eReader gadget

sounds like a bargain. i was torn between getting the better spec'd 505 and the smaller 300 and went with the smaller one in the end. i'm sure you'll enjoy it - mine is saving my sanity this year due to travel delays... already gone through 5 books between getting the train to zurich airport until today!

Hey Guys,

I'm currently living in Canada (yes, it's cold!) and planing on returning to Switzerland in September/October...

So I'm starting to get organized, and one of the topics is if I should buy an eReader here in Canada or if I shall wait until I'm back home;

I assume that the price would be better here in North America but how about the compatibility and am I still able to buy books online once I'm back in Switzerland and do not have a Canadian Billing address anymore...?

I'm kind of looking into a Nook Color because I also would like to be able to store and view my photos on the device.

And if anyone has any good ideas about how to move across the Atlantic - I have no clue yet how to do that; got way too much stuff for Airplane but not enough for a Container either

Sorry to bump an old thread...but I am considering ordering a Sony device from the US.

http://reviews.cnet.com/e-book-reade...-34167294.html

The newest ereader is touch screen, with minimal glare..and in side-by-side comparisons with the Kindle (on the Youtubes) I think the Sony looks much better for the money. ($250 with case, light...on Amazon no less!)

Any experience with this newest model? I like the external storage, and Epub capability.

Are you guys seriously considering giving your credit card info to Sony? I'll never do that again - just had to get my card reissued because of those imbeciles.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

I love the Sony ebook reader. There are loads of websites (especially the US ones) where you can get cheap books and also websites with free books.

If I travel now I save some kilos by no longer having to schlepp my books, just take my ebook reader.

There is a website with a tool to manage your books easily (I am not too happy with the official one). Check Calibre, it ́s free and easy to handle.

Well, I went ahead and ordered a Sony reader for myself, and have been playing with Calibre for my epub books.

Sony and their Datenschutz woes were disconcerting, but I think a company as large and as resourceful as Sony would step things up. That said..I didn't save card information in my account profile. I am not sure that would help things, but it gave me a little peace of mind. I look forward to having the e-reader though!

i never bothered to register the device. just used calibre and loaded non-DRM'd epub content onto it.

Earlier in the year I bought an eInk writing tablet to replace the stacks of paper notebooks I use for work. Well actually I now own 3 different models (Remarkable2, Kindle Scribe and Boox Note Air 3c)

Initially I was sceptical that I would actually write on them, but 6 months on and hundreds of pages of hand scribbled notes and I can confidently say I'm not returning to paper again.

The advantage of digital notes is that you can read them anywhere (PC, Smartphone, iPad or device itself) as they're always synced, and folders and tags replace the need for 6 different notebooks for different projects.

For anyone unfamiliar with this tech, here is a simple intro.

Again, I love the concept, the only negative is that I do look like a geek in meetings

I am looking at something like that as well. Do you have a preference for one?

I had one of the paper thingies that can be transfered into notes on your laptop but wasn ́t happy with that.

As an initial device I would wholeheartedly recommend the Remarkable 2, its what got me into digital note taking in the first place.

Its the simplest but most refined of the bunch I own, and does everything extremely well.

The only great experience of digital note taking I had was on the original Samsung Galaxy Note. With those gadgets there's one problem, I don't like reading my hand written text! The original Galaxy Note had an app which allowed you to draw simple shapes, rectangles, triangles, ovals, lines... and a keyboard with hand writing recognition. Yes you read it well, you didn't write the doc and then let it be converted to text displacing everything around randomly, it had a proper hand writing keyboard, where you hand wrote text to enter it as printed which was awesome!

I own Onyx, but sadly it doesn't have such keyboard. Do any of the other devices have it?

PS. few years later I upgraded to Galaxy Note 4 and was really disappointed as that great app and hand writing keyboard was not there anymore. The shapes were in the new app but they worked way differently, much like a standard old school computer program. To draw a rectangle you had to choose the rectangle first then point and drag to make it. In the old app I just drew it and the software instantly corrected it to nice real square, same with all other shapes

what do you find are the pros/cons of scribe vs remarkable (for note taking)?

The Scribe is very far behind the Remarkable in terms of note taking software. It’s an e-reader with note taking tacked on.

Everything about the remarkable is designed around ease of use and a clean interface with excellent filing capabilities. The Kindle filings system is messier with PDFs, Notes, Ebooks all cluttering up the drive. Also the syncing of your notes is not as seamless, and what you view on the web app is a static image, whereas with the remarkable app you can continue to edit docs on your PC, phone, iPad etc...

It’s basically a typical Amazon big corp device, released in a beta state with very slow updates. Remarkable on the other hand releases constant updates and improvements as they engage with users.

So why buy the Scribe? simply because its cheaper than the Remarkable (factoring in a case and stylus), its newer, its got a slightly sharper 300 dpi screen, back lighting and the device wakes when you open the cover (which the remarkable doesn’t).

The Remarkable 2 has been around for about 3 years which some criticise, but I tend to think it’s a good thing. If it ain’t broke.

I was hoping you could comment on my earlier post. Does the Remarkable aid you in note taking to make them smooth digital docs which you can put in searchable database, not just free hand drawings which are good for nothing just like paper notes?

You can convert your handwritten notes to text so they are searchable. It does depend on your handwriting though, mine isn't great but it does an OK job.

However I don't use it like that to be honest, I just make notes and add tags so I can search them that way. For me its really just a digital notebook, with infinitely scrolling pages.

Hey @Castro, I might have a quick question again, as I suddenly started diving into these gadgets once more

I've got a black Friday ad in my inbox about the Onyx Tab Ultra, it's 429 chf at digitec. The term "ultra" was a good marketing move as it caught my attention enough to google for reviews.

Actually I've ordered one. After all digitec is a nice shop where you can return even used device, for a mere 10% deduction. However in the evening I searched again and two things, or even three things, emerged:

1. there's already a color e-ink version, sold for the same retail price as the b&w

2. battery life of the new "ultra" device is drastically reduced as for e-ink devices family, yeah, matching a tablet expectation rather than an e-reader.

3. well, there's also a black Friday discount for Onyx Note Air 2 plus, which seems to hold weeks of battery life.

Initially the comparison video of using web browser and other native android apps from Play store made me chuckle "yeah, finally! a smooth UI", but hearing about the impact on the battery I'm not really sure if it's the right upgrade.

However, I followed the thread reading more about the color e-inks. I got again brutally surprised hearing that those have half the resolution in color mode. At first glance it doesn't seem an issue, as it should not affect you when reading a b&w novel but I've found threads on reddit which reveal that even a shade of gray is interpreted as color drastically reducing the text clarity by switching to 150ppi! Well, so what's your experience with Boox Note Air 3c?

IDK, I guess I'll not even open the package, just return it to digitec. It'd be worth upgrade for the speed if the battery lasted a week+. On the other hand it'd be worth to upgrade to the color e-ink if it didn't cripple the display dpi in all tasks.

Never mind, I've found a detailed video about all the latest onyx tablets, but in the end I'm not interested

Whut.

I returned it for a few reasons. The colour is at best a nice to have, but it results in a very low contrast compared to b/w eReaders. This is because its an additional layer of pixels that makes the screen quite dark. The only way to mitigate is to use the front light which then drains battery.

You can see how dim the colour device is vs the equivalent b/w one.

The Note Air 3C also has Boox's new 'Super Refresh Rate' which takes a further hit on battery life, and it cannot be disabled. So its great for web browsing, but since thats not what I use it for its redundant. I found that I would get 1-2 days battery life which is pretty poor considering the Note Air2 Plus can last 1-2 weeks.

I think colour is still quite nascent tech on eReaders, its washed out and pastel in hue. And since I have an iPad I prefer to use that for most media consumption.

The dark shade of the Color version also put me off, but then the B&W Ultra is fast amongst e-ink devices, but not really fast enough to say things move smoothly on it's screen. In the video I've seen they made a special web page to measure the screen redraw speed, Note Air 2+ achieve only 5 fps, where Tab Ultra 11 fps with much less ghosting. That's definitely improvement, but I'm not sure if 11 fps is comfortable long term. The old movies were recorded at 25 fps, so I'd say 20+ would be a safe bet.