing additional software, there are different levels of lockdown. On one hand there's Kindle that takes some effort to jailbreak. On the other there's Pocketbook where it's a matter of just copying the rightly built app into the right folder, no rooting needed.
Then there are Prestigio Multireaders that come with apparently regular Android. The idea seems quite sane, but the devices are not getting whole-hearted praise for some reason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYcBELeQXCE
The idea seems quite sane, but the devices are not getting whole-hearted praise for some reason
Battery life, speed, touch technology, screen quality… many things can be chosen over open. :) In my case I don't think there realistically even was an open device I could've bought; the Kobo H2O I acquired was basically best in screen coupled with best in putting on your own books and/or software.
The screen is of course important. This is a (if not the) reason to obtain an e-reader, because e-ink screens are scarcely present on any other devices. And this is why I rejected 6" screens with 800x600 resolution - must do better.
Then again, I didn't like the touchscreen responsiveness on e-inks. It's very far from the comfort of smartphones and tablets. Not sure if there is a touch technology for e-inks that would be worth it. Again I miss the pinkie fingernail touch...
When you leave fingerprints on an e-ink screen, it's not so good a screen anymore, no matter how good it was when first bought. So I figured that hardware buttons to turn the pages would be important.
In my case I don't think there realistically even was an open device I could've bought; the Kobo H2O I acquired was basically best in screen coupled with best in putting on your own books and/or software.
I ended up with Pocketbook Sense. Very good inbuilt reader app, in my opinion. And the page-turning buttons are an excellent idea. The buttons would also be good in practice, if their entire size worked as supposed to. As it is, the buttons are large and look comfy at first, but they work properly only when pressed precisely in the middle.
Installing Koreader was just a matter of copying the right files to the right folder. No rooting needed. Koreader doesn't seem to have any advantages over Pocketbook's builtin app (based on FBreader). The only advantage of Koreader is that it has a night mode (inverted colours). Koreader seems to fail to open some of my heaviest pdfs (scanned to image), while the builtin reader has amazingly opened everything thus far. My netbook struggles more with the heaviest files than the e-reader.
Then again, I didn't like the touchscreen responsiveness on e-inks. It's very far from the comfort of smartphones and tablets. Not sure if there is a touch technology for e-inks that would be worth it. Again I miss the pinkie fingernail touch...
I think capacitive is crap and not a "comfort" in the least. My Nintendo DS and an old Windows Mobile phone with resistive touch screens are absolute heaven in comparison (that being said, both pen and touch-based input on our Wacom tablet are very nice indeed; NB that's not a display). The infrared on my H2O is probably worse than capacitive, but less because of the infrared than because of a relative slowness in drawing on the machine. It enables the lack of an extra physical layer for implementing touch on the screen, making it ever so slightly nicer than the otherwise equivalent screen on the latest Kindle.
I ended up with Pocketbook Sense.
It came out at least half a year after I bought my H2O, afaik isn't readily available in Western Europe, and the H2O has a bigger and better-looking screen. That being said, its relative openness is certainly attractive.
Koreader doesn't seem to have any advantages over Pocketbook's builtin app (based on FBreader).
If you set KOReader to page crop
auto and scroll mode
on, it's unsurpassed as a viewer for PDF and DjVu. But of course I'm biased since I'm on the team.
My netbook struggles more with the heaviest files than the e-reader.
Even if you use something like xpdf or MuPDF? Incidentally, MuPDF powers KOReader's PDF and DjVu capabilities.
I think capacitive is crap and not a "comfort" in the least.
I meant "comfort" comparatively of course. Both smartphone touchscreens and the most prevalent e-ink touchscreens are called capacitive, but there's a huge difference between the way they operate, strongly in favour of smartphones.
I am not familiar with the terminology for touchscreen technologies, but the way you describe "resistive" sounds like the same thing as SE P800 used to have, i.e. pressing with stylus or fingernail instead of fingertip. That's the best comfort I know.
Koreader doesn't seem to have any advantages over Pocketbook's builtin app (based on FBreader).
If you set KOReader to page crop auto and scroll mode on, it's unsurpassed as a viewer for PDF and DjVu.
On smartphones, I find Adobe Reader almost perfect for pdfs - if the phone can manage the resource usage.
On Pocketbook, the builtin app can crop both automatically and by hand better than KO, while KO can do the scroll mode which is an advantage. KO also has the advantage of night mode (sort of biggie for me) and it's wonderful that it recognises Pocketbook's hardware buttons, even though in the builtin app the hardware buttons have two functions - press and hold (long press) - which can be configured. In KO only short press works.
KO seems to handle pdf reflow noticeably better with non-Latin texts. I have some Russian and Greek files here. Good work!
But of course I'm biased since I'm on the team.
Very good :) May I suggest a feature? I'd like it to have an option to continue from where last left off, instead of having to navigate the files at every restart.
My netbook struggles more with the heaviest files than the e-reader.
Even if you use something like xpdf or MuPDF? Incidentally, MuPDF powers KOReader's PDF and DjVu capabilities.
I had forgotten about xpdf. This indeed makes it snappier in the netbook than in the e-reader. My usual pdf reader apps in the netbook are Qpdfview (which at every start opens all the files that I ever opened and haven't specifically closed meanwhile) and a light version of Evince.
I am not familiar with the terminology for touchscreen technologies, but the way you describe "resistive" sounds like the same thing as SE P800 used to have, i.e. pressing with stylus or fingernail instead of fingertip. That's the best comfort I know.
Yup. That'd be it.
Very good :) May I suggest a feature? I'd like it to have an option to continue from where last left off, instead of having to navigate the files at every restart.
Isn't that the default? In any case it can be toggled under the gear menu in the file manager ("start with last opened file").
Very good :) May I suggest a feature? I'd like it to have an option to continue from where last left off, instead of having to navigate the files at every restart.
Isn't that the default? In any case it can be toggled under the gear menu in the file manager ("start with last opened file").
No, it's not the default. I have seen other users mention it also that you have to navigate the files by default.
I knew that the setting would very likely be implemented and I must be overlooking a toggle somewhere. I hadn't noticed the separate menus for the file manager at all. Thanks for pointing them out.
No, it's not the default. I have seen other users mention it also that you have to navigate the files by default.
Also note the history entry under the Pokeball menu, which you can use to quickly reopen recent files.
PS I have no idea why it's a Pokeball. :P
PS I have no idea why it's a Pokeball.
No problem, just as long as it's distinct from all the other icons.
Where I live, we have two major bookstore chains that have gone e-reader. One has their own brand of e-readers which is actually Pocketbook Lux rebranded. The other chain has opted to promote Kobo.
I did not look at the selection of those bookstore chains when I was making my choice. I looked at the offering of electronics stores. In electronics stores it's hard to see past the all-intrusive Kindles.
Ignoring Kindle, it's possible to find nice things like Inkbook Obsidian with hardware page-turning buttons on the sides and the big 8" screen Inkbook 8.
If I am not mistaken, Inkbooks are made in Poland by a company that got started in Poland, so I would assume that the e-reader niche has space for random entrepreneurs in Europe. (The fact that an Estonian bookstore chain can rebrand Pocketbook points to the same conclusion.)
On the other hand, e-readers are of limited interest to people. Users of e-readers either have to be filthy rich voracious readers with nothing better to do than to buy e-books via the default bookstore - but if they are voracious readers, then the default e-book store becomes an obstacle rather soon, because there's not much there in those default e-book stores - or those who have already amassed an e-book library on their own and who know how to copy files from a device to another - which makes them geeky and geeks are a rarity. Which means that e-readers can only have limited interest for evermore.
To make e-readers explode a la smartphones, the strategy should be to market some specific versions to rich dummies, kids, and the general population. I don't see how this is possible. E-reader screen cannot be flashy glossy blinking with diamonds so that rich people would see it as a nice decoration on themselves. E-readers cannot be packaged as a toy for kids by any stretch of the imagination (the imagination of marketing dudes admittedly beats mine). E-readers can be conceived as a basic necessity only if the big govt officially decides that it is a basic necessity and campaigns for pushing the product on the population at large. (This last scenario may make e-reader producers happy for the time of the campaign, but doesn't necessarily have a lasting effect. I remember the euro pocket-calculator campaign here...)
Here's a thorough comparison of Pocketbook Inkpad (8" screen) and Kobo Aura H2O (6.8" screen) side by side.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsJizVAMpDQ[/video]
At 14:05 the reviewer says that it's "kind of stupid" how a touch on either side of the Pocketbook Inkpad moves flips the page forward rather than forward on the right side and back on the left side (the way it works in Kobo), but I would like to point out that in Pocketbook default interface a touch on the
bottom corners (either left or right) flips the page backward while a touch on the sides (either left or right) flips the page forward. It's there in the user manual, under the heading Reading Books.
The Pocketbook way of going back/forward sounds like it should be workable with one hand.
The Pocketbook way of going back/forward sounds like it should be workable with one hand.
You mean by pressing the touchscreen? It is, but when using the 8" Inkpad, you definitely need to hold the device with one hand and operate it with the other. Even with a 6" device a single hand does not really reach everywhere.
There's a new Onyx Boox Cleopatra 2 released for the Russian market. In terms of hardware, it comes with the same screen as Kobo Aura H2O, while the software is ordinary Android 4. Looks like upgraded Boox T68, but harder to obtain.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWhhjwRIzBw[/video]
You mean by pressing the touchscreen? It is, but when using the 8" Inkpad, you definitely need to hold the device with one hand and operate it with the other. Even with a 6" device a single hand does not really reach everywhere.
But just for back/forward you only need a specific part of the screen, much like physical buttons.
There's a new Onyx Boox Cleopatra 2 released for the Russian market. In terms of hardware, it comes with the same screen as Kobo Aura H2O, while the software is ordinary Android 4. Looks like upgraded Boox T68, but harder to obtain.
I wonder what the price is.
And a few days ago, this campaign started https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reader#/ where you can pre-order/support a 13.3" e-ink device with great promises. I would consider it if it worked as an extra monitor for a computer via HDMI or such, but this does not appear to be among the promises...
There's a new Onyx Boox Cleopatra 2 released for the Russian market. In terms of hardware, it comes with the same screen as Kobo Aura H2O, while the software is ordinary Android 4. Looks like upgraded Boox T68, but harder to obtain.
I wonder what the price is.
There's a link in the description of the video which leads to here http://shopping.socialmart.ru/product/13077450/ONYX-BOOX-Cleopatra-2
And a few days ago, this campaign started https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reader#/ (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-inch-android-e-reader#/) where you can pre-order/support a 13.3" e-ink device with great promises. I would consider it if it worked as an extra monitor for a computer via HDMI or such, but this does not appear to be among the promises...
Some quick mental math says that 1600x1200@13" is about 150 PPI. I'm not entirely sure how well that would display "manga, technical documents, PDF files and sheet music". Incidentally, had I written that text I'd have chosen just about any verb other than "consume" — consult, go through, look at, read…
Also, my previous phone had 512MB RAM and for Android 4 that was sufficient, but just barely. Still, if I had $700 to waste I'd get one. But realistically, that's far beyond what I'd be willing to spend on such a device. I still hope it succeeds, though.
Also, my previous phone had 512MB RAM and for Android 4 that was sufficient, but just barely. Still, if I had $700 to waste I'd get one. But realistically, that's far beyond what I'd be willing to spend on such a device. I still hope it succeeds, though.
Realistically, the project must use a screen that is available. There simply is no producer providing any better PPI for such a large screen. They have to go with what is there.
But yes, more RAM should be easy to do, and in fact necessary, if they want people to be able to install basically any app. Boox Cleopatra 2 for example has 1 GB RAM.
The good people at Goodereader.com already had a failed campaign earlier to produce an Ultimate E-reader https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-ultimate-e-reader#/
To their credit though, the backers of the previous campaign are not left empty-handed. Rather, they are getting a considerable discount in the current campaign. And the current campaign's goals are almost reached already, less than a week after the start, two months before the deadline.
But if a campaign doesn't succeed in getting funded nothing should be taken from anyone? Or is that different on Indiegogo?
I don't know indiegogo.com's terms. I am making assumptions based on what I have gathered from the comments at Goodereader.com and in their Facebook group.
Not sure if those who supported the earlier campaign paid anything, but there's an explicit claim by Goodereader.com that they are getting a discount in the current campaign. And, whenever someone asks about the current campaign "What if it will not work out? What will happen to my money?" the answer is, "Projects like this involve an element of risk."
Also note the history entry under the Pokeball menu, which you can use to quickly reopen recent files.
Why does the history list (recent files) show up in a frame in KO? Why not make it display like the ordinary file manager, with the title Recent Files, and make it an optionally the first view on startup? (Just like right now the first view on startup is either the file manager or the last book.)
And, whenever someone asks about the current campaign "What if it will not work out? What will happen to my money?" the answer is, "Projects like this involve an element of risk."
That's true.
If the project gets funded, your money is gone.
Why does the history list (recent files) show up in a frame in KO? Why not make it display like the ordinary file manager, with the title Recent Files, and make it an optionally the first view on startup? (Just like right now the first view on startup is either the file manager or the last book.)
I didn't make it that way; can't say it bothers me. :) The relevant ticket is #1313 (https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/1313).
Good E-reader has reached its financial goals. Now let's see them release the device too :)
The device is centred on ability to take notes, i.e. to write on the screen with stylus. I would prefer display functionality instead, but note-taking looks cool too.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0lprrPqE8[/video]
P.S. I'd really like to see in the review how he saves the edited file and opens it up again :)
The device is centred on ability to take notes, i.e. to write on the screen with stylus. I would prefer display functionality instead, but note-taking looks cool too.
It depends. The main reason I often print out PDF articles is because of note taking/marking ability, but of course also because that way I can have multiple pages "open" at once. The whole quickly switching between page 1 and page 20 thing is what these electronic things are worst at, regardless.
Out of several programs I tried on my computer I thought Xournal was the most promising (coupled with my Wacom tablet), but even so I didn't really like it. When reviewing a PDF for someone else I guess I'd go with Okular or Adobe Reader (in Windows).
The main reason I often print out PDF articles is because of note taking/marking ability, but of course also because that way I can have multiple pages "open" at once. The whole quickly switching between page 1 and page 20 thing is what these electronic things are worst at, regardless.
I think the capacity is there, as demonstrated by epubs with endnotes, but we simply lack a convenient way of jumping back and forth
arbitrarily selected pages/marked spots.
When an epub has a note marked in the text, a tap on the note instantly takes you to the relevant endnote text in the end of the book. In that view, a little floating button remains to enable you to return back to the main text. Everything would be nice and dandy, if arbitrary spots could be marked this way in order to jump between them.
Bookmarking somewhat works for this. What is missing is ability to select a bookmark without turning away from the text. For example after marking a few spots, cycling between them with Back and Forward buttons/gestures.
And on bigger screens, such as 13", I would want to be able to put two arbitrary apps side by side. But on Android, when an app is open, it's fullscreen open, nothing less.
And on bigger screens, such as 13", I would want to be able to put two arbitrary apps side by side. But on Android, when an app is open, it's fullscreen open, nothing less.
Actually Android N will finally offer that functionality (see e.g. here (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35773619)). Of course, few people even have Android Marshmallow (6.0) yet, and even now new devices are still being released on Android 4.x.
Android 6 for Xperia Z* is out in Japan, I remember having read somewhere. Supposedly my Xperia M5 is planned to carry it too, but nobody knows when.
Pocketbook Sense has quite enjoyable reader software of its own, while Koreader completes it perfectly. Being so happy with the software and features, I bought another Pocketbook for a friend and discovered another characteristic that matters - build quality.
It's astonising to compare the casing of Pocketbook Sense and Touch Lux 3; they are totally different. Pocketbook Sense is cheap creaky plastic, while Touch Lux 3 is solid metallic. The feature set and software are near-identical. The only differences are
- The button set and placement
- Sense has so-called ambient light feature, useless in practice.
Build quality matters even when you have a protective etui for the device. It would be interesting to know if the 13.3" e-ink products have given any consideration to build quality.
In Pocketbook e-readers there's this awesome feature:
When I highlight something in a book or I scribble or set a bookmark somewhere, these actions are registered in the Notes app. I can open Notes and see which books I have interacted with.
It's almost as good as Notes in Opera and Otter. Is this feature present in other e-readers too? Kindle and Kobo?
The feature is very good to have. It's hopefully there in Goodereader's 13.3" thingie too (it would not even make sense without it).
However, the Notes app in Pocketbook e-readers would be better with a more detailed list. I can see that I have done something in a book, but to see what exactly it was I have to click the note to open the book and then check it up in the book. This is why it's not quite as good as in Opera.
Eventually I have come to like my e-reader a lot. It's a Pocketbook Sense. (Hopefully the image quality is not too bad. VGA cams on phones were top notch super hot a mere decade ago.)
(https://vivaldi.net/media/com_easysocial/photos/6757/96422/dsc00119_original.jpg)
As
@Frenzie has rightly noted, even though I was at first skeptical of it, there's much to appreciate in a wide e-ink screen. That's why I have developed a habit of reading in landscape mode.
It's good to have reasonably wide rims (bezels) to hold the thing. And it's good not to have buttons in the way, but in strategically calculated places instead. On my device, the page-turning buttons are on the other side of the device and the power button (which also works as screenlock) is on the edge. The page turning and other functions work on the touchscreen too of course.
The dark square in the picture (probably barely visible) is hardcover for the device. Pocketbook Sense can optionally be bought with a specially designed cover (designed by Kenzo), but I bought it without cover and had to make up for the mistake later by buying this Kobo cover https://www.skolehuset.no/system/picture1s/64/original/kobo_aura_classic_cover_black.png It fit perfectly after I tightened it up with a few rubber ropes.
Dasung Paperlike e-ink monitor is on campaign at Indiegogo right now.
Goodereader.com deems it appropriate to review Asus Zenfone 3 and praise it as good for reading e.g. comics http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/hands-on-review-of-the-asus-zenfone-3
PROS
Premium design
Processor and RAM are solid
Great resolution for digital content
SD card supports 256 GB
CONS
The back of the phone is a fingerprint magnet
No user replaceable battery
Lots of bloatware
I read (some) comics on the "giant" 5.5 inch screen on my Zenfone 2 and I am quite confident that I disagree with their superlatives about the Zenfone 3.
"The giant 5.2 inch screen is perfect for reading e-books, digital magazines and newspapers."
First of all, any backlit screen is by definition imperfect. The more it is like paper or canvas, the more perfect a screen is. Period. No room for discussion. That's an objective fact about human eyes. The right turn of phrase for present-day phone displays is "surprisingly bearable as long as they're not too bright". Second of all, a 5.2" screen isn't small, but whether it's "giant" depends on bezels more than anything else.
Regarding the bloatware I mostly also disagree. Bloatware is stuff no one wants, almost objectively in the sense that there is no rational reason for its presence from a user's perspective. To me the ASUS-provided software on my Zenfone 2 mostly didn't fit that bill other than some of the mandatory Google software. Because do I want to use the ASUS Sound Recorder, SuperNote, etc.? Maybe not, I'm sure there are better sound recorders, but I for one appreciate not having to go hunting for basic functionality like a sound recorder or a note taking program before the phone is even halfway usable. And unlike some of the stuff you find in the Play store the pre-installed apps themselves aren't bloated.
If you're actually looking for a device to read comics on, for a little less than €200 you could get something like a pretty decent Lenovo Tab 2. Don't get me wrong, I think the Zenfone 2 and 3 are great choices in their price class, but if your main purpose is reading comics (and perhaps ebooks) I think you can do better for less.
I think the Zenfone 2 and 3 are great choices in their price class, but if your main purpose is reading comics (and perhaps ebooks) I think you can do better for less.
The main purpose of a smartphone cannot be to read comics. Just like the main purpose of an e-reader website is not to review smartphones. Probably the guy bought the phone and discovered it's not too bad for reading, so he wrote a review remotely relevant to e-comics.
The main purpose of a smartphone cannot be to read comics.
Sure, but my phone's primary purpose has been reduced to the
potential to be used as a phone rather than actually being used as a phone. In other words, the main use of my phone isn't being a phone anymore. I've been using my phones as PDAs (calendar, e-mail, and a certain degree of website use) for more than a decade now, but back then my primary use was still as a mobile phone, a device to make actual calls on. Now its major uses are as an alarm, calendar, dictionary, encyclopedia, weather, e-mail, newsfeeds, flashlight, some browsing, occasional GPS while driving (better than my erstwhile '09 GPS), always with me pocket camera, and comic reading.
Interestingly, while my old phone could barely get through the day anymore as a phone, on airplane mode it lasts over a month as an mp3 player/dictionary with wifi.
Right, I use smartphones the same way. Otherwise they'd be pretty useless.
And I actually read ebooks on the smartphone too. I have everything copied on both the ereader and smartphone, but the ereader is so slow with huge pdfs (which are many in my e-library) that I have to open them on the smartphone first, to see where the table of contents are and the main chapters. After that I can go to the necessary spot with the ereader. Some pdfs are so heavy and the ereader is so weak that going to an arbitrary page takes literally ten minutes. But at least it gets there and, once there, consecutive pages begin loading gradually better and better.
Edit: By the way, the brand new Kobo Aura One arrived to Estonia commendably early, three weeks ago. But only to one re-seller and it was instantly sold out.
Some e-readers may come with an initial library of free books. Mine did.
First I bought Pocketbook Sense. You don't actually even have to buy it to get its free books. Their selection of epubs is freely downloadable on the Pocketbook website, under Support section for every device.
Then I bought a Prestigio tablet for my mother to facebook comfily. It so happens that Prestigio is also an e-bookshop (an Android app where you can buy e-books) and the device came with a bunch of free epubs. I copied them to my own device. Some are books that had already arrived on Pocketbook, but Prestigio provides a much greater number of titles, so I got some considerable addition from there, including Estonian and Finnish titles which are not there on Pocketbooks.
Prestigio's e-ink devices (Android) have not done well, apparently. It would be cool if they tried again in this area.
The point: This trick starts up a personal e-library nicely, even though it doesn't carry far. Still, with tons of free pdfs over the web, one scarcely ever needs to spend money on an ebook.
@Frenzie Can you please try (or perhaps you have already) to open a PDF like this in your ereader https://archive.org/details/theinfallibility00salmuoft
In my ereader, everything has opened in the preinstalled default app, even though the opening and browsing is laborious to the device. But Koreader does not open many of the heaviest PDF files.
@ersi I would expect it to load, if perhaps somewhat slowly. You could try the DjVu version instead; I find that's often a bit snappier. (Annoyingly, you need to click "show all" for that.)
Edit: in any case, dinner first. :)
The DJVU thing was familiar to me. So, I take it there is no solution for PDF files. No, they don't load for me at all in Koreader. I can wait 20 minutes, but not more than that. For me Koreader simply crashes on those heaviest PDF's.
@ersi It took half a minute if not more, but it loaded for me on my H2O. Of course consecutive page turns were also unbearably slow. In contrast, the DjVu file loaded in less than 10 seconds and page turns were at a somewhat slow but bearable speed of about 1-3 seconds.
So yeah, if you get a PDF like that from a source that isn't Archive.org, the easiest solution is likely to be the pdf2djvu (http://jwilk.net/software/pdf2djvu) tool. It's only a
sudo apt install pdf2djvu or equivalent command away on most Linux distros. A more laborious solution would be the readablepdf (https://github.com/Frenzie/readablepdf) script I wrote myself.
It could be that the difference of RAM is crucial. Your device has double more RAM.
That sounds plausible. I don't know exactly how memory use compares between desktop and device and I have neither the time nor desire to check, but on my desktop KOReader takes up 303MB of RAM loading that PDF (which, incidentally, takes merely a split second).
303 MB? That's why my 256 MB can't handle it.
I am very fond of the shape and size of my device, and the software on it too, even if the specs (http://www.pocketbook-int.com/de/products/pocketbook-sense-mit-kenzo-cover#specifications) are limited. Perhaps there is a simple way to stick more RAM into it. I know I would not be equally happy with the shape and size of any other device.
Edit. You know, like open the thing up, locate the RAM component, take it out and replace it with e.g. 1GB component. And then close it up again and it just works again, only better than ever. What a wonderful thought. I will keep thinking this thought.
You know, like open the thing up, locate the RAM component, take it out and replace it with e.g. 1GB component. And then close it up again and it just works again, only better than ever. What a wonderful thought. I will keep thinking this thought.
I missed this edit, but as nice as this thought is, it doesn't work that way. These types of devices have everything soldered on.
That would be sad, but looks indeed like everything is solidly soldered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7R7BW6_XYk#t=43
13.3 Onyx Boox Max (in the OP) may be awesome, but hopefully something more awesome is coming to serve as a display device for my reading and lecturing material http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/10/28/hands-new-boeye-ereaders-including-10-3-t103/
Sounds nice.
About an hour ago I bought my next e-reader: Pocketbook Inkpad 2. It was on offer with cover included just below 200 e. It's the kind of an offer I have been waiting for, so I took it.
I've been very happy with Pocketbook Sense, except for its limited memory, which one can live with, if not too much of a gobbler of pdf files the way I am. I looked around for devices with more RAM and the best choice seems to be some larger Onyx with 1GB. Pocketbook Inkpad 2 has half that and may soon prove inadequate.
Why not Kobo Aura One? Based on the reviews I have seen, it's too much of an effort to put its excellent screen to good use with the onboard software. Onyx and Pocketbook handle pdf files sensibly out of the box. In reviews it looks like scrolling and cropping works snappiest on Onyx devices, while it's impermissibly atrocious on Kobo. Kobo doesn't even provide style options for common epubs, so to get a decent experience you have to hack the malformed epub styles yourself.
To make Kobo useable, some other software is required, which means rooting the device and basically abandoning its onboard software. It's simpler to buy a device that already comes with decent software onboard. Moreover, Pocketbook and especially Onyx make adding other apps easy, not hard the way Kobo and Kindle do.
I would very much have wanted to buy from a different provider this time, but I have to be careful with my money now that it's Christmas month.
To make Kobo useable, some other software is required, which means rooting the device and basically abandoning its onboard software. It's simpler to buy a device that already comes with decent software onboard. Moreover, Pocketbook and especially Onyx make adding other apps easy, not hard the way Kobo and Kindle do.
All quite true. I wish devices were treated more like regular computers as opposed to the locked-down experience they try to force on you.
All quite true. I wish devices were treated more like regular computers as opposed to the locked-down experience they try to force on you.
The first step would be honest reporting about what's onboard. They often say it's "Linux" on the e-reader. It isn't. It's always a proprietary ecosystem. And sometimes they say it's "Android" but if there's no Google Play store, then that's not really Android as most people understand it, and if side-installing is locked, it should say so.
A few more details of comparison. I'm sure that Kobo's power button is not lit. It certainly isn't on Kobo Aura One. On Pocketbook, the lit power button works like activity indicator, so you can see that the device is busy and you don't anxiously press things but rather wait till it does its thing.
On Pocketbook Sense there's a little loophole for the accessory rope (or whatever you call it). I have found it immensely useful. Unfortunately it's not there on other Pocketbook devices.
The reader software on Pocketbook is quite adequate. I go to Koreader for one main reason: Night mode that inverts the colours. If Pocketbook's reader had night mode, Koreader would be unnecessary. With Kobo it's different - you need Koreader to make it a usable e-reader in the first place.
Another great function in Koreader is the fully tweakable statusbar. In Pocketbook the page count bar shows just the page count, i.e. its woefully underused, while other things you'd like to see, such as battery status and clock, are on a whole different bar. I normally have both bars hidden away in Pocketbook and when I need to see stuff, there's a single press that brings up all the buttons, menus and bars. This is convenient enough, but Koreader's statusbar is still more economical.
A few more details of comparison. I'm sure that Kobo's power button is not lit. It certainly isn't on Kobo Aura One. On Pocketbook, the lit power button works like activity indicator, so you can see that the device is busy and you don't anxiously press things but rather wait till it does its thing.
Weird, my H2O works the way you describe, at least during startup.
...which annoyingly vanishes when you press it. Can that be turned off?
You could try this: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/1350#issuecomment-65896063
DTAP_ZONE_MINIBAR = {x = 0, y = 0, w = 0, h = 0}
Weird, my H2O works the way you describe, at least during startup.
I guess I haven't looked enough H2O reviews. And of course I haven't because I aimed at bigger and newer and better. But this image of One should be telling. That blue button is the only button on the entire device.
(https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0834/0561/products/Daylight_pairing_960x960_434c009f-281c-46fb-a3bc-db75c1869d6e.jpg?v=1471388990)
Edit: In the image, if you look carefully, you may think you see something button-like on the front too. One of them is the ambient light detector. That's usually not a good idea. It exists on my Pocketbook Sense too, and does nothing sensical on it. There was the same thing on Xperia M5 that I had for a while, and it was just ridiculously annoying. Then again, it works well on Galaxy Note 4 and I keep it switched on there. So it's possible to make it work right, but most makers fail trying.
You could try this: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/1350#issuecomment-65896063
DTAP_ZONE_MINIBAR = {x = 0, y = 0, w = 0, h = 0}
Thanks, but from the comments it looks like this switches off the Hold=Go to. I'd like to retain that, but seems impossible.
But this image of One should be telling. That blue button is the only button on the entire device.
If it's like the H2O that button has a little light underneath. I'll make a vid.
But this image of One should be telling. That blue button is the only button on the entire device.
If it's like the H2O that button has a little light underneath. I'll make a vid.
Well, thanks for telling. I didn't know. Reviewers evidently don't think it an important point, whereas for me it's been a life-saving detail to make my little Pocketbook Sense with its limited RAM usable, so I know if I have to restart it now or not yet.
Hold=Go to
...speaking of which, Koreader would be invincible (don't get me wrong, it's the best app on e-readers I know already), if Go to dialog had, in addition to the page slot, also buttons such as
- Next & Previous chapter (if any, i.e. if none detected, don't show the button)
- Next & Previous bookmark ("-")
- Next & Previous highlight ("-")
- Next & Previous annotation ("-")
...speaking of which, I haven't noticed Koreader doing annotations/scribbles, which is a bit of a shame, but I guess it's hard to implement. And Koreader doesn't have a separate section for all bookmarks and highlights in the entire library.
Pocketbook got it almost perfect: Highlights, annotations, and bookmarking are globally available in a separate Notes app. I only wish the list of notes were a bit more informative. Right now it shows the book title or filename, if something's been done to it. I'd like to know exactly what is there (a highlight, annotation or a bookmark) and on what page.
Well, thanks for telling. I didn't know. Reviewers evidently don't think it an important point, whereas for me it's been a life-saving detail to make my little Pocketbook Sense with its limited RAM usable, so I know if I have to restart it now or not yet.
It doesn't help in that sense, but then again that sense hasn't been an issue for me. It's only when you turn it on, before it shows anything on the screen.
In Pocketbook Sense and Touch Lux 3 the power button light works like processor activity indicator. A very welcome feature on those devices. I expect the same on Pocketbook Inkpad 2.
Pocketbook Inkpad 2 is a mixed bag. I have no idea whether to be happy with or not.
The software has not been upgraded since the earlier version of Inkpad. The firmware on Inkpad 2 literally identifies itself as the same as on older Inkpad: Pocketbook 840. This can be read on the homepage, so it cannot be considered a deception, but it means that basically an old device has been repackaged a bit and sold as if a new device.
The main mode of operation and the interface are the same in Sense and Inkpad. Both devices have two arrow keys plus a power button. All keys can be somewhat configured and I have already configured them to do the same things.
The casing is new(er) on Inkpad 2, with bigger better buttons (compared both to Sense and the older Inkpad). The casing is the thing you will be paying for, because everything inside it is the same as in the first Inkpad, including the screen. Or perhaps something is missing, because at exactly the same size, the device is lighter by 50 grams compared to the older Inkpad. Still, it's a solid build, feels sturdier than Pocketbook Sense.
8" screen on Pocketbook Inkpad compared to a 6" screen on Pocketbook Sense can be considered an upgrade, but only barely. Both Inkpad and Sense qualify as relatively unresponsive with annoying delays from press on keys/touchscreen to the reaction. Annoyingly, I find myself mispressing on the touchscreen more often on Inkpad than on Sense. Then again, if the press lands rightly, Inkpad is more reliable with opening big files due to added RAM (compared to Sense) even though it's not faster.
On a 6" screen it's somewhat of a struggle to fit fixed pages (such as on PDF's) to the screen. It's hardest with PDF files that are images of books shot two opposite pages at the same time.
Dual columns and particularly two pages in the same image are more comfortably viewed on 8" screen. However, with such a great surface area on hands, one easily becomes greedy for complete pages at a single glance (fit-the-page view) and that's where 8" doesn't always cut it. For some books it does, but not nearly for every book. 10" and above would be suitable for almost every book page at a single glance.
As a display device in an instruction environment, 8" screen is too small again, unless some magnifying projector is present. And the screen should not react to touches when pointing stuff out. Inkpad is insensitive to pointer pen, so that's kind of a start.
Compared to Pocketbook Sense, Inkpad adds voice (text-to-speech; through headphones only, there's no loudspeaker), but 4 GB of internal disk space is not enough to install all the voice engines I would want. In order to install two voices that I very likely need, I had to remove two that were preinstalled. So the device is already full of it when you get it! And no, I didn't add any of my own books to the internal disk. My books are on a separate microSD.
All in all, I guess I will keep it, because it amazingly fits, cover included, into the same pocket where I have been carrying my first e-reader. If Pocketbook Sense had the same amount of RAM, I would see no reason for Inkpad. Sense can be held nicely in one hand and this is what I like more about it. Sad that the two devices don't seem to fulfil two slightly different functions. Inkpad 2 serves the exact same purpose as Sense, none other, with marginally improved comfort.
xreader (an Evince port by Linux Mint team) just added support for epub files. I tested.
- Open an epub. Yes.
- Scroll. No.
- Spacebar. No. Must press Next to get ahead from the first page and TOC.
- Main text is counted as a single page. Scrolling works fine there.
- Invert colours. Ok.
- Occasional messup and loss of text. Fixed by reloading.
How does one open multiple instances of the same file in xreader? In Evince you use hamburger > Open a copy. To put it in the words of a commenter where I found this workaround: "first they create a problem, by ignoring multiple invocations, then they give you a menu entry to work around the problem they created. Grr." (source (http://askubuntu.com/questions/123842/how-to-open-the-same-document-in-evince-gedit-multiple-times#comment591543_123843)).
A lot in GNOME seems broken by design. I'm often surprised how good many of the apps are in spite of that.
Also on that note, and this isn't so much on purpose although it is by design in the sense of how they decided to construct the program: fit to width hardly works at all unless all the pages are the same size. Is xreader working on that? It's really the flaw above all others in Evince.
How does one open multiple instances of the same file in xreader?
Ctrl+n? (If that's what you mean.)
Also on that note, and this isn't so much on purpose although it is by design in the sense of how they decided to construct the program: fit to width hardly works at all unless all the pages are the same size. Is xreader working on that? It's really the flaw above all others in Evince.
If xreader evolves away from Evince, then people would likely turn to hate it or ignore it. It's simplest and safest to copy Evince in everything and just add the menubar. (Not sure if this will remain the policy of the project.)
But yes, I dislike the ill-fitting fit-to-width too. My preferred graphical heavy-duty pdf viewer is Qpdfview.
As to e-readers, Onyxes with their Android have an important advantage - a real keyboard can be attached to them. This makes extensive note-taking much more efficient. And 1GB RAM also could make a difference. EBookdroid would probably run fairly smoothly there, if it can be installed.
Ctrl+n? (If that's what you mean.)
That's the same action as the menu entry I was talking about, yes.
It's simplest and safest to copy Evince in everything and just add the menubar.
Actually I happen to think that in Evince the way they've designed the GUI isn't bad at all, although at first glance a traditional menubar with text is often clearer than some mysterious icons. In fullscreen in particular the extra vertical space is quite nice.
My main gripe with the new GUI is that they broke standard interface conventions like Alt+F, which I would expect to open the
filehamburger menu. Note that Microsoft's less usable ribbon menu took very explicit pains to preserve this rather important aspect of the interface. For example, in the attached screenshot I've pressed Alt+R (to switch to the review tab) and then it shows you what to press next. So once you know these sequences you can still go Alt+R, A to accept a change just like you always could. In GNOME, you cannot.
Microsoft: 1
GNOME: 0
Ctrl+n? (If that's what you mean.)
That's the same action as the menu entry I was talking about, yes.
It's simplest and safest to copy Evince in everything and just add the menubar.
Actually I happen to think that in Evince the way they've designed the GUI isn't bad at all, although at first glance a traditional menubar with text is often clearer than some mysterious icons. In fullscreen in particular the extra vertical space is quite nice.
Extra vertical space? Fullscreen to me means no bars whatsoever. With bars, it's merely maximised at best. I consider it false what happens by F11 in Evince.
My main gripe with the new GUI is that they broke standard interface conventions like Alt+F, which I would expect to open the filehamburger menu. Note that Microsoft's less usable ribbon menu took very explicit pains to preserve this rather important aspect of the interface.
Only if your interface is English. I wouldn't consider Alt+F a standard convention when even F11 isn't. In Libreoffice (and presumably in MS Word too), F11 does something totally useless and you have to do Ctrl+Shift+j instead. Luckily it says so in the menus.
I like the way I can navigate menus in Elinks for example. Esc to bring up the menubar and the rest can be done by arrow keys. Esc or Tab, whatever else it does in the interface, should land on menubar too and arrow keys should open and navigate the menus, as a standard convention. You would perhaps say that arrow keys take forever, but that's only until you become proficient in keyboard shortcuts. Menus are good for, among other things, as a beginner's reference guide to keybinds. Menu items without references to the corresponding keybinds are a major fail in the startup information value of a graphical app interface. Once you're pro with the keybinds for most actions you need to do, Alt+F should be unnecessary.
My habit is to study and navigate the menus only when I am not familiar with the app. When the app is likeable enough so that I open it habitually and it becomes familiar to me, I open the menus only if I forgot a keybind or I need to do something new.
Extra vertical space? Fullscreen to me means no bars whatsoever. With bars, it's merely maximised at best. I consider it false what happens by F11 in Evince.
There's something to that I suppose, although I have to say that having some controls at hand can be quite useful. Actually I would argue that in a decent window manager (i.e., pretty much anything but Windows :P) the answer's obvious: what you call fake full screen is already available in Xfce under Alt+F11, whereas the F11 implemented by the app in question could go for real full screen. Or maybe real full screen should be under something like Ctrl+F11.
Only if your interface is English. I wouldn't consider Alt+F a standard convention when even F11 isn't. […] Luckily it says so in the menus.
In Dutch I would expect it to be Alt+B, not Alt+F. The specific key is besides the point, which is that I expect those icons to respond to the same keys they always have since the 1980s if not earlier. In English, "File options" (hamburger) is Alt+F, "View options" (document with wrench) is Alt+V, and so on. In Evince you can't even press left and right to switch between the button menus! The (acceptable!) cop-out I first encountered in some Microsoft programs, but later also in Firefox, is that the actual menu is still there and it just pops out when you press the relevant keyboard binding like Alt+F, Alt+T, etc. Because frankly Alt+T, D is a lot easier to remember than Ctrl+Shift+Y.
Opera/Blink responds to Alt+F, but it feels slightly less elegant in that it only responds to that (nor does it properly underline the access keys). So you have to press Alt+F, v, d for developer tools, which may or may not be easier than Ctrl+Shift+i depending on where your hands are.
Now admittedly this isn't
universal in the sense that Apple does something different, but this is universal on MS-DOS (at least in Microsoft programs), Windows, old GNOME, KDE, Xfce, etc.
Your last sentence is also of particular interest. In the menu-wielding Evince in Xubuntu,
keyboard bindings are indicated in the menus. The vanilla Evince in Debian does no such thing. This explains why I didn't know about Ctrl+N earlier. It does have a little keyboard shortcut help dialog available (also in menu-Evince, either under the help menu or with Ctrl+F1) but you don't come across those organically. Incidentally, Ctrl+F1 is not mentioned in the keyboard shortcut window. This means that in vanilla Evince, this binding is a complete secret.
I like the way I can navigate menus in Elinks for example. Esc to bring up the menubar and the rest can be done by arrow keys. Esc or Tab, whatever else it does in the interface, should land on menubar too and arrow keys should open and navigate the menus, as a standard convention.
While it would be rather annoying to do something like that (because is Esc better than Alt+F or just different?), it would be a more interesting thing to try than breaking all keyboard menu accessibility in the name of touch.
Once you're pro with the keybinds for most actions you need to do, Alt+F should be unnecessary.
Except they are keybindings for all intents and purposes. Sure, the most frequently used actions tend to have slightly faster or more convenient alternatives, but for something with a lot of menu options like Word or Writer the menu
is the keybinding. You don't press Alt+whatever, obstinately look at the menu, and press the next key. Arrow keys or the mouse would likely have a very similar result. No, what you do is you press the keyboard combination of Alt+s, m. Like this:
https://vimeo.com/200643905
You could create your own keybindings where the defaults are lacking. But I try to avoid going down my old Opera road.
It was bad enough that I somehow managed to break the glass of my 8" ereader. I assumed that another Pocketbook would be the quickest possible replacement, but Koreader simply doesn't install on Touch HD. This is my third ereader now and it looks like me + ereader is simply not meant to be, even though I have invested enormously trying to cultivate the relationship over a year now.
Aside from other minor bugs, there are two big flaws in Pocketbook ereaders from my perspective:
- No way to search/sort by file name
- No inverted colours (night mode)
Eink screens are very nice to look at, but overall this is, as I originally suspected, the only thing they are good for. Touching an eink screen is generally an icky and yucky experience. Ereader industry in general has learned absolutely nothing from the successes of mobile phones and tablets. Ereader devices are fragile and clunky to use. Obvious features are missing, such as search/sort by file name, power an external monitor or serve as an external screen to other devices. Or have a real OS, such as Android.
There are exceptions in every category. It's possible (sometimes) to install external reader apps that search by file name. There is one single producer who does eink monitors and one or two producers that provide ereaders with Android. The last one is something I should have gotten this time, I guess, but I know the Android there is deliberately crippled, as if Android on its own were not crippled enough.
Mobile phones and tablets have become increasingly durable and functional. Their touchscreen is responsive and intuitive (even though I like the historical first solution - touching with fingernail - better than the prevalent flatside touch). With some of them you could make a phonecall under water. They are rich with important features, such as power an external monitor, and Android ecosystem is almost limitless.
Ereaders are hopelessly behind. Why hasn't anyone thought of making normal laptops with at least a 13" eink screen? It would not even be innovative in any sense, so what's the difficulty?
It would not even be innovative in any sense, so what's the difficulty?
Not putting oversaturated monitors all over stores wouldn't be innovative either, but I guess they're just too afraid of colors not popping. Anything that takes a longer time to appreciate is a hard sell, I guess.
Now this is actually useful as a display device both for individual use and small class situation, not just as a personal reader https://youtu.be/Tu03JY7PXMo?t=525
I assume the price will be significantly more than I'm willing to spend, but hopefully it'll pave the way through richer people the way Apple paved the way for finally improving resolution again.
@Frenzie Can you describe how you read multi-column pdfs in Koreader? From the overview mode (if that's what it's called) it's possible to go to a selected column, but how do you scroll down from it? By dragging? And when at the bottom of the page, what next?
EBookDroid implements something pretty awesome. It splits pages when it detects that the pages throughout the file consist of two blocks and arranges the result as a single long scroll. This however doesn't work when there is a page somewhere with something different, say a title at the beginning of the file or a whole-page graph or illustration in the middle.
Which is why Pocketbook's implementation is the best. In Pocketbook's reader, you can set it to zoom in to a half (called 2-column view) page or to a third (called 3-column view) of the page (would be nice to have 4 or 5 two, why not any number?). The zoom is simple mechanical regardless of the content of the page and may not properly find the column you are looking for, but then you can drag the page in whichever direction a bit to fix this. And from there, Next and Previous keys scroll down/up and when at the bottom/top of the page, they move to the logically following unread part of the page/file.
I understand that a similar function in Koreader would perhaps conflict with Scroll mode. (Scroll mode does not exist in Pocketbook.) A relevant comment is here https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/501#issuecomment-270099303
Sorry, that's not really a problem I've come across. :)
Really? You don't have
- articles in pdf format specifically layouted for print in two-column publications
- books where both face-to-face pages have been photocopied/xeroxed at the same time
- photocopies of ancient huge newspaper pages up to seven columns
???
Those are regular instances where I need to zoom in to a corner of the pdf image and then find a way to sensibly navigate from there. Pocketbook makes it easiest. EBookdroid on Android makes it quite tolerable. Other people mention other tools somewhat up to the task.
Edit: Isn't there something like arbitrary zoom then? Say, zoom in to the page whatever percent, perhaps best implemented the same way as Go to page dialog? Pocketbook has some sort of slider for this, but it would be better as a type-in dialog slot for any arbitrary number.
- articles in pdf format specifically laid out for print in two-column publications
There I just go up and down a little bit more than usual. KOReader also has built-in K2pdfopt (http://willus.com/k2pdfopt/) for reflow. Although I'd run programs like that on my computer if at all possible because it's much faster than the slow CPU on a mobile device. However, on academic articles I tend to want to make notes and underline and whatnot and paper is really the only thing that works. PDF annotations and highlights are meh, only good for minor to possibly medium engagement. I tried Xournal (http://xournal.sourceforge.net/) for a day or two and it just felt kind of awkward. Maybe one of those Microsoft Surface things would be good, maybe paper is still the only thing. I certainly don't want to spend €800+ to find out when paper's doing a great job.
- books where both face-to-face pages have been photocopied/xeroxed at the same time
I would preprocess those with unpaper or scantailor if I wanted to read them on a smaller-screen device.
- photocopies of ancient huge newspaper pages up to seven columns
Not really. I mean, I look at newspaper archives occasionally (and it's great that it's mostly digital now) but nothing that'd make me want to load it onto my ereader. K2pdfopt should probably do the trick though.
Edit: Isn't there something like arbitrary zoom then? Say, zoom in to the page whatever percent, perhaps best implemented the same way as Go to page dialog? Pocketbook has some sort of slider for this, but it would be better as a type-in dialog slot for any arbitrary number.
Not sure, sounds like a decent enough idea. Have you tried using manual page crop for your use case?
KOReader also has built-in K2pdfopt (http://willus.com/k2pdfopt/) for reflow.
Reflowing is out of the question with most technical articles (those that contain diagrams, tables, etc.). Not to mention photocopies. Oops, I just mentioned them.
However, on academic articles I tend to want to make notes and underline and whatnot and paper is really the only thing that works. PDF annotations and highlights are meh, only good for minor to possibly medium engagement. I tried Xournal (http://xournal.sourceforge.net/) for a day or two and it just felt kind of awkward.
Pocketbook's annotation tool is pretty decent, just enough for bookmarking the keywords so that it's easy to find them when you need those references later for your own work. Annotations on paper are harder for me because I'd have to retype stuff, whereas in computer it's often just link and copy-paste. For that of course I must do my best to keep stuff in sync on the e-reader and in computer.
It would be fabulous if there were a Pocketbook or Koreader app for computer such that you connect the computer app to the settings/cache on the e-reader and then all your annotations, history of files and last-opened pages are at your fingertips.
I certainly don't want to spend €800+ to find out when paper's doing a great job.
You must mean that you print a lot. Because if you had to buy all those publications on paper for annotation, you would bust €800+ in no time.
Edit: Isn't there something like arbitrary zoom then? Say, zoom in to the page whatever percent, perhaps best implemented the same way as Go to page dialog? Pocketbook has some sort of slider for this, but it would be better as a type-in dialog slot for any arbitrary number.
Not sure, sounds like a decent enough idea. Have you tried using manual page crop for your use case?
You mean: First crop one half of the page and stare at it. Then get out of it, crop manually the other half of the page and stare at it. Repeat for each page.
Yes, I've done it. I prefer the way Pocketbook works. The only serious thing missing in Pocketbook is night mode (invert colors). Scroll mode is missing too, but that's not too essential. Whereas zooming into a pdf and dragging it around is almost as smooth as EBookDroid on the phone. An important detail though: Pocketbook's zoom is limited to 300% (of the original page/text-to-screenwidth) while EBookDroid seems unlimited.
How does Kobo work in this area?
Edit: It's important to note that (arbitrary) zoom for Koreader is worth implementing only if drag-a-bit-to-any-direction is implemented at the same time. Because an arbitrary zoom that focuses to the upper left corner by default will not find the necessary column at first (why would it when it's arbitrary?!) and there's usually a need to justify it manually a bit.
On a similar note, Koreader's tap-to-a-block in Overview mode, even though it's cool and nice to have feature, is severely limited by the fact that after zooming to the block it doesn't do Next (downwards) and Previous (upwards) naturally. It would dissolve pretty much all complaints if Next and Previous worked naturally in this mode.
And actually I got a different idea now. There should be a sort of manual crop that doesn't forget the area that was cropped out. Instead, it should be something like partition: Just like in cropping, the user can draw arbitrary vertical lines over the page between the columns/blocks/elements on the page and then Koreader just reads between those lines in order. Except that it's not a single rectangle like in cropping. It's as many lines as needed to divide up the elements as many as they are on the page. -- Another edit: It could be Crop and then you can draw as many vertical lines as you want to partition the cropped area. Perhaps makes best sense this way.
Not a problem with Koreader, I guess, but with the formatting of the pdf file: The progress bar fails to display progress. Not a big problem, because the page counter still works. The pdf file (http://real-j.mtak.hu/3467/1/ActaOrientalia_41.pdf) in question.
(https://vivaldi.net/media/com_easysocial/photos/6757/105737/img-20170604-124611_original.jpg)
The problem lies in the chapter markers. For some reason the "odalszámok" entry in the TOC (something about numbers?) includes a reference to every single page in the book, meaning every page has a TOC marker on the progress bar so that the entire thing is colored in.
Here's a quick fix, but note that you should be able to do the same thing with pdfmod (https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/PdfMod) in a GUI:
# dump the metadata to a file called info
pdftk ActaOrientalia_41.pdf dump_data output info
# delete lines 221 through 2359 and save the result in a file called info.tmp
sed -e '221,2359d' info > info.tmp
# create a new PDF with the updated PDF metadata from info.tmp
pdftk ActaOrientalia_41.pdf update_info info.tmp output ActaOrientalia_41_fixed_toc.pdf
It's possible that something should be fixed on KOReader's end as well to prevent this situation from occurring, but in this case that would mean displaying only the top-level TOC markers, thereby significantly reducing their utility.
After you've done that, you could also consider:
# -j0 automatically selects the number of threads
pdf2djvu -j0 ActaOrientalia_41_fixed_toc.pdf > ActaOrientalia_41_fixed_toc.djvu
It'll take a while and it could potentially introduce a certain degree quality degradation, but the result will generally handle much better for reading. [Edit: in this case the result is somewhat disappointing, at least using the default settings — except for the fact that the resulting file is a mere 58.3 MB.)
PS Also see https://github.com/edouard-lopez/pdf2djvu-ocr which could be interesting to run some OCR to boot. Of course just running pdfsandwich and pdf2djvu manually (https://superuser.com/a/320082) isn't that big of a deal but the less you have to do the better.
The right word would be "oldalszámok", page numbers. They made a typo, I guess.
Anyway, good to know it's fixable. Thanks :up: but I think there are infinite ways to malformat stuff and only Google Chrome can keep up with all the bad innovations.
As long as the file isn't crashing while browsing and the page numbers are visible, it's tolerable.
That typo's mine, sorry about that.
For Koreader's purposes, I guess the easiest is to provide an option to not display the TOC markers in the progress bar at all (that's an option, the markers should be displayed by default). Or perhaps display the markers in a fainter shade and the progress indicator in a stronger shade so that the progress is visible even when the bar is tightly full of markers on every page.
That option's already there in Options (Gear) → Status. It's global though, not per document.
I'm not sure why they aren't in a darker gray; might be worth opening a FR or something.
That option's already there in Options (Gear) → Status. It's global though, not per document.
Yes, found it: (Gear) > Status bar > Progress bar > Show chapter markers. Less nesting in this menu would be nice.
I'm not sure why they aren't in a darker gray; might be worth opening a FR or something.
There should be bigger contrast between the progress indication and the chapter markers. And to avert the current problem, I just realised that the chapter marker inside-the-progress-indicator should be a third shade in order for chapter markers to be distinguishable both in the unread part of the file and the read part of the file. So at least three shades would be needed in the progress bar.
- Progress indicator
- Chapter markers in the unread part
- Chapter markers in the read part
Anyway, Koreader is already awesome and it's pretty much nitpicking at this point.
Pocketbook has released Aqua 2 http://www.pocketbook-int.com/us/products/pocketbook-aqua-2
As the name implies, it's supposed to be watertight. Improvements compared to the earlier Aqua:
- 1024x758 resolution over earlier 800x600
- 8GB storage over earlier 4GB
This is not enough improvement, because
- still 256 MB RAM
- no expansion slot
Additionally, on the webpage there are inconsistencies between the Description and Specification sections. For example, Description says mp3 and text-to-speech, but Specification denies audio-out and the list of possible file formats does not mention mp3.
Watertight electronics is a good idea, but pretty useless when there is no expansion slot. And in wet conditions the touchscreen gets erratic, so hardware keys are indispensable. (This is more about Kobo Aura One.)
Note that an underplayed aspect of being IP67 certified is that the 6 stands for being protected from dust. That means you can safely take the device to the beach, although I've never personally done so. I'd be much more reticent with regular electronic devices or even paperbacks because of all the sand. Then again, I don't go to the beach to read.
Additionally, on the webpage there are inconsistencies between the Description and Specification sections. For example, Description says mp3 and text-to-speech, but Specification denies audio-out and the list of possible file formats does not mention mp3.
I see mention of a "Micro USB audio adapter."
Then again, I don't go to the beach to read.
How about the pool or shower?
Speaking about a consumer need for this type of device, Kobo CCO Michael Tamblyn said “When we asked our customers what held them back from reading more ebooks, many told us they love to read in the bath, by the pool, or on the beach, but believed that devices and water didn’t mix. As we dug deeper, we found that more than 60% of customers surveyed said they would love to be able read near water without worry. We designed the Kobo Aura H2O, our latest premium eReader, so that ebooks could be just as common at the beach or in the bath as they are on the bus or in bed.”
Additionally, on the webpage there are inconsistencies between the Description and Specification sections. For example, Description says mp3 and text-to-speech, but Specification denies audio-out and the list of possible file formats does not mention mp3.
I see mention of a "Micro USB audio adapter."
So no direct plug-in for headphones on the device? And when you manage to connect the adapter to do intensively battery-draining stuff, there will be no charging of the battery at the same time?
And, all along, no expansion slot. My library soon surpasses 32GB. I wasn't quite ready for this to happen.
Here's a review of Koreader on Kobo Aura One.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2oSOeAnD10[/video]
Yotaphone 3 with two screens, one of them eink. More details http://www.gsmarena.com/yota_yotaphone_3-8727.php
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn2.gsmarena.com%2Fvv%2Fpics%2Fyota%2Fyotaphone-3-7.jpg&hash=38f109a7d50239973ae072c3b387d3c5" rel="cached" data-hash="38f109a7d50239973ae072c3b387d3c5" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/yota/yotaphone-3-7.jpg)
The huge ereader presented in the first post has meanwhile got an upgrade. Most importantly, the screen has been upgraded from about 150 ppi to roughly 260 ppi. Here is a good close look at the thing with its quirks https://youtu.be/xUDOCPijzmI?t=217
I went to the product page (https://onyxboox.com/boox_max), clicked purchase "in the online shop" and was presented with a $160 price tag. But sadly no, they only linked to the "ebook reader" category. It's actually 800 (http://www.ectaco.com/onyx-boox-max/).
But if I were going to waste $800, which I'm not, I'd much rather waste it on that than on a stupid expensive phone.
Two places where to keep an eye on its prices:
- a webshop in Germany (https://ereader-store.de/de/28-13-3-display), €755,65 at the moment
- a webshop in China (https://www.banggood.com/ONYX-BOOX-MAX-CARTA-13_3-Inch-212PPI-1G-16G-Flexible-Screen-2200x1650-4100mAh-E-book-Reader-p-1069484.html), €592.44 (!!!, subject to taxes when imported?) at the moment
Free shipping from both.
I was just looking at this review on German Amazon (https://www.amazon.de/review/R36RHERYS8BWKW/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0285175270&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=340843031&store=computers). It raises many good objections, such as these:
- The device is running an over 5 year old version of Android. Many apps won't even install because it is that old. There are a lot of manufacturers out there who don't bother updating their firmware. But this tops is all off, for this version was already outdated and unmaintained a long time before the device came out. For an 800 euro device this is absolutely unacceptable.
This is quite true though. Android 4.0? Even Android 5 would be pushing it…
- The SD-card slot has a speed of about 5MB/s, which is extremely slow. I would have expected something like that from a device in 2007, but not in 2017. Have fun running apps from that!
That's extremely bothersome.
But the last criticism I couldn't care less about.
- No automatic screen rotation - really? The device costs 800 euro and they couldn't even spare one of them for an accelerometer?
As we've established, I much prefer non-automatic screen rotation. If they can save money doing it, so much the better. :)
Android 4.0? Even Android 5 would be pushing it...
I've heard that (all?) Onyxes can be updated to 4.2. This may not sound much, but let's recall that Onyx and Boyue are currently the only producers offering eink+Android. If it's so easy to do, then there should be more makers, right? Unfortunately the situation is such that if you want Android 7, the option is Yotaphone with a tiny eink.
Android 4 may not give you all the apps you want, but even so it enables you more than any other ereader.
I would not personally buy it for myself. There's some faint hope that an employer will buy it for my use. Or maybe a ReMarkable, which has also become an actual product recently https://youtu.be/giIYoto4ZkA
Edit: In principle an ereader should be just a tablet with eink screen. Tablets are pretty awesome. Just slap an eink screen on tablet hardware and all that is required from the opsys is to turn off animations. Does not sound technically complicated, but somehow nobody is doing it.
Tablets are pretty awesome.
Are they? Whenever I use one they feel pretty useless without something like a bluetooth keyboard and by that point you just have a very bad laptop. Those Microsoft Surface tablets look pretty sweet though.
Tablets are pretty awesome.
Are they? Whenever I use one they feel pretty useless without something like a bluetooth keyboard and by that point you just have a very bad laptop. Those Microsoft Surface tablets look pretty sweet though.
Tablets are good for looking stuff up on the internet with a few clicks. Little good for anything else. Eink devices are nice to stare at at length, but would be nicer if they were as good as tablets. They definitely have the potential, just upgrade the hardware (and software) to tablet grade and it should be okay.
Remember once upon a time someone here talked about slapping an eink screen on a netbook or such. Somehow nobody has done this a regular business, even though the idea should be completely obvious.
Kobo Aura One comes with 7.8" screen 1872 x 1404 pixels and is waterproof. It has sold so well that it has made even Amazon Kindle turn its head. Now we have the first Kindle with a bigger than 6" screen (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2305986).
By the name of it, it's an updated Kindle Oasis - the lopsided shape with buttons that came out last year and flopped due to high price, bad battery, and no extra value. The new Oasis has extra value, most importantly the bigger screen (something unheard of in a Kindle until now), waterproofness, and large storage (8GB or 32GB - no microSD slot)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fmms.businesswire.com%2Fmedia%2F20171011005578%2Fen%2F617876%2F4%2FAll-New_Kindle_Oasis.jpg&hash=5c5ba98e64776c5dc7b2188670ca504d" rel="cached" data-hash="5c5ba98e64776c5dc7b2188670ca504d" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://mms.businesswire.com/media/20171011005578/en/617876/4/All-New_Kindle_Oasis.jpg)
Meanwhile, Tolino also released a new waterproof device (http://mytolino.com/tolino-epos/7-8-inch-ebook-reader/) with a bigger screen, exactly the same screen as Kobo Aura One.
I hope not everybody begins aping Kobo now. I, for one, most definitely need that microSD slot.
Ragged Right Alignment: You can now read using left-aligned (ragged right) text.
How was this not a setting?
Meanwhile, Tolino also released a new waterproof device (http://mytolino.com/tolino-epos/7-8-inch-ebook-reader/) with a bigger screen, exactly the same screen as Kobo Aura One.
Considering Tolino was acquired by Kobo earlier this year.
Btw, "This product is not available in your country." Apparently I'm only allowed to get the Tolino Vison 2 and the Tolino Shine 2 HD.
Btw, "This product is not available in your country." Apparently I'm only allowed to get the Tolino Vison 2 and the Tolino Shine 2 HD.
Only if you attempt to buy direct from Tolino. There are other re-sellers.
Thanks for notifying that Tolino has been acquired by Kobo. This makes Tolino completely uninteresting.
I forgot to type the second part of that introductory sentence though. :P Of course that should've read that considering Kobo took over the technology part of Tolino (meaning they provide the hardware if I understand correctly, possibly software too?), it wouldn't surprise me if it were effectively a different hardware revision of the Kobo Aura One.
This review seems to support that:
Underneath the hood is a Freescale i.MX6 1GHZ processor, 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. You will get around three weeks of usage via the 1200 mAh battery.
It sounds pretty much exactly the same, even the battery.
Wow. Now you can say Onyx has set a new standard: Onyx Boox Max2 13.3" e-reader+monitor with Android 6.
[video]https://youtu.be/ddg8dvJNs0w?t=242[/video]
On the spec sheet in your video I notice "HDMI". Does that mean HDMI out or HDMI in?
Edit: OMG it's in. https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/10/15/hands-new-android-6-0-onyx-boox-max2-canvas-note-ereaders-video/
https://youtu.be/TtYHWEh7ERk?t=30s
(Of course you could already hackishly use these devices as monitors with VNC and stuff like that, but meh.)
I wonder what price range this'll be in.
Trying out Kindle 1.0 in 2017:
Rekindling Amazon’s old flame: 10 years later, can we get the original Kindle e-reader to work again?
[...]
I’ve been using it for a couple days now, and everything works smoothly.
Let me rephrase that. Everything works as intended. Smooth it is not. By 2017 standards, the user experience is comical.
And what a box it is. Clearly designed for people transitioning from print books to e-books, the original Kindle box actually replicated a book — or, more precisely, an encyclopedia volume, with a spine measuring a whopping 3-1/2 inches wide.
The funny thing is that my H2O's box is actually hanging out in between some books for some reason.
(https://photos.smugmug.com/Frans/Random/n-6nZJF/i-T2d25zX/0/7ac562e2/O/i-T2d25zX.jpg) (https://photos.smugmug.com/Frans/Random/n-6nZJF/i-T2d25zX/0/7ac562e2/O/i-T2d25zX.jpg)
The hyperawesome Onyx Boox Max2 13.3" e-reader+monitor with Android 6 can now be pre-ordered in EU https://ereader-store.de/en/83-onyx-boox-max2-pro-.html Grab yours while they are still hot.
I was actually thinking of buying this slightly cheaper Japanese mouse (https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%A8%E3%83%AC%E3%82%B3%E3%83%A0-%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B9-8%E3%83%9C%E3%82%BF%E3%83%B3-%E3%83%81%E3%83%AB%E3%83%88%E6%A9%9F%E8%83%BD-M-HT1URBK/dp/B07353DBP9/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8) while it's on sale instead (about €34.20 + €6 shipping).
Isn't it more like a trackball? (The ball on top out in the open, not hidden under the device.)
Pointing device then. :P
Edit: besides, it says it right in the name "erekomu Trackball Mouse" :D
Check this out: Onyx Typewriter
[video]https://youtu.be/jF1b3qgw-K4[/video]
So to be clear, basically the same tablet they're already making with a detachable keyboard? Which is cool of course. :)
The video was published nearly a year ago (I forgot to check before I posted), so it must be a product concept that came to nothing. And the thing particularly with Onyx Booxes is that they are Android devices so you can actually attach any keyboard to it - they already are Typewriters, but you have to add your own keyboard.
And to simply combine things that already exist and work should be common sense. Tablets are pretty cool. So are netbooks. In principle nothing should prevent anyone to simply slap an eink screen on them and begin selling. But, amazingly, nobody is doing it. Onyx comes closest.
This week I got myself a Kobo H2O Edition 1 by swapping my Pocketbook Touch HD with some guy on the internet. I'm not quite sure yet if I got lucky or screwed.
Pocketbook's software can do so much more. You can do actual research on it even without Koreader, but considerably more with Koreader. On Kobo, Koreader is the only thing that makes it usable. I added another usable thing: Vlasovsoft's app package. Still, missing things are too many to mention.
But hardware-wise Kobo is awesome. The form factor reminds me of my first darling ereader: Pocketbook Sense. I miss the page turn keys at the back, but I like H2O's bigger screen and sufficient RAM. Oh, but there appears to be no multitouch on Kobo, e.g. Koreader's zoom gestures don't seem to work.
Some dual screen gadget demonstrated by Intel.
Tiger Rapids opens like a traditional pen-and-paper notebook, stashing its digital pen within a pen loop to the right. ...the entire right-hand screen of Tiger Rapids is an electronic paper display (EPD) that consumes almost no power. It’s purpose-built for digital inking, complete with a slight give to it that mimics traditional paper.
Curious but could be interesting. :)
On FB, Pocketbook published a video announcing a black Inkpad 3. That is, no changes, except that the colour is black.
I'd rather get something resembling the shape of Inkpad 2: Wide bezels, comfortable to hold in any direction, wide page keys. When a gadget has no place where to rest the thumb without touching the screen, it has a flawed design.
Yup. It's weird. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfX0vlCa4k
Now that Koreader has been ported to reMarkable, it looks way more attractive https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2
If only I had not misfired my USA vacation so expensively...
I do have some doubts about the notes function. 400 is decades worth of regular paper notes.
For me the biggest obstacle with reMarkable is that files transfers must go through reMarkable's proprietary cloud. That's an eerily Kindle-y and Amazonian policy. I naturally prefer an open file system. And a microSD slot...
There used to be more obstacles, but these are left for now. About the notes function I simply think: If the scribbling turns out to be not to my liking, I will use the device just for reading.
Has Koreader's column mode evolved meanwhile? Any way to set three or more columns? And arbitrary column widths?
I don't think the person who wrote that has improved on it.
Quite unfortunate because other marginal and outright extraneous goodies in Koreader have made significant leaps, whereas column mode is relevant to actual reading.
Seems like a glaring omission in Koreader's Taps&Gestures Manager that sides cannot be configured while corners and swipes can.
Quite true, but legacy is hard. :)
I'm forced to skip the April update of Koreader. After updating to it on Kobo H2O I opened a PDF that was formatted in a way so as to require me to crop manually, and after cropping manually, to orientate into landscape.
Maybe because of this, but at any rate after this, Koreader April update did not know anymore what I had cropped. Moreover, it did not know anymore where the content edges were, where the page edges were. The different zoom settings did not have any of their ordinary effect.
Koreader was unable to page forward - the statusbar showed pages moving forward but the actual content did not. "Go to" did not help here, apparently Koreader had lost all count of pages too.
Maybe it is just me, but reverting to the previous release fixed everything.
This was on Kobo H2O. I always test Koreader updates on the Kobo before committing it to the larger and more important Pocketbook. Must stay secure.
I'm not sure how that could be; nothing was really changed about anything related to that. Could it be somehow related to https://github.com/koreader/koreader-base/pull/1077 ?
Could be related to that. I'll go with "Or something" in the first post.
It's quite likely to be that issue, which means the 2020.04.1 release should work. :)
The latest Koreader update even with all the massive overhaul of some aspects is otherwise okay, but the arrows on the 90° buttons point wrong. Is it possible to drop the arrows and rename one of the buttons to 270° ???
I suggested 0, 90, 180 and 270 but the consensus was against me.
Will the consensus be against you again when you suggest to turn the arrows right?
Think of it as how to turn the device.
Think of it as how to turn the device.
It turns in the opposite direction instead of in the indicated direction. Fascinating and makes me think a lot.
Horrible sadism against an eink device
[video]https://youtu.be/Q35nzPyHO8g?t=60[/video]
I don't understand the point of a € 300 limited device when you can easily find any number of traditional dumb/feature phones for € 50. Heck, I just checked and the Nokia 105 is € 20. There's even a "Onestyle Basic" for € 12.50, though I'm guessing spending just that little bit extra on the Nokia is probably worth it.
Yes, for its dumbness the phone is very expensive. However, if you have some engineerial acumen and dexterity, you can probably do some other-than-phone stuff with it, as it comes with a case and an eink screen. It's smarter to swap its intestines and re-engineer it than to break it.
Not that I have any constructive ideas here. My abilities don't get as far as changing the battery of an e-reader. I would surely accidentally break it if I attempted to open it. Sad that e-readers are made this way.
It's probably best to buy just the eink screen and then try fit it on or connect it to other devices.
Dasung plans to roll out a bigger eink monitor: 25.3 inches, 3200 by 1800 pixels. This amounts to about 145 dpi https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/
Pity it'll be so expensive (presumably).
Btw, I don't know if you saw, but https://tcl-eu.com/CES2021/nxtpaper_tablet
No, I did not see that. By the way, I find all "eye protection" marketing with regard to screens dishonest. All reading is strainful to the eyes. To protect the eyes, read less!
Perhaps. Their marketing says your kid will either be staring at a traditional tablet to make their homework or they'll be staring at this tablet. I think everyone's perfectly capable of determining how true that is for them. ;)
Finally an eink monitor available in Europe https://ereader.store/en/store/onyx-boox-mira-133-e-ink-monitor-free-shipping-eu-98.html
(https://ereader.store/1167-large_default/onyx-boox-mira-133-e-ink-monitor-free-shipping-eu.jpg)
I prefer to buy in EU, as I lost two smaller purchases from China lately, from Alibaba and Gearbest. I would very much like to get the Dasung Paperlike monitor, but cannot as long as it's not represented in Europe.
Finally an eink monitor available in Europe https://ereader.store/en/store/onyx-boox-mira-133-e-ink-monitor-free-shipping-eu-98.html
I pulled the trigger and bought it for myself as Christmas present. Today it arrived.
The first experience out of the box was not great, but I was able to figure out enough and make it fabulous in five minutes. Touch apparently does not work (on Linux) and the stand, which I thought would be included, was not included, but this does not deter me from keeping it.
PrerequisitesIf connected to the computer by means of USB-C cable to a "full-featured" USB-C port on the computer, the monitor allegedly (according to the included instructions leaflet) does not need power. I have not put this part to the test yet.
If connected to the computer by means of HDMI cable, the monitor needs power. A power adapter/charger is NOT included, but I tested with a mobile phone charger I have, and it powered the monitor up just fine.
So you need:
- either a computer with a "full-featured" USB-C port (the port that delivers image to the monitor + power)
- or a phone charger that can take a USB-C connector
- or a phone charger + cable where the other end is USB-C.
FeaturesThe monitor has enough hardware buttons and controls so it can be operated good enough without any need for additional software, even though the instructions say you'd need to download and install additional software. Once connected, powered up, and configured from the computer, the right-hand trigger thingy needs to be pulled down to reveal an on-screen menu. Selections on the menu are made with the left-hand button and settings can be changed with the right-hand trigger thingy again. The settings include frontlight.
The monitor has four visual modes and two of them are good enough for text-typing. Even though without a stand included, the monitor has an e-reader-like wrapper cover that can be used as a stand until you get a proper VESA arm for it.
This much I found out in five minutes or so of having it connected to a Linux box.
While I am tempted to try the concept, € 700 is definitely steep!
It's far less steep for you (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=NL) than it is for me. Now I tested the USB-C-to-USB-C cable with a modern Thinkpad X280+Windows and, indeed, touch works on Mira as long as the screen is mirrored. Which is not the way I am going to use it.
I started reading pdf files on PC and handheld some 15 years ago. Deducing from this forum, I bought my first e-reader either in the beginning of 2016 or the end of 2015, and have been happy enough so that I just kept on buying them. Currently I possess a 5" Kobo, a 6.7" Kobo, and a 7.8" Pocketbook, having sold or gifted the rest away.
The size matters with those things. I felt like buying the Boox Maxes, but I knew they'd be too big to carry along all the time, which is what I do with my current e-readers and I want to keep it up. The 13.3" screen is right for a desktop monitor, not for a portable device in backpack.
I can warmly recommend Mira. For young (and wealthy) students I'd recommend even the bigger 25" variant (https://ereader.store/en/store/onyx-boox-mira-pro-25-e-ink-monitor-free-shipping-eu-99.html): You can open up your reading material and look at it some good distance away, and the eink screen guarantees you won't watch too much YT or pirated movies, staying focused on studies instead.
Now more than a month in, I can say this thing (https://ereader.store/en/store/onyx-boox-mira-133-e-ink-monitor-free-shipping-eu-98.html) really serves a good purpose, particularly for reading long files/webpages.
For typing/editing, it's a bit trickier. The screen refresh rate may be too slow for fast typists. I have had to rethink the themes and colourschemes I use, in order to make selections visible (because the way I edit is based on selections first of all). And syntax highlight is pretty much worthless in black-and-white eink. Still, it's a very decent experience when typing prose, simpler markup, or IRC chat.
The screen refresh rate may be too slow for fast typists.
Speaking as a fast typist, it doesn't matter if you're looking at the screen or not. I'm looking outside as I'm typing this right now. ;)
I bought Pocketbook Inkpad 4, because there is a crack on the case of my Inkpad 3 spreading due to heavy use. And Inkpad 3's battery is getting slowly tired too.
Differences between the Inkpads:
- Flush screen on Inkpad 4
- Probably better build quality on Inkpad 4 (seems aluminium across all edges)
- Less comfy hardware buttons on Inkpad 4
- Newest software update on Inkpad 4
- No microSD slot on Inkpad 4
- USB-C on Inkpad 4
- Covers are incompatible. No cover available yet for Inkpad 4 as far as I can see.
The newest update adds inverted colours to the entire interface. There is no reasonable justification to deny the newest update to Inkpad 3, but it is what it is.
Also, the software works properly on Inkpad 4. For example, since update 6.7 the shortcut icons are meant to be configurable and the configuration sticks on Inkpad 4, but gets reset after restart on Inkpad 3.
Inkpad 4 is the first e-reader I have with a flush screen. I know some people hate flush screens. On my unit I do not see what the objection is. Maybe it's something with my eyes, but I do not see that the text sits deeper under the surface compared to the non-flush Inkpad 3 or that the text would be less sharp. To the contrary, the text seems perhaps a little nudge towards gray on Inkpad 3 and blacker on Inkpad 4.
Loss of microSD slot is extremely regrettable. It so happens that despite specs cards up to 64GB work on Inkpad 3, which is a very good size for a research library. Inkpad 4 has 32GB internal memory, some of it already taken by the device's software.
Overall, Inkpad 4 is not quite worth the price in my opinion and I find the loss of microSD slot unforgivable. The seemingly better build quality is a welcome improvement, but at the same time they managed to regress compared to the barely tolerable hardware buttons on Inkpad 3. In terms of hardware, the best Inkpad is still Inkpad 2.
Soon I'll try out Koreader on Inkpad 4. Edit: Koreader works fine. All Pocketbooks I ever owned have been greatly improved by Koreader, which always was easy to add.
Current state of my e-reader collection: Kobo Mini 5", Kobo H2O, Pocketbook Inkpad 3, Pocketbook Inkpad 4. Also Onyx Boox Mira 13.3" eink monitor.
- No microSD slot on Inkpad 4
Oh dear.
Inkpad 4 is the first e-reader I have with a flush screen. I know some people hate flush screens. On my unit I do not see what the objection is. Maybe it's something with my eyes, but I do not see that the text sits deeper under the surface compared to the non-flush Inkpad 3 or that the text would be less sharp. To the contrary, the text seems perhaps a little nudge towards gray on Inkpad 3 and blacker on Inkpad 4.
Infrared for touch (i.e., no additional layers to get in the way) requires a sunken screen, but just because it's not flush doesn't mean it's infrared. Additionally improved screen tech may offset any losses from not using infrared. So it's at least possible it would've been slightly better if not flushed.
LTT (back from drama) shows off a 25.3" DASUNG Paperlike E-Ink Monitor available for $ 1,748,--. It's a little beyond my price range, put another way I doubt I'll spend anywhere close € 1.800 on monitors for the next decade if not two, but it's nice to see things like this being developed. Hopefully if richer people buy some it'll become a bit more accessible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZXrJRpA0Jw
https://shop.dasung.com/products/dasung-25-3-curved-e-ink-monitor-paperlike-253-u
That Dasung is curved. I don't see the point with curves. Text is best served on a flat surface.
Onyx Boox Mira 25" is also on sale, just below 1700 euros at the moment https://www.ereader.store/en/store/onyx-boox-mira-pro-25-e-ink-monitor-b-stock--126.html
I'd buy it, but I'm very well stocked for the rest of my life. Very happy with my 13.3" Mira (just below 800 euros). It's probably more than I deserve, but since I have it, I use it, a lot.
Professional coders and writers deserve eink monitors. I'm little more than a data entry ant.
It's a little beyond my price range, put another way I doubt I'll spend anywhere close € 1.800 on monitors for the next decade if not two,...
You're in Western Europe, so you're rich. You're not fooling anybody.
Edit: I looked at the LTT video now. How to be fair to the poor :lol: guy? (I know the drama.) The video would be understandable from the point of view of someone who is just discovering the technology and is on a mission to find out the purpose of eink. However, Linus is a tech review moghul, not an upstart. He knows what eink is for, so that's what he should be displaying and reviewing, which is why it is disappointing that he shows typing only very briefly while revelling in the weirdness of modern web with video and a video game.
Eink is perfect for displaying text and static images. Just that. A whole desktop OS is on average meant for more than that, so an eink monitor can only be secondary, not primary. And the windows that you put on an eink monitor need to be appropriately themed. A full-colour app or webpage does not straightforwardly translate to greyscale.
My use case for the monitor is typing and reading. I do longer typing in Emacs. When Emacs is on the ordinary monitor, it needs to be themed one way, and another way when it is on the eink monitor. For this, Emacs has so-called "color themes" in addition to "custom themes". Another option is to theme the terminal emulator appropriately and open the text editor or IDE there without theming. And tone down or turn off syntax highlighting.
Longer reading on eink monitor works with epubs, pdfs, dejavu files etc. if the app that you use is able to switch the file to black&white. So find that app and use those formats. To read webpages on eink, all distractions of the modern web need to be removed, which is achieved fastest by opening the webpage in a text-mode webbrowser, such as Eww (part of Emacs) or W3M or Elinks or Links2.
This is the necessary hassle one has to go through when living with an eink monitor. If you want to keep reading effectively to old age, then it is worth the hassle.
You're in Western Europe, so you're rich. You're not fooling anybody.
For comparison, over the past decade I've spent "only" about a thousand on monitors (that's a monitor for me, a monitor for my wife, and a TV) and I fully intend to spend a grand total of 0 for several more years unless one of them breaks, although I might be tempted to make an exception for a decent 5k, 8k or E Ink monitor under a thousand. Probably not for 5k, that's too close to 4k to be worthwhile.
Something else of particular interest is 4k with extra vertical space, i.e., 3840 × 2400 like on this very laptop I'm typing right now. I can't wrap my head around that not being available for desktop use…
Something else of particular interest is 4k with extra vertical space, i.e., 3840 × 2400 like on this very laptop I'm typing right now. I can't wrap my head around that not being available for desktop use…
This may be possible to address with an 8k widescreen monitor. In modern monitors there are functions to split the screen so that it operates as if two or four monitors on a unified screen. So by getting a wide monitor and splitting up the screen you will end up with two monitors of the kind that you actually wanted. Free advice :)
That already works with UHD. Due to the higher sharpness of 2160p, 16:9 is perfectly livable. But livable isn't ideal. 3840 × 2400 is both more comfortable to use and wastes less physical space. And since I have an actual display with those characteristics I can say that with an even higher degree of certainty than I could a decade ago, even though I could already say so with absolute certainty based on older 16:10 displays.
And indeed it's not even that I necessarily want 8k (though I do want higher pixel density, I mainly mean there are potential steps in between as well as far beyond), but an 8k 32 inch would be a very usable monitor while a 4k 32 inch is just less sharp. I still think 32 inch is probably too big regardless though.
I still think 32 inch is probably too big regardless though.
I'm getting a feeling that instead of money for a more awesome monitor you lack space. You need money for a new house with a spacious studio.
Or maybe it is possible to rearrange some stuff somehow. For example, my smart-TV (49" 4K, 400 euros) is placed so that it blocks one window in the room. It is secured right in front of the window and I can reach behind the smart-TV to adjust curtains and open the window if I want. That's the best place for the TV. I don't need to see out of that window. The window is towards south-east where the sun rises which messes with work lighting throughout the day, so I don't want the sunlight. And I don't want the smart-TV on some wall where I have other things going on.
In that place in front of the window the smart-TV is usable both as a computer monitor and as a YT app, which are the two main functions for it. The second-best place for the TV would be in the ceiling.
I'm getting a feeling that instead of money for a more awesome monitor you lack space. You need money for a new house with a spacious studio.
Nah, I'm talking about the fact that it becomes this vision filling thing you can barely look past or anything. I find it mildly unpleasant.
But like I said, my opinion is also colored by the fact that 4k 32 inch is basically worthless to me. To me the point of 4k is sharpness and ease of reading, not to have more virtual space, though you do have some more as a result because some less important text and visual elements can be smaller.
In specific scenarios having more space at lower pixel density is worthwhile of course.
To me the point of 4k is sharpness and ease of reading, not to have more virtual space...
What is the nitty gritty that you need to have sharper than average? What's wrong with zooming it up? Anyway, eink may be worth it, when one needs to examine nitty gritty up close.
For me the point of a 4k monitor (which is my smart-TV at the same time) is the comfort of having the screen significantly further away than average. More distance between the eyes and the screen is a good thing.
As to weird aspect ratios, I think two monitors side by side whereof one is positioned upright should satisfy all conceivable needs. They do for me. And when one is mainly engaged in writing and reading, the upright one is best placed at dead centre.
What is the nitty gritty that you need to have sharper than average? What's wrong with zooming it up? Anyway, eink may be worth it, when one needs to examine nitty gritty up close.
A modern phone or an ereader should be fairly self-explanatory as to how much nicer the text is to read.
For me the point of a 4k monitor (which is my smart-TV at the same time) is the comfort of having the screen significantly further away than average. More distance between the eyes and the screen is a good thing.
Yup, you can either put it twice as far or use it as the equivalent of four ye olde low-res monitors. I haven't noticed ~ 80 cm being any worse than ~ 2 m though; if anything the latter seems worse to me because you (or I) somehow end up looking past it less.
As to weird aspect ratios, I think two monitors side by side whereof one is positioned upright should satisfy all conceivable needs. They do for me. And when one is mainly engaged in writing and reading, the upright one is best placed at dead centre.
It's okay, but upright 16:9 has the exact same problem compared to 16:10 — just that it's not quite wide enough rather than not quite tall enough.
And these aren't weird aspect ratios. Back in the late 2000s most new displays were 16:10, and Macbooks also have 16:10 displays. They're just less usual than they used to be. One question might be what's weirder: 21:9 or 3:2. Both exist, but 21:9 is more easily available as a computer display.
A modern phone or an ereader should be fairly self-explanatory as to how much nicer the text is to read.
A modern phone also introduces you to the benefits of zooming. And makes it felt soon enough that you should not look too close and not for too long.
Ctrl coupled with scrolling or with + and - has always been simpler. It's still sharper. ;)
Apart from more opportunities to tinker the intestines, what does this do what current common e-readers cannot do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFD9V8Hh7Yg
Nothing, but tinkering with the innards is probably fun. ;)