Thanks for your input, everyone. It sounds like I would be happy with an iPad. I haven't been able to try an iPad 3 or 4 yet - believe it or not, the newest iPad for sale here in Ecuador is the iPad 2, and it runs about $700 for a 16GB wireless model. So, stores aren't too big on letting you play with them. I have tried a few books on a friend's iPad 2, and was a bit bothered by the lower resolution (as compared with the 3 and 4) at typical book reading distance.
Echoing Roger's experience of reading on a phone, I do have an iPhone 4S, and find it surprisingly usable for re-formattable text. I've read around 20-30 novels on it, and with +3 reading glasses, I can read tech book sized PDFs in landscape mode (not that comfortably, though). Now, I guess my big decision is iOS vs Android. I used to be nearly an Apple fanboy, but am starting to view them as the new 800 pound gorilla. It just seems wrong to support a platform that only supports software sold and approved by a single vendor, that can only be developed in one language. Has anyone had a chance to see the Nexus 7 or 10? ;; Gary On Feb 9, 2013, at 1:30 PM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net> wrote: > Nearly all my tech books are on my iPad. Its a bit heavy, especially > compared to the kindle. But the battery life is fine and I find it great to > use. But all the others are good too, I'm sure. > > But one huge piece of advice: make sure whatever you do end up with has a > reader for *all* the formats. OReilly for example gives you pdf, epub, mobi, > and sometimes the apk format. And it does make quite a difference. > > I hope the ebook format madness stops in the near future, Tom may be able to > update us, but you should not get a device that will not read all the big > three: pdf, mobi, epub (mobi is the kindle version and kindle reads it.) > IIRC, the iPad book reader handles more than one format. And I think all > devices have a pdf reader, either built in or as an app. > > I would try whatever you are considering, especially the various file > formats. I'd beware of the kindle books themselves, at least for tech books, > they do not come in the multiple formats and have many silly errors that are > slowly being fixed. The kindle app is available everywhere, even as a webapp. > > -- Owen > > On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 4:59 PM, Gary Schiltz <g...@naturesvisualarts.com> > wrote: > To me, it's debatable whether switching from hardcopy books to ebooks is a > net environmental plus. However, living down here in Ecuador makes it a real > pain in the butt to get hardcopies of technical books, especially in English. > So far, I've been reading PDFs on my laptop, but the screen is too far from > my face to really take advantage of its resolution. So, I'm considering > either an iPad or some sort of Android tablet. A smaller form factor like > Kindle Fire or Nexus 7 would be fine for material that can be reformatted on > the fly, but I really prefer pre-formatted PDF ebooks. I'm afraid that a > seven inch screen would be too small for most PDF ebooks. Does anyone here > use a tablet to read PDFs? I'd appreciate hearing of your experiences. > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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