E-Book Reader

[TimTDP]

I am looking for a quality e-book reader that is not locked to a particular vendor of books. i.e kindle is locked to Amazon. You have to live in the USA to buy / download books from Barnes & Noble

I would like to be able to read in sunlight.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

 

[BigAl-sa]

Kindle is not locked to Amazon, it's locked to the mobi format.

If you want to read in sunlight, you want a reader with an e-ink display.

[edit]
oh yes, you want advice - buy a kindle

 

[droid]

Kobo reader
http://www.kobobooks.com/touch

Books: EPUB, PDF and MOBI
Documents: PDF
Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF
Text: TXT, HTML and RTF
Comic Books: CBZ and CBR

Sony reader
http://ebookstore.sony.com/reader/

DRM Text : ePub (OPS v2.0, .epub file extension, Adobe DRM protected), PDF (PDF v1.6 or before, .pdf file extension, Adobe DRM protected)
Image : JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP
Unsecured Audio : Unsecured Audio: MP3 (Non encrypted), AAC (Non encrypted)
Unsecured Text : ePub, PDF, TXT

 

[froot]

Locked to .mobi? Nope. I have .epub books on mine, as well as other formats.

The best e-reader by far is the Kindle.

 

[droid]

My problem with PDF on most ereaders is that it not scale well to the dimensions of the screen when you pinch and zoom. It spill over the borders.
PDF i.o.w can be uncomfortable to read.
The other format is totally fine.
Wish they would do something about this.

 

[froot]

My problem with PDF on most ereaders is that it not scale well to the dimensions of the screen when you pinch and zoom. It spill over making.
PDF i.o.w can be uncomfortable to read.
The other format is totally fine.
Wish they would do something about this.

Yeah but the thing is, a PDF has a set amount of information per page. There's nothing you can really do about that. What I find with the Kindle is landscape @ 50% works well because then you can view a page in top-half and bottom-half (per next/previous page button) at an acceptable text size.

 

[Azbubu]

Can you browse the web on a kindle or is it's connectivity just to download books?

 

[froot]

Can you browse the web on a kindle or is it's connectivity just to download books?

Via WiFi you can browse the web (but it sucks for fancy webpages). On the old 3G you can browse anything, but on the new one you can only browse Amazon and Wikipedia.

 

[Azbubu]

Via WiFi you can browse the web (but it sucks for fancy webpages). On the old 3G you can browse anything, but on the new one you can only browse Amazon and Wikipedia.

So the web then also looks like a book? Or can you "disable" the e-ink?
Also, is it in colour?

 

[LazyLion]

Get an Amazon Kindle e-ink Reader... and then download Calibre so that you can convert any books to be read on the device.

 

[froot]

So the web then also looks like a book? Or can you "disable" the e-ink?
Also, is it in colour?

Instead of an LCD, the Kindle has e-ink. So your browsing looks like a book. Hence the sucky-browsing on fancy pages.
Only the Kindle Fire is in colour, but that's got a LCD and not e-ink display.

 

[droid]

Other option is to buy an Android device with nice resolution.

My Kindle reader app works flawlessly on my Android device.

And you can also install

Kobo readers Android app
http://www.kobobooks.com/android

Sony's reader Android app
http://ebookstore.sony.com/rme/

 

[droid]

Yeah but the thing is, a PDF has a set amount of information per page. There's nothing you can really do about that. What I find with the Kindle is landscape @ 50% works well because then you can view a page in top-half and bottom-half (per next/previous page button) at an acceptable text size.

My kindle touch does not support screen rotation. And i have the new one.

 

[TJ99]

Get a Kindle 3 or a Nook 1.

The Kindle 4 (or whatever they call the new one) is crippled compared to previous ones, as is the Nook 2. The Kindle 3 has a keyboard taking up lots of space while the Nook has a touch screen at the bottom taking up very little. The Kindle doesn't support the pretty much universal standard .epub format, but it's easy enough to convert with Calibre. The Nook supports the standard format but its battery doesn't last as long.

Whatever you do, don't get a giant phone (tablet) or the like especially if you want to read in daylight. That's where the strength of an e-ink display is, it looks like paper. An LCD/OLED just can't compare in daylight, no matter what the iFags tell you. Also e-ink/e-paper display are very easy on your eyes, won't cause strain even if you read for hours.

 

[froot]

Other option is to buy an Android device with nice resolution.

My Kindle reader app works flawlessly on my Android device.

And you can also install

Kobo readers Android app
http://www.kobobooks.com/android

Sony's reader Android app
http://ebookstore.sony.com/rme/

You can, but LCD compared to e-ink is fail. Period. I have spent 6-8h straight reading on my Kindle and my eyes are fine. 1h on an LCD screen will tire your eyes.

My kindle touch does not support screen rotation. And i have the new one.

Wow that's fail.

 

[Speedster]

Kindle is your best bet. It can read a whole bunch of formats.

 

[BigAl-sa]

Locked to .mobi? Nope. I have .epub books on mine, as well as other formats.

The best e-reader by far is the Kindle.

I assume you're responding to me. Kindle *cannot* handle formats with DRM other than mobi. I have never heard of it handling epub either, unless you have hacked your Kindle.