Robert Michel wrote:
> Salve Uwe!
>
> On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Uwe Koch wrote:
>> it's still always the same problem:
>> Mobile phones' displays are to small (size or resolution) to view documents,
>> ebooks, whatever - but they are small to carry with.
>>
>> On the other hand PDAs are to large to carry with but are a better
>> solution for ebooks or reading texts - but is it large enough?
>
> Yes it is - I've read complete books on my Palm 160x160.

I read a lot of books on my Treo, which has a smaller screen than an old school Palm. However, it's resolution is higher at 320x320. 99% of the books are from the Baen free library (www.baen.com/library) or the Baen webscription service.

Here are the advantages:

1) you always have a book on you when you have 10 minutes to kill
2) built in backlight means you don't need a light on or one of those awkward booklights to read. Great for reading in bed without disturbing the wife. 3) comfortable to read with one hand. In a normal book you hold the book with one hand and turn pages with the other. This makes it much more comfortable when reading in bed or when you're reading on the bus and you don't get a seat.

The cons are:

1) you have to either plug in or make sure you have a full battery before you start reading
2) hard to read in sunlight

The size is not a problem. The limited width of the device is actually an advantage in speed-reading: less eye movement. Eye strain is also not a problem, for me. Properly formatted books are crucial: PDF's suck horribly; even HTML usually doesn't work too well. Mobipocket format works great.

Bryan




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