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Topic: E-readers (Read 32753 times)

Re: E-readers

Reply #125
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° ???

Re: E-readers

Reply #126
I suggested 0, 90, 180 and 270 but the consensus was against me.

 

Re: E-readers

Reply #127
Will the consensus be against you again when you suggest to turn the arrows right?

Re: E-readers

Reply #128
Think of it as how to turn the device.

Re: E-readers

Reply #129
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #130
Horrible sadism against an eink device

[video]https://youtu.be/Q35nzPyHO8g?t=60[/video]

Re: E-readers

Reply #131
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #132
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #133
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/


Re: E-readers

Reply #135
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!

Re: E-readers

Reply #136
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. ;)


Re: E-readers

Reply #138
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.

Prerequisites

If connected to the computer by means of USB-C cable to a "full-featured" USB-C port on the computer,[1] 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,[2] 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.

Features

The 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.
USB-C to USB-C cable is included.
Mini-HDMI (connects to MIRA) HDMI (connects to the computer) cable is included.

Re: E-readers

Reply #139
While I am tempted to try the concept, € 700 is definitely steep!

Re: E-readers

Reply #140
It's far less steep for you 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.[1] For young (and wealthy) students I'd recommend even the bigger 25" variant: 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.
My eyesight would very likely be in a better shape, if I had used an eink monitor for my pdf library all these years. This month I officially bought my first proper eyesight-glasses too, with "computer coating" and whatever was sales-pitched to me.

Re: E-readers

Reply #141
Now more than a month in, I can say this thing 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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #142
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. ;)

Re: E-readers

Reply #143
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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #144
- 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.

Re: E-readers

Reply #145
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

Re: E-readers

Reply #146
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.[1] 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".[2] 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.
This means that a 25" 3200x1800 pixel eink monitor is not marketable as something for general public. The first breakthrough needs to occur in some specialised use, such as among sysadmins, coders, publishers of textual content, rocket scientists or some such.
The difference between them is that when you change between color themes, then all colors change. Whereas once you have picked a custom theme, there is no surefire way to undo it. Such behaviour of custom themes is on purpose, because it was meant to be that the user would be able to select several themes overlapping at the same time. And it is in the nature of how Emacs is built in Lisp that you can only add settings, not remove them. Existing settings need to be overridden by a new setting that is specifically designed to have the overriding effect. Custom themes do not have anti-themes designed for them, whereas color themes change a defined standard set of colours so that next color theme undoes the previous color theme.

Re: E-readers

Reply #147
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…

Re: E-readers

Reply #148
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 :)

Re: E-readers

Reply #149
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.