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Topic: E-readers (Read 42218 times)

Re: E-readers

Reply #150 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #151 –
Quote from: ersi on
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #152 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #153 –
Quote from: ersi on
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.

Quote from: ersi on
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.

Quote from: ersi on
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #154 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #155 –
Ctrl coupled with scrolling or with + and - has always been simpler. It's still sharper. ;)

Re: E-readers

Reply #157 –
Nothing, but tinkering with the innards is probably fun. ;)

Re: E-readers

Reply #158 –
 ersi bought a white Boox Palma



I had one earlier Android e-reader for a while. I think it was Onyx Boox T68. It had the same 6.8" screen as Kobo H2O, but the interface made all the difference: There was no easy way to exit/revert to the home/main page despite the elaborate five-way hardware button, so I gifted it away.

Boox Palma is massively better in terms of convenient user interface navigation. Also the hardware specs are such that swipes are genuinely snappy and the touchscreen mostly reacts as expected, ranking up there with an average smartphone, which is frankly awesome. It doesn't have phone features though.

There's a microSD card slot, exceedingly rare to have these days (this was a weighty factor for me). No 3.5mm headphone jack though (probably okay, as I haven't noticed myself using headphones on an e-reader). USB-C connector and three somewhat configurable hardware buttons along the edges.

Google Play is pre-installed, but entirely optional. There's no forced account creation of any kind upon first startup. No compulsory connecting to the internet ever. Thus very (privacy-)friendly first setup.

What to say about the screen? Maybe not the best reading experience upright, but certainly a decent experience sideways on Logitech K480 keyboard, which is how I intend to spend most of my time with it.

My main plan for the device is to have a convenient portable Termux+Emacs setup on eink. But I installed Koreader also. Koreader has a decent out-of-the box experience on Boox Palma, except it fails to connect with the device's frontlight. The appropriate gestures on Koreader produce messages like "Frontlight enabled" and "Frontlight disabled", but the actual effect is nil. (This I discovered in the first ten minutes of trying.)

Current state of my eink collection in the order of intensity of usage:
- Pocketbook Inkpad 3
- Kobo Mini 5"
- Onyx Boox Mira 13.3" monitor
- Onyx Boox Palma
- Kobo H2O
- Pocketbook Inkpad 4

Re: E-readers

Reply #159 –
Quote from: ersi on
Boox Palma is massively better in terms of convenient user interface navigation. Also the hardware specs are such that swipes are genuinely snappy and the touchscreen mostly reacts as expected, ranking up there with an average smartphone, which is frankly awesome. It doesn't have phone features though.
Any indications on battery life yet? I'd assume it's closer to a few days than weeks?

Re: E-readers

Reply #160 –
Easily achievable if you use all wifi and Bluetooth to their fullest, but this is not my way.

If I noticed correctly, then the default setting for the device was to stand by when idle, i.e. never shut down, and I changed this as soon as I noticed it. The bootup is as swift as Pocketbook's, so I see no problem having the device turned off completely when I do not use it.

During four days, I went to the internet and installed F-Droid, Opera Touch, Koreader, Termux, and then I configured and installed more things on Termux. An important reason I bought the device was to have it as the platform for Termux.

I inserted a microSD card (it was pretty tough to detach the slot cover, but eventually I got it done tenderly enough with the included pick dingus) and played around reading some files, browsing internet, transferring some files from a USB stick via the OTG USB-C connector, and typing. Wifi and Bluetooth were on and I did not do anything that would involve charging on the side. The battery went from 100% to 65% in those four days.

So I think the battery life will be days with wifi and Bluetooth open every day for hours and no shutdown, but with my average usage habits it can easily survive over a week. An important point: I have other e-readers and e-ink devices, so Boox Palma is not my main driver.

I have not yet logged in to Google Play/Store. I might at some point in order to install Dropbox. This may affect battery life too.