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I want an eBook reader.

Flamed Diving · 2009-04-07 13:41:58

I don't want one with WiFi, or to keep my tea hot, or to read the book to me or anything. Just a device which will allow me to read pre-1950's economics books, which are available free everywhere. Any (reasonably priced) recommendations?

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07-04-2009 2:41pm

#1

Flamed Diving

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I don't want one with WiFi, or to keep my tea hot, or to read the book to me or anything.

Just a device which will allow me to read pre-1950's economics books, which are available free everywhere.

Any (reasonably priced) recommendations?

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#2 08-04-2009 2:29pm
butts

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The Sony PRS505 is probably your best bet if you don't need wifi. As far as I know, the cheapest it can be got in Ireland is from Powercity for €225.55 if you order online and collect in-store:
http://www.powercity.ie/?par=20-12-PRS505

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#3 08-04-2009 3:09pm
Flamed Diving

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That's still very expensive. Why are they so costly, its just a bloody 2-colour screen that reads doc/pdf/txt files.

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#4 08-04-2009 3:12pm
samhail

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its a new technology so they will keep it expensive til more people are making it. i didnt konw that the sony digital reader was that expensive. i had 130e more in mind but cant find any references online of it being that cheap.

colour digital readers should be coming out mid this year (last i heard which was last year) so i would say that B&W readers would be cheaper after that.
Im waiting for the color one.

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#5 08-04-2009 4:17pm
ElNino

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Flamed Diving wrote: »

That's still very expensive. Why are they so costly, its just a bloody 2-colour screen that reads doc/pdf/txt files.

I was in a Sony shop in the U.S. a couple of weeks ago and the PRS505 was $299.99 so that is a good price. The PRS700 (which isn't available here yet) was reduced from $399.99 to $349.99.

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#6 08-04-2009 7:45pm
butts

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samhail wrote: »

colour digital readers should be coming out mid this year (last i heard which was last year) so i would say that B&W readers would be cheaper after that.
Im waiting for the color one.

To be honest I'd be very surprised if anyone makes colour e-ink readers available to the general public until sometime in 2010. Also, in one video I saw comparing B&W versus colour e-ink screens, the colour version had a very slow refresh rate but it may have been just a prototype.

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#7 08-04-2009 9:01pm
Flamed Diving

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I will wait for the price to come down, methinks.

€230 for a glorified text reader with two colours is a bit much, imo.

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#8 08-04-2009 9:24pm
Flamed Diving

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True, I suppose.

BTW, any websites you would recommend which have free (legal) ebooks?

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#9 08-04-2009 9:37pm
Flamed Diving

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Yeah, I have a vague recollection of finding such a site. I will ask my econ mates.

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#10 11-04-2009 11:44pm
Biggins

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Have a look at this thread also: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=59788569#post59788569

Sony reader prices around 250 euro.
(I and wife have one each)

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#11 12-04-2009 7:26pm
butts

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Biggins, if you check my post near the start of the thread you will see that it can be got for €225 from Powercity.

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#12 14-04-2009 1:18am
mawk

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I bought an xda off adverts.ie and use it as an ebook reader as it has an acceptable sized screen, ms word, acrobat reader, MS reader etc

and works as a phone when my phone runs out of battery.

with the phone off, wifi off, bluetooth et all off, the battery life goes to about a week with casual use

--
edit
--

cost me about 70e

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#13 15-04-2009 3:29pm
ElNino

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Flamed Diving wrote: »

True, I suppose.

BTW, any websites you would recommend which have free (legal) ebooks?

There are about 500,000 public domain books, which were scanned by Google, available free on the Sony ebook store site in Sony LRF format.

Check out http://ebookstore.sony.com/google-ebooks/

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#14 15-04-2009 9:55pm
watty

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www.gutenberg.org

Colour eInk/ePaper will always be very inferior to the B&W version.

The display uses a rotating half white, half black bead for each dot, reflecting ambient light. Colour would need 3x more and would be 1/3 to 1/4 brightness as each dot has to absorb 2/3rd of the spectrum to create the colour

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#15 15-04-2009 10:06pm
Flamed Diving

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watty wrote: »

www.gutenberg.org

Colour eInk/ePaper will always be very inferior to the B&W version.

The display uses a rotating half white, half black bead for each dot, reflecting ambient light. Colour would need 3x more and would be 1/3 to 1/4 brightness as each dot has to absorb 2/3rd of the spectrum to create the colour

Ah, that's very clever. I guess that's why they are surprisingly expensive.

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#16 30-04-2009 1:24pm
Flamed Diving

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I went for the 505 anyway.

Im quite happy with it, so far. I just need to find a way of making some PDF's look as nice as the Sony 505 files.

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#17 01-05-2009 2:31pm
00sully

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Flamed Diving

try Calibre - its free software and will convert pdf's to the lrf sony format. I find the 505 does an adequate job of displaying pdf's natively anyway - just requires a +1 or 2 zoom level?!?

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#18 01-05-2009 3:43pm
Flamed Diving

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00sully wrote: »

Flamed Diving

try Calibre - its free software and will convert pdf's to the lrf sony format. I find the 505 does an adequate job of displaying pdf's natively anyway - just requires a +1 or 2 zoom level?!?

Yeah, it is fine for novels but when I attempt to read journal papers or textbooks (my primary reason for buying it) they can come out a bit wonky, so I'm looking at ways of editing.

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#19 03-08-2009 11:02am
Flamed Diving

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DirectEbooks wrote: »

Hi Guys.
I'm very interested in all your opinions on ebooks. I happen to know quite a lot about ebooks, file formats and the readers and technology that go with it, so if you have any questions or opinions, please let me know via the forum or on info@directebooks.com.

Just to let you know that www.directebooks.com will be launching this month. We're an Irish company selling ebooks in euros. We will have over 187,000 titles available to download. we will also be selling several different ebook readers at competetive prices.

No thanks, I have found eBooks at very competitive prices: zero. Can you beat that?

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#20 05-08-2009 5:48pm
Eoin

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Legally?

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