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Amazon Kindle |OT| of eInk superiority
- Thread starter HiroProtagonist
- Start date
overthehill99
Member
So basically there is no way I can convert this .tpz file because it's DRM protected, meaning I can't get chapter markers on the book I just bought? That really sucks.
I won't be able to be at a fixed location to receive the unit for about a month.renitou said:
Edit: Papyre S.Alex Android E-Reader looks interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEy3DtuCOk4
But looks too big and doesn't seem to be available at many retailers atm.
So, by doing a bit of more research on the subject, it looks like Kindle (and E-readers in general) performance on PDFs is less than ideal. How are your experience in the subject? Since I plan to sue it mostly for PDF with lots of math equations, so the re-flow/convert thing might not be ideal.
kaskade said:
I think this year the Kindle 4 will be the 6" e-Ink device, with the ad-supported version going for $99, non-ad wifi at $129, 3G at $179, but the Kindle DX will be replaced by the Kindle Tablet running a modified Android 3.x with integrated Amazon app store and Kindle app. This will allow Amazon to continue it's dominance in the e-Ink market while expanding to the tablet market.
The Kindle DX as a 9.7" e-Ink device for $379 was always a terrible value proposition. It's bigger than necessary for reading, far too expensive relative to tablets, and due to a lack of touch screen and apps it wasn't good for non-reading uses either. Kindle Tablet 9.7" replacing the Kindle DX at a $399-499 price point would be a great idea and is rumored to be in the works.
Lonely1 said:
I can only speak from the experience of having only one Kindle book that has equations, but it didn't look good. Equations appeared to just be low-res pictures of the equations. Their size is static, and they look really blocky. However, they are tolerable, and it doesn't bother me so long as I can tell what it is I'm reading which is what counts. Although, diagrams and graphs looked fine.
I'm not sure that was the case just for this particular book, or if that's how it is for all kindle books.
Lonely1 said:
I've mostly stuck to paper for that kind of reading, due to:
a) Better second-hand prices.
b) These tend to be the types of books I want to flip back and forth in constantly.
c) Besides formulas, technical books are full of formatting that won't re-flow well.
d) I can't conceive of a method for displaying long series of formulas on a 6" screen in any readable way.
However, I do own one book and several issues of one magazine that include formulas, and they both have them as images that you can click on to zoom. I think I might have checked sample chapters for some other books and found the same thing.
Ultimately, I'm waiting for an update to the DX, either in hardware or software, that gives it better PDF support, before I make the switch for technical reading.
HiroProtagonist
Member
Blu_LED said:
Edit: I thought you were taking about page numbers. D'oh. The topaz format sucks.
Apparently you can strip the DRM from Topaz, but it looks a bit convoluted:
http://stream-recorder.com/forum/convert-topaz-ebooks-html-remove-drm-tpz-t5426.html?t=5426
Never read a book with equations and graphs and stuff. The Kindle is a book reader in the sense of text. A properly formatted ebook on the kindle with hyperlinks for footnotes, chapters etc is king. When you get into images (like all PDF files are) then the eReaders are not great at it. When I say "better format" I mean to replace traditional novels not textbooks with graphics.Lonely1 said:
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
It's even exceedingly awkward if you wanted to show off. It would make more sense with bookshelves where you don't have to do anything they can just see them but to have to get out your kindle and have them hit page next until you run out seems kind of awkward to do. I don't really believe anyone does this.Smithy C said:
Blu_LED said:
It all depends on the publisher. A lot of the books aren't badly done but most don't have chapter markers that I've come across. Some don't even have "go to" for things such as table of contents and such which is frustrating. I hope it eventually gets improved upon, seems like a rather lackluster effort by publishers at times.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Lonely1 said:
I have converted tons of PDFs using calibre seamlessly. I don't know what the issue here is since I haven't yet had one. A couple of times the spacing is off between paragraphs and dumb formatting stuff like that, but it really doesn't make it an issue and I continue to read by daily briefings on my Kindle.
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
It really is on of the reasons why I can't stand using an eBook for research, for school, for work etc. I can literally flip around a book back and forth much easier and faster than if I have to find something I underlined on a page with the Kindle. For casual and recreational reading, the Kindle is great.
As for what you noted on the table of context, publishers will start to implement it more as the eBook market grows.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
If I could check out books at my county library using Kindle, I would buy one so fast.
Jayayess1190
Member
Soon. Did you read the thread that ePub support is coming to the Kindle?omg.kittens said:
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Jayayess1190 said:
Has he even read this thread? :lol
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Nope. I honestly don't know anything about the matter, except that it's not currently supported. But seriously, when it happens, I'm there day one.Jayayess1190 said:
I've poked my head in a few times, but haven't seen any mention of ePub. Don't even know what it is. :shrug: Any info/insight/speculation is appreciated.UltimaKilo said:
HiroProtagonist
Member
I think there is a way to (more) easily strip the DRM from Topaz. With bloodydrake's link Ebook Formats, DRM and You A Guide for the Perplexed will provide: Calibre Plugins: combined tools package that contains Calibre plugins for Mobipocket (.prc/.mobi), Kindle Mobipocket (.azw), Kindle Topaz (.tpz/.azw1), Adobe ePub (.epub), Adobe PDF (.pdf), B&N ePub (.epub), B&N/Fictionwise eReader (.pdb)Blu_LED said:
All you have to do is add the plugins to Calibre (directions in the first link), and you should be good.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
omg.kittens said:
Well then, let me speed ya up. It seems as if the Kindle lending is coming to a library near-you in a couple of months. You can already borrow books from others using booklending.com and it works great. The downside is that not every book can be borrowed and that if you lend a book, it can never be lent again.
I've borrowed 2 books already and I loved the way it works.
ePub is an ebook format which is more widely accepted than Amazon's own format (.azn which is actually just .mobi with some extra encryption stuff) ePub files are ACTUALLY just zip files that contain XML and HTML files in there. You can actually use winzip to unzip an ePub file to see all the individual files of text in the ebook. Anyway, rumours are that Amazon will support ePub format with a software update soon. Once this happens (supposedly this year) then you'll be able to check out library books with your kindle.omg.kittens said:
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Ya, they seem to be trying to protect physical books so they half ass ebooks at times and it shows. If you underline isn't there a menu to show you all your underlines? If you do that flipping back and forth should become rather easy.UltimaKilo said:
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Timedog said:
Because you would literally never use it. Eink refreshes way too slow. If you've ever used the experimental browser and zoomed in it's really slow to move across a page. Perception of it would probably be more detrimental that's why it won't zoom bigger than the screen size. I guess they could do it like the browser and have a block and it zooms into where you move the block and hit zoom but still not very ideal with slower refresh rate.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
PDFs can zoom so the content is larger than the screen size. The problem is that with the few options there are, it's easy to get a situation where there's a chunk of content I want to look at, and I have the choice of it either only being 70% as wide as the screen, or at the next zoom level 140% as wide as the screen. Or the zoom level is appropriate, but with the navigation options I can end up with either 20% of what I want to see hanging off the left side, or 20% of what I want to see hanging off the right side.Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Wait so you mean more levels of zoom then? I've never used pdfs on it so I assumed it was like the ebooks where it won't zoom to bigger than screen. Why do they not allow that kind of zoom for their books then? I want to see my LOTR maps easier.JoshuaJSlone said:
VistraNorrez
Member
Bookeen has actually made some sort of software that allows for "smooth-scrolling", here's the video: http://youtu.be/CxwceUvxlCo. It's an e-ink screen, but I'm not sure what else they are using to control the screen moving like that. Who knows what it does to a standard Kindle battery either.
Here's the article from Engadget. And that article links to another article where they have video playing on an e-ink screen as well.
Here's the article from Engadget. And that article links to another article where they have video playing on an e-ink screen as well.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
I think with the low-ish resolution screens and only having 4-16 shades of gray depending on the model, they've just really really placed a low priority on images both in reading software and the publishing side. After the nice images in the Kindle user guide and such, seeing low color/low resolution/off center images in some books is one of my biggest beefs with the whole Kindle experience.Zaraki_Kenpachi said:Why do they not allow that kind of zoom for their books then? I want to see my LOTR maps easier.
EDIT: Since I was looking up old Kindle shots, here's a PDF displaying a full page, and here's a section really zoomed in.
VistraNorrez
Member
If you're reading PDFs you are better off using landscape mode anyway, but really the Kindle just isn't cut out for it as hard as they try.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
Is it still cumbersome if you are rotating the screen? If it doesn't fit the page I would assume rotating would alleviate a lot of that no? And ya, it's disappointing the effort publishers have point in at times. It's frustrating too since you hope by purchasing more they will put in more effort but also worry if you buy a lot that they won't since you're already buying a lot and doesn't need attention.
VistraNorrez said:
Ah, ok. That pretty much answers my question then.
PjotrStroganov
Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:Wait so you mean more levels of zoom then? I've never used pdfs on it so I assumed it was like the ebooks where it won't zoom to bigger than screen. Why do they not allow that kind of zoom for their books then? I want to see my LOTR maps easier.
I can tell you what I did after I hit the same problem with my Song of Ice and Fire maps. I downloaded the maps and put them in a separate folder and used the image viewer to view them. It is is a bit slow but it can zoom in and out.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Huh, I didn't even think of that. It's not too bad since in the appendix they have the overview map broken into different chunks but I may do what you suggest so it's more convenient. Thanks!PjotrStroganov said:
Community Forum
Member
I wish that if you bought the actual real copy of a book from Amazon you would get the digital copy too.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Awesome. Thanks for the responses about the ePub stuff! I'll wait till details on this are confirmed till dipping in, probably.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
I'm curious to see what the market will look like in a year, year and a half. The way the eInk reader market is growing and the vast improvements that continue to be made should make way for improved eBooks in the near-future.
Yeah there is a menu, but it is still a bit obtuse compared to holding 5 pages open and flipping back and forth in under a second. At the same time, to go to the page where you have the underlined passage takes an extra step. When you're pumping out reports, it's not exactly ideal. =/
Edit: The Kindle, while very fast, could still be faster IMO.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
UltimaKilo said:
Is there a way to go forward on the kindle? I know you can go to a page then hit back to flipback to a page but is there a way to go forward back to the page you went to? If they added that flipping between pages like you suggest would be a breeze.
UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Unfortunately, not at the moment. I agree with you, if they can implement this in a viable way, it would be a major step, at least for me, in saying goodbye to a lot more physical books that I use.
It would be great if you had a PDF that references a chart that is 30 pages back and had to flip back and forth to that figure throughout the document.
Gorilla Shark
Member
Awesome thread. I will be getting one of these asap.
I've been putting it off for too long.
I've been putting it off for too long.
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Hyperlinking would solve that. Then a hit of the back button to go back to the chart. Lots of clever ways to solve this issue.UltimaKilo said:
Easily assignable multiple hardware keyboard bookmark keys would be great, too.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
UltimaKilo said:
They should be able to. Just make shift+back or alt+back be forward. Really no reason that there isn't a forward.