Best PDA for ebooks

Pappy o' daniel

These new E-readers are very expensive, so I'm looking for a PDA that is comfortable to read from, and can be read in sunlight.
Anyone have suggestions?
Thanks

strecker

I recently bought a v1520 - that's vodafone's version of the Asus P550... It has a 3.5'' screen, and I use mobipocket's ebook reader a lot on it! It's really pretty good! Turn pages by tapping screen etc etc and when you change text to white on black it even works nicely in bright daylight
it's also a nice phone with 3g wifi etc etc...
Of course if you buy a "mere" pda without phone, you might get a better, cheaper device.
Battery life, btw, is quite good when phone's switched off... 3g/gprs however really require daily charging, but I use the built in gps a lot in my car, so it's on charge anyway...
But overall I'm very impressed with the built etc...

Pappy o' daniel

Thanks, i'll have a gander at that.
But Im really looking for a dedicated ebook reader, all them bells and whistles jack up the price.

strecker

Pappy o' daniel wrote: »

Thanks, i'll have a gander at that.
But Im really looking for a dedicated ebook reader, all them bells and whistles jack up the price.

oh, you're right, of course... If you don't need the phone bits, a dedicated pda/reader is loads cheaper... Hey, argos do the palm tx something, that's not a bad pda, and if I remember it even has wifi...

fenris

check out
http://www.gowerpoint.com/
their ubook application is the mutts nuts for reading ebooks and supports loads of formats. I have been using it for several years on various PDA's.

Whatever PDA you use should have a 640*480 screen in order to get enough text onto the screen to read in comfort. Bear in mind that WM pda's bring the pain that is microsoft with them - random resets, running out of memory and bad battery life - all at a premium price, I know this because I have a compaq IPAQ, Dell Axim 50v, O2 XDA - they represent most of the windows mobile product line from 2003 - WM5 and the problems are pretty similar - they just need a more powerful PDA to give you the same grief!


The best PDA that I have used for reading ebooks on was a sharp Zaurus C3100 because it has a little thumbwheel on the side for scrolling through the pages and has a really good screen. This is a linux based PDA with a full qwerty keyboard and needs a bit of techie tinkering to get the most out of it. I used FB Reader and Just Reader - both free applications.

I also toyed with a Nokia N770 internet tablet - a very capable linux based device that would have gotten much more use if it was not for the Zaurus C3100, but on its own it is very easy to use and with FB Reader installed it becomes a very capable bookreader with a 800*480 screen (I think), you can pick them up for under €100, load your books onto a MMC card and away you go.


The Ipod touch is a very capable ebook reader with excellent battery life and a very nice interface. To get the best out of it you will need to jailbreak it and add a book reader application - I use Textreader and Bookshelf as my main applications. Textreader is free but you need to ssh into the Touch to add books, Bookshelf is not free but is incredibly easy to use, the interface is geat and there is an application that you can run on your PC to act as a server to allow you to remotely download your ebooks from the PC to your Touch.

If I was buying today I with a minimum of techieness would get a second hand 16G Touch from adverts.ie for 200 ish, upgrade to firmware 2 using itunes for €9 and buy the bookshelf application for approx. €7 and then you have a very capable bookreader and very handy little mp3 player, internet browser, email checker with the possibility of adding a few games later.

I have the other toys but the Touch is the one that is always in my pocket and that I keep coming back to!

Pappy o' daniel

Thanks for that, but I cant find the zarius and the nokia tablet anywhere, and the ipod touch is a touch expensive.
I might just wait until these E-paper things become more affordable.

strecker

Pappy o' daniel wrote: »

Thanks for that, but I cant find the zarius and the nokia tablet anywhere, and the ipod touch is a touch expensive.
I might just wait until these E-paper things become more affordable.

nokia n770 is expired. Try the follow-up: n800 or n810 (810 has a slide-out qwerty) at www.expansys.ie (also check their "offers" -> B-stock; you might find a cheap 2nd hand one)