Looking for a Reading Device

[mishalak]

The Amazon Kindle is far, far too expensive for me at $400. Something like $200 would be acceptable if the device is known to be pretty durable, as in it would last me more than 5 years (~40/year). But given the performance of most personal electronic devices $100 or less would be more like it (~33-50/year). Then I won't feel cheated when it dies in two to three years time. What do I need it for? Reading html, plain text, and pdf books that I've downloaded from places like Gutenberg Project, Tor, and LooseID Press. Mostly HTML because I end up reading them on my computer's browser and I still somewhat dislike .pdfs even though FoxIt does not kill my computer like Adobe used to. And with income from my job coming in and a fat refund from the US Government I should be able to afford one soon.

So anyone have something that works for them?

Comments

[sraun]

You might try looking around for a Nokia 770 or N800 - with the current device being the N810, the other two have become significantly more affordable. 800x400xManyColors display (IIRC, 65,535). They do a nice job rendering HTML, there's an FBReader port to them that I've decided I like for reading non-HTML e-books. I gave my 770 to iraunink when I got my N810 - she's quite happy with it (for what little she's used it).

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

PDF reader and web browser on my cellphone...

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Pluckr on a Palm; I use the Palm TX, which has a nicer screen, but you might be happy with a cheaper one.

The Nokia N800 also has a pretty good reader (FBReader) and a better screen.

All of these portable electronic gadgets I think you're lucky to get 5 years on, though, between breakage, theft, and loss.

I avoid PDF as much as possible, the readers aren't much good and it just never really works right on the mini devices.

I've used iSilo a lot to prepare and read things on my Palm, but it's a proprietary format, and at this point Pluckr and FBReader and things seem to have the field well covered.

[julesjones]

Some reviews by someone who reads a lot of erotic romance ebooks:
http://www.teddypig.com/category/ereaders/
including a compare-and-contrast entry covering several readers.

More reviews from a romance blog:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/tag/ebook-reader/

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

I have a Casio Cassiopeia that you can have. It's old, but it works well as a book reader. I mostly do Microsoft Reader on it, but you are welcome to see if it works for the other stuff. It has quite a large screen for a handheld. I bought a couple of extras on ebay thinking I would use them as parts or backup for my original but I've moved on to an iPAQ - although I really, really still like my Cassiopeia.