Read ebooks in Room w/o Computer: Solutions

[WiFO215]

Is there a way I can read ebooks in my room? I don't have my own computer. I looked at Amazon's Kindle, but I can't put my own ebooks into it. Now what do you advice? There are too many pages to print.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

If you could afford a Kindle, you could afford almost any sort of used laptop. Anything, even a ten-year-old system, would be able to display an ebook. Particularly if you're just talking about text or HTML books like you'd get at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page".

(Heck, if you're talking about a plain text ebook, a twenty-year-old laptop would let you read one of those. I bought something like that - a massive sixty-pound late eighties laptop with a 286 processor - for a hundred bucks ten years ago, so by now you ought to be able to get something pretty sweet for a hundred bucks. eBay is your friend.)

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[TheStatutoryApe]

http://www.ebook88.com/devices.html
This one looks the best though its even more expensive than the Kindle...

Cybook ebook device
**Read Product Reviews (I own a Cybook) in my BLOG
( A new model is on the way: It was described as having the 'size of a paperback, the thickness of a magazine and the weight of a mobile phone' and will 'give you the experience of reading from paper' ... www.bookeen.com ). The only Multi-format eBook Reading Device: Supports Mobipocket(PRC), HTML, TXT, RTF, PDB format. Support for .pdf is still under development. This is the only dedicated ebook device currently on sale at the United States - and is still being manufactured.

The Cybook has been designed to provide the best e-reading experience. Thanks to its bright and contrasted page size display and its sleek design, the Cybook is the ideal companion to discover the pleasure of digital reading. Opened and multi-format. The Cybook is the world's first true open multi-format e-book reader. No more printing, with the Cybook you can read all the digital documents you want. Good for downloading free eBooks, paid eBooks, or even your own content! Comes with Software suite: MobiPocket Reader, µBook Reader, Boo Reader, Boo Reader Vision, Pocket Word, Pocket Inbox, Internet Explorer, PTab Spreadsheet, Audio Player

Price: USD$399
Weight: 35 oz (1 kg battery included)
Size: 8" x 10.1" x 1"
Battery: 3 - 5 hours
Memory: ROM 16MB, RAM 32MB

 

[CaptainQuasar]

If cost is no object, the http://www.plasticlogic.com/product.html" which is supposed to be available some time early next year looks the coolest out of the ones I've seen and it's the size of an entire sheet of paper.

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[WiFO215]

I have some PDF stuff. For instance, I would like to read that Calculus book by G.H. Hardy, the ebook version of which was posted in the learning section. My eyes strain a lot to read on the computer.

Cost is definitely important. I want a cheap one. What do you guys feel about this:

http://www.ebookwise.com/ebookwise/ebookwise1150.htm

I think it looks good.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

With only 64 megs of memory, that seems pretty slim to me... An iPod nano 4Gb sells for about the same price with sixty-five times as much RAM, from a top-name brand, so that does not seem like a good buy to me.

You should spend money on something that's to your own taste, of course, but do your eyes strain reading off of a CRT screen or an LCD screen? I personally find an LCD screen like a laptop has much more comfortable to read off of than a CRT, though I know that's not true for everyone.

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[WiFO215]

I have an LCD and I can't stand it after a while. I like this E-ink stuff.

About the iPod nano. Can I read books on it? Is it E-ink?

 

[CaptainQuasar]

No, sorry, the iPod nano is for playing music. I was just giving an example of how much RAM I think you ought to be getting in a $115 device.

I mean, it's your money, of course, do with it what you will. I just find eBook readers to be too undeveloped a market for my tastes at the moment, it just doesn't provide the return on investment I feel I'd want. But that's easy for me to say since I have a laptop and I don't mind reading books off of it.

If you do end up getting one that handles PDFs, check out all of the free stuff at http://books.google.com . Everything from before 1923 is free and downloadable in .pdf format. It can be pretty amazing to read some of the magazines that were being published during World War I, for example.

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[CaptainQuasar]

One other thing I ought to say is, it looks like this Plastic Logic thing is going to shake the market up and be a major competitor to the Kindle if not blow them out of the water. So by the end of next year the Kindle and the Plastic Logic reader may be down at very reasonable prices.

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[TheStatutoryApe]

With only 64 megs of memory, that seems pretty slim to me... An iPod nano 4Gb sells for about the same price with sixty-five times as much RAM, from a top-name brand, so that does not seem like a good buy to me.

You should spend money on something that's to your own taste, of course, but do your eyes strain reading off of a CRT screen or an LCD screen? I personally find an LCD screen like a laptop has much more comfortable to read off of than a CRT, though I know that's not true for everyone.

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Ouch, I didn't even notice that. I have an mp3 player that's smaller than a match box with 2gb of memory that only cost about $60. Of course my PDA was fairly expensive and doesn't have even a gig of internal memory. I can expand that with an SD card though. Maybe you can do that with these things?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

The eBookwise has a memory card slot but it only mentions cards as big as 128mb. There are memory cards up to 4gb last I checked. So this ebook might not be able to read larger cards unless the company has made sure to update drivers to accept them.

 

[WiFO215]

Im reviving this topic due to something I thought of and some recent updates. I got a portable DVD player. I don't watch very many movies though [I have a Zune]. Is there anyway that I could hack this DVD player to read ebooks? Or say I could somehow put my ebooks on DVDs in some sort of movie format so that I could "play" it as a movie and read?

[ The DVD player is an INSIGNIA 8" portable DVD player. Details : http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/view+classifieds/id/967652/Insignia+portable+dvd+player+w/+8.5%22+Lcd+screen ]

 

[armlaser]

I have a cheap device,which can store ebooks and you can read it as normal books.

 

[MATLABdude]

Im reviving this topic due to something I thought of and some recent updates. I got a portable DVD player. I don't watch very many movies though [I have a Zune]. Is there anyway that I could hack this DVD player to read ebooks? Or say I could somehow put my ebooks on DVDs in some sort of movie format so that I could "play" it as a movie and read?

[ The DVD player is an INSIGNIA 8" portable DVD player. Details : http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/view+classifieds/id/967652/Insignia+portable+dvd+player+w/+8.5%22+Lcd+screen ]

If you have a Zune, why wouldn't you use that to read your ebooks instead? There's a (not great, but workable) program that converts various formats of eBooks into a series of JPEGs which you can then play in order:
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Zune_ebook_creator

If you're still in the market for an eBook reader, you can get a used / refurbished Palm Z22 pretty cheap these days (you can get programs--usually free--which will read various eBook formats, including Acrobat for devices). If you can find it new (with decent battery life) I think it's $99. Not to be a shill, but it's the cheapest PALM you can get with non-volatile memory. Even though it only comes with 32 MB of non-volatile memory, you can put in an SD card ($10 for 1 GB these days?) You also get an organizer out of the deal.

 

[WiFO215]

These things never get my pictures into my Zune properly. I tried adding GH Hardy's Calculus book in and I never got any of the diagrams. These JPEG files never have 'em. Isn't there any way to mod/hack that DVD player?? I am not using it at all! Its collecting dust...

 

[MATLABdude]

These things never get my pictures into my Zune properly. I tried adding GH Hardy's Calculus book in and I never got any of the diagrams. These JPEG files never have 'em. Isn't there any way to mod/hack that DVD player?? I am not using it at all! Its collecting dust...

Thems the breaks. A (proprietary) DVD player is a whole heck of a lot less hackable than a Zune. And why'd you buy a DVD player when you could've bought a cheap PDA? Actually, I suppose there is a way to use your DVD player to read e-books, in 3 easy steps:

1) Sell DVD Player
2) $$$
3) Buy e-book reader

Or:

1-3) Trade DVD Player for an E-Book reader.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist)

 

[WiFO215]

So I got a solution for my problem. I am posting it here in case anyone else is interested. After all, a portable DVD player is much cheaper than an ebook reader.
First go here:

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-convert-a-pdf-file-to-word-excel-or-jpg-format/

This guy has a good method to convert PDFs into JPG for free

Second, I had Nero, so I used Nero vision to put all the JPGs into a DVD slide show playable on DVD players.

PROBLEM SOLVED! :D