As an engineer this may finally solve one of the most vexing problems I deal with, data sheets. They are all PDFs these days and they are unreadable on the old style Kindle (kinda ok on the DX) nice but a bit of overkill on the 3rd gen iPad.
The reason I want an e-ink screen device for data sheets is that it often sits on my desk for long periods on the pinout page or the 'example circuit' page. On an e-ink display it just sits there forever, on an iPad the display goes to sleep or if I keep it awake I burn through power too fast.
The Kindle treats each page of a PDF as an image that it scales to the width/height of the screen. You can zoom in and move around, but it's not at all like reading a book.
Given the PDF format, this is really the only way you can really deal with PDFs that might have images, columns, etc. Much more inherent formatting than with just a text .mobi.
If I zoom them to be readable they look like crap (and its very tiring to read them) I've got an Illiad V2 which I originally used for this (167 dpi) and its "ok" but not great, and not enough real estate for the whole document. My 3rd gen iPad is quite nice but has the issues noted above. I had hoped the Plastic Logic folks would have made a dent here but alas that was not to be.
My dream is just having an e-paper monitor next to my regular monitor to which I can just pull text over to read. I wish I could just get my hands on an e-paper screen of a decent size to hack.
How is that different from what Kobo does? I have a Kobo Touch (and my family have their own Kobo Touches on the same account) and I have Kobo apps on my Android phone and tablet, Windows and Chrome/Chromium browser. They all stay in sync, when I buy a book it appears on all the devices, and when I read a book on one, the others all update their bookmarks to where I stopped. Does the Kindle sync offer anything more?
Does Kobo have a similar collection of books? Allows you to purchase from Amazon? Otherwise the difference (and a huge one at that) is the collection of books available on Kindle.
I wonder if this actually makes it less easy on the eyes than regular e-ink.
I really like e-ink technology but the Kindle approach scares me a bit with it's reluctance to give me proper ownership over the device and content I buy.
I have bought only 3 books for my Kindle over Amazon -
I use calibre to convert all kinds of e-book-formats to mobi/azw on Fedora, then a USB-cable to transfer them over (I think WLAN works, too). 3G is never on. Calibre also has a plugin to remove DRM from Amazon-books so that the few ones I bought are actually mine.
You can also install alternative OSes like Duokan for even more control, haven't really tried that out - deinstalled an old version after a short bit of trying when the book was displayed "smudgy".
So these don't have side-mounted page turn buttons? Only touchscreen to turn pages? Can anyone comment on how that compares (usability wise) to the old buttons?
Even after months of practice with the touchscreen, I find that one out of every 10 or so page turns I get a response different from my intention: the page turns in the wrong direction, turns two pages instead of one, triggers "open menu" command incorrectly, or does no action. I've found the swipes somewhat more accurate, net-net, than tapping, but they are a little awkward one-handed.
I've had miscues with the hardware buttons as well, but they're much less common.
The touchscreen's advantage is its on-screen keyboard. I found this a little better than the physical keyboard (which added too much size/weight) and d-pad selection. Though I only use that function once in a long while.
A Pixel Qi display may fit your needs. There's a 10" DIY display available http://www.makershed.com/Pixel_Qi_display_p/mkpq01.htm although you may just want to pressure your favorite consumer electronics company to include one by default.
By the way, the earliest version of the Pixel Qi technology was used by the first OLPC XO laptop model.
Yes! Same here. I feel like I'm part of a niche group that wants an e-ink device that at least reads web content rather than having to download or email myself articles. Are there particular technological limits aside from the cheap processor/e-ink controllers that are preventing an e-ink device from having a really usable web browser?
Good devices but I hope that Amazon updates their devices more often: the Kindle devices haven't the same firmware (Kindle keyboard, Kindle touch... different firmware).
He means to ask if you can turn off text justification and have a ragged edge. The answer is no, at least on my Kindle Keyboard 3G running v3.3 of the Kindle Firmware.
The reason I want an e-ink screen device for data sheets is that it often sits on my desk for long periods on the pinout page or the 'example circuit' page. On an e-ink display it just sits there forever, on an iPad the display goes to sleep or if I keep it awake I burn through power too fast.