Update: eVrit e-book Reader

[Steve G.]

Re PDF files, I can give you my experience using kindle, but it should apply
equally to all readers with a 6" screen.

It works if you are young and have eagle eyes, or the book is specially
formatted with very large letters and small page size. Otherwise, it looks
like insect dropping on the page. It is possible to increase the size up to
300% and also rotate the image, which makes the individual words eminently
readable, but now you have to navigate sideways with a 5-way button that is
not really designed to do that, but rather to move between menu
items occasionally.

In other words, it is a useless experience for a good portion of the books.
Scanned images collections are even worse.

You could in theory use calibre to convert. It works well for text and maybe
inline images (which suffer from the same problems as pdf pages, either you
lose detail or you have to see the image as a series of overlapping
rectangular pieces), but it messes up tables, lists and everything that is
written in more than one column per page. The content is converted out of
order.

Z.

2011/2/17 Amichai Rotman <amichai at iglu.org.il>

> I didn't mention this because I wasn't at home when I wrote the post, but I
> am using Calibre with the e-vrit.
>
> The version on the Ubuntu 10.04 was too old and didn't detect the reader. I
> added a PPA (PM me to get the details) and upgraded it to version 0.7.44.
> Now it detects the reader as a "bq Avant" and it works perfectly!
>
> If I choose to move a file to the device, it converts it on the fly to epub
> and copies it to either the Main memory or the card (both apear on the top.
>
> PDF files are hard to convert. Now that it finds my device, I'll try again
> and let you know.
>
> Thanks for the Sci-Fi referral. I'll appreciate more URLs for free e-book
> downloads.
>
> Amichai.
>
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 15:33, geoffrey mendelson <
> geoffreymendelson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Feb 17, 2011, at 11:57 AM, Amichai Rotman wrote:
>>
>>  Hi all,
>>>
>>> Terrible for photos / pictures. Too dark, no colors and slow. The books'
>>> covers and in-book diagrams and line art look great!
>>>
>>> User Experience:
>>>
>>> As I mentioned, I am very happy with the device. It is very light and
>>> under the right lighting conditions it is very clear and fun to read from.
>>> Using it under the sun was even better than under florescent light.
>>> I downloaded a sample book from the Barns & Noble site (what they call a
>>> 'NookBook) and transfered it to the device directly (an .epub file) - and
>>> begun reading immediately! no DRM, no conversion - out of the download! I
>>> called their Customer Support (voice - I needed to hear it) and asked if it
>>> is because it's a sample. the representative said the sample is technically
>>> the same as the full book!
>>>
>>> Over the course of the last three years I've read very few books, mostly
>>> technical books by the computer, but since I've bought this device I have
>>> read more than 70 pages of a Hebrew thriller, and a few pages of some
>>> technical books and got the epub version of a 1500 page book I was wondering
>>> how to carry around with me...
>>>
>>> Conclusion:
>>>
>>> Very good buy for those of you who need the Hebrew support. Not very
>>> expensive. No dual display. No color display - but perfect for reading
>>> books!
>>>
>>
>> What does it do with full page scans of books (jpeg images as PDF files)?
>> The nook displays them full screen, with no rotate, zoom or contrast
>> adjustment (makes reading colored ones difficult), the Kindle 3 (but not the
>> original nor 2) has those adjustments. I have several thousand electronics
>> and other technical books like that.
>>
>> You may also want to look at Calibre, it's an open source manager for
>> eBooks, which includes format conversions, etc. It's available for Linux,
>> Windows and Mac and supports the Kindle, nook, iPad and many other readers.
>> If it does not support the eVrit directly, you can still use it to organize
>> your library and do format conversions.
>>
>> If you are looking for modern Sci-Fi, Baen books has a free downloadable
>> library. They have also issued free CDs of books (and in some cases entire
>> series) that are not available on line from them, but you can download them
>> via bit torrent and directly online.
>>
>> For the books:
>>
>> http://www.baen.com/library/
>>
>> For the CDs:
>>
>> http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
>>
>> Geoff.
>> --
>> Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM
>> Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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-- 
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