Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: bj229r on March 03, 2010, 10:07:33 PM
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I'm guessing they are going the way of the dinosaur. I'm looking for something that can read/store tech manuals on pdf's...tired of having ripped up, torn manuals all over my truck. Don't need it to be a phone, or interface with the @#%%@#%@# space shuttle....any suggestions?
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How big do you want it? IMHO most PDA screens aren't really suits for reading PDF's.
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I'm with Vulcan on this one - I'd suggest a netbook or a eReader to be more practical (if a bit bigger)
Better clarity too, bigger text etc
Wurzel
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iPad or whatever MS comes out with after that... I am wondering what the ultimate device will be. Cell phone and mp3 player and camera and portable computer... etc all tied to your biometrics? Cant wait to see it but Im going to let you pay for it. :D
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the Iphone/ipod have the ability through apps but it takes a lot to be able to get to do it. Ie jailbreaking, getting into the core files, uploading the file, etc.
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There are a lot of readers out there, the problem is most of them are too small to do PDF's correctly.
The ones with a big enough screen are very expensive.
A netbook or cheap laptop may be the best choice. But then your paying for a lot of stuff you really don't need.
My advice, wait a year. Things are changing fast with Ereader tech, and netbook's.
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Take a look at the Sony ebook or amazon kindle.
They are exactly what your wanting if the price is ok for you. A year is alot of frustration.
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I have a laptop, just dont wanna deal with the 5 minutes it takes to boot up, and a E-reader/Kindle, etc are the size of a clipboard, which I ALSO dont want. Smart-phones which do this all require minimum $30 a month extra in frikkin high-speed fees, and Palm seems to be fading out of existence. I bought wife a Storm2...might check out what they look like on that before I go further...maybe they ARE too small
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Some Archos 5 series tablets list PDF compatibility. They have screens bigger than some PDAs or cell phones but smaller than netbooks/laptops. However, some Archos tablets get some bad user reviews on Newegg and reviewers imply that some functionality requires added cost "plugins". I don't have one so I have no clue, but you might want to check them out. Spec pages on www.archos.com indicate which models read PDF (for example the Archos 5 does).
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I have a laptop, just dont wanna deal with the 5 minutes it takes to boot up, and a E-reader/Kindle, etc are the size of a clipboard, which I ALSO dont want. Smart-phones which do this all require minimum $30 a month extra in frikkin high-speed fees, and Palm seems to be fading out of existence. I bought wife a Storm2...might check out what they look like on that before I go further...maybe they ARE too small
TBH I don't think you'll find anything you'll like. One of the new netbooks like the Lenovo ideabooks is good (they don't take look to boot, seconds usually if you have them hibernated or suspended). Or the dedicated stuff like the Kindle with E Ink which will give superior reading clarity. The ipad? Meh overpriced junk - I see it's been delayed again as well.
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Your best bet is to get a windows mobile phone. HTC brand phones are all windows mobile phones. I have the HTC Tilt which I will be upgrading to the Tilt 2 in the summer. From my experience, these windows mobile phones are what you are looking for and are practically mini laptops.
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the Iphone/ipod have the ability through apps but it takes a lot to be able to get to do it. Ie jailbreaking, getting into the core files, uploading the file, etc.
pretty sure they can view pdfs natively (ie without 3rd party apps or jailbreaking), whether you want to be squinting at a screen that small is another matter tho. maybe apple should make something like the iPod touch but with a bigger screen ... ;)
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The IPhone - considering how small the screen is - has amazingly clarity, and is far far more usable than someone who doesn't have one would generally be inclined to credit. I can remote into my work system from my IPhone and monitor processes seamlessly. I can easily view train schedules, etc. Now having said that, I would not want to view technical data with any real amount of technical drawings embedded on the IPhone - I'm going to want something larger. I'd suggest one of the inexpensive Netbooks, myself.
There are a number of third party apps that let you transfer, store and view PDF's on the I-Phone - without jailbraking. I use File-App (which used to be FileAid) which works well.
But don't get an IPhone looking for a stellar PDF viewer - get one because you need a decent PDF reader, a decent GPS, a decent phone, a decent mobile Internet browser, a decent calendar system, and any combination of about 100,000 special purpose apps ranging from an application to allow someone with Celiac to choose appropriate food while eating out to a zombie shooter to news to a kazoo - all with an absolutely stellar interface to tie it all together which really is so simple a caveman can do it - or my 5 yearold.
I've been in technology a long time - and I can't recall the last time a piece of technology lived up to and exceeded the hype as the IPhone does.
If I had to get a PDA sized device for this purpose, it WOULD be my only choice. But I think there are better choices.
<S>
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The iPhone may be a lot of things, but simple or easy to use is not one of them, from my perspective. I dinked around with one for 10 minutes one day trying to make a phone call and gave up. As that is all I need for a phone to do, the iPhone is way overkill.
The Wife has a Windows based phone and she hates it. It is constantly locking up and losing information. It will not run a full day without a recharge. If she makes more than 4 calls it will not last the entire business day before running out of battery.
The only reason she is stuck with it is her company requires a phone to sync with thier Exchange server. It is rare that I can actually reach her on her cell phone. It seems to be either low on power or locked up. She misses her Palm Pilot. It just worked. Today it seems we are on the path of 'new technology regardless of how inept or useless the implementation is'.
And Microsofts new mobile OS update is not backward compatible with the current OS. Sheesh. What a ripoff.
I do not know what I am going to do when my flip phone dies. The ones that are available to replace it suck.
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I have a Windows-Mobile-powered handheld thingie that I process my service calls on, (it's ALSO supposed to be my company cell-phone, but it misses most of the calls, and if you stay on a call more than 3-4 minutes, you can't hang up, and must re-boot 2 or 3 times. Consequently most of us at work increased our personal plans so we can do our jobs, and not die some sort of south-park-exploding-head-type death. The only thing that seems to suck more than Windows, is Windows Mobile. At least you can stare at the pretty sunset while waiting for your mobile device to reboot...(Saw the Archos thing the other day 71S, I think I saw the same review as you. Used to have an Archos mp3 player too....my memories of that company are not positive ones). I'm getting narrowed down to one of those mini-notebooks, MAYBE an E-reader (REALLY dont know if they fo pdf's) or a frikkin smart phone...maybe a 'Devour' (rugged version of Android). Alas, Palm is fading out of existence
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Several of the ereaders will do PDF's, most of them are not big enough to do a really good job with them.
Even the Jetbook will open a pdf, but its grayscale not color. And in order to actually read it you need to zoom.
Then you end up using the cursor to scroll down, then back up every page.
If your seriously looking at E-readers first place I'd start is mobileread.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/index.php)
They have a very good community there, but as in this community, opinions abound.
Listen to it all and make up your own mind.
Also there is a good video where an author shows 9 different ereaders.
Really gives you a good feel for the size of the device, what its going to look like.
Link is here
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74902 (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74902)
I highly recommend that anyone even considering an ereader take the time to watch the video.
You'll learn a lot in a short amount of time.
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Very cool forum Ghosth :aok
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I mostly hang out in the Jetbook forum there. :)
Ohh and don't forget to checkout their upload section. Ton of books there, all free.
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The only reason she is stuck with it is her company requires a phone to sync with thier Exchange server. It is rare that I can actually reach her on her cell phone. It seems to be either low on power or locked up. She misses her Palm Pilot. It just worked. Today it seems we are on the path of 'new technology regardless of how inept or useless the implementation is'.
And Microsofts new mobile OS update is not backward compatible with the current OS. Sheesh. What a ripoff.
I'm like the last person using my Palm Treo at work skuzzy :D - everyone has migrated to iphones. Now they're finding the same crap they moaned about on the treo they now moan about on the iphone with some new 'features' thrown in. There are still things the iphone cannot do so I've stuck with my treo (like changing the battery and call recording).
To be far to MS, they had to lose compatibility on the phone OS, the old version sucked so badly.
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The Amazon Kindle says it can read and display PDFs. It's only 8" x 5". Although it talks about "emailing" PDFs to your Kindle, you can apparently also just load them via USB.
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I'm like the last person using my Palm Treo at work skuzzy :D - everyone has migrated to iphones. Now they're finding the same crap they moaned about on the treo they now moan about on the iphone with some new 'features' thrown in. There are still things the iphone cannot do so I've stuck with my treo (like changing the battery and call recording).
To be far to MS, they had to lose compatibility on the phone OS, the old version sucked so badly.
Oh, I know Winblows Mobile 6 was a piece of dodo and nothing should ever be compatible with it.
She still sneaks her Palm Pilot V out into the feild, on big jobs. She just brings it home to do the conversion to AutoCAD. She says it saves he days of work. Everyone at her office cannot figure out how she gets those big jobs done so fast. I dread the day that she drops it and breaks it as there is not another product in the market that can replace it.
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715, with the kindle it is my understanding that you email them to amazon, they convert them to a proprietary format, and then add them to your bookshelf. I don't think its as simple as load them with a USB connection. But I don't have one, can't tell you for certain. But I'm pretty sure they don't read straight pdf's.
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From all I've seen, Kindles don't natively do pdf's, and furthermore, the e-book community seems to have a very snotty attitude toward pdf's in general. I guess you can convert them with varying success, but I'd rather not have to do that with hundreds of the things...and a lot of older tech sheets are simply poorly scanned in sheets of paper stored as pdf's. Does anyone know what the term 'Reflow' means when describing how small screens view larger pdf's? Whatever it is, it seems to be a significant feature
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Palm desktop is repeatedly corrupting my wife's contact database, so we're replacing her old phone and palm TX with a palm pre. She's reasonably familiar with how palm devices work and I think she'll be happy replacing 2 items with one.
The palm pre and pixi have an installation program that will do a one-time import from her old palm desktop databases into the pre, moving over contacts, calendar, tasks, etc. I really hope that this works since her contacts and the comments she's embedded in them are a valuable summary/history/archive of her professional career.
The main concerns I have are if she'll be happy using gmail or outlook to manage her contacts, battery life, and device complexity. I think they're all manageable issues so even though it is an expensive experiment, we're going to give it a shot.
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(Clippage)..In a reflowed document, text remains at its original size even when the window size changes, so that it's easier to view. In contrast, images reduce in size to accommodate a smaller window size, so that they can be viewed at a glance....
Some readers do reflow, but even the ones that do may have issues with some pdf's. They have to be created correctly, "tagged" in order to do reflow.
(more clippage)....PDF is so widely used because it presents information in a uniform, fixed fashion. This means that whether you view PDF Document A on your computer, a friend's or (just about) anywhere else, the document will be pretty much exactly as it was meant to be viewed, thus ensuring reliable viewing and printing. There are caveats, of course, regarding embedded fonts and such, but it's an extremely reliable way to ensure documents are the way you want them to be when you send them out or make them available to others.
One of the biggest strengths of PDF -- its uniform, fixed formatting for easy viewing and printing -- is one of its biggest shortcomings in the e-reader world. However, you can create a tagged PDF file to resolve this issue. Tagged PDF files can be reflowed, such that when the tagged file is viewed on a reader device its text and images will reflow to fit on the smaller screen. If you are creating PDF documents for viewing on readers, you can create them as tagged PDF files and if the reader supports reflow, you will be able to view the documents in reflow mode......
That said, however, there are better formats for e-readers and the one I recommend is EPUB. EPUB is the industry standard for e-documents and e-books. Any e-reader that supports EPUB fully supports all of its advanced features, which includes advanced support for reflow, tables, figures and graphics. I'll write more about EPUB in upcoming posts, and as I am able.
If you have non-tagged or even tagged PDF files that you want to convert to EPUB, there are tools available that allow you to covert these PDF files to EPUB. Once you do this, you'll have a better viewing and reading experience on your e-reader.
The other option for most readers is zoom, which has the advantage in that the document doesn't change.
However you may have to scroll up down, left right for each page. Which very quickly becomes a very real pain.
In my experience, if a PDF is just text, it converts quite nicely with several different tools to a basic text file.
*.txt
The better tools will probably have the ability to save as *.rtf, or *.epub.
The only exception to this that I am aware of would be the Kindle DX.
Being large enough to display PDF's without having to reflow or zoom.
But I don't know if it can be loaded directly via computer & usb cable.
Or if it has to be emailed to kindle and "converted" and placed on your bookshelf.
Best chance for exact answers are going to be in the MobileRead Kindle section.
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From all I've seen, Kindles don't natively do pdf's, and furthermore, the e-book community seems to have a very snotty attitude toward pdf's in general. I guess you can convert them with varying success, but I'd rather not have to do that with hundreds of the things...and a lot of older tech sheets are simply poorly scanned in sheets of paper stored as pdf's. Does anyone know what the term 'Reflow' means when describing how small screens view larger pdf's? Whatever it is, it seems to be a significant feature
The Amazon Kindle page implies native support for PDF: "Built-In PDF Reader: Your Kindle can now display PDF documents natively. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go." However, they won't "reflow". For that, you have to send them to Amazon for conversion to Kindle format.
Buried on the Help page for Kindle file transfer (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200375630#email) is this:
"Your Kindle can now display PDF documents without losing the formatting of the original file. Send PDF documents directly to your Kindle (via your @Kindle address) or drag and drop PDF files from your computer to your Kindle (when connected via USB). You can also magnify PDFs by viewing them in landscape mode. Some features are not currently supported, including annotations, Text-to-Speech, and zooming and panning."
I don't have one... I'm just going by what the Amazon web page says.
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I was looking at one on wife's Storm2...seemed tolerable, although hard to manipulate
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Hi Bj!
IMO, it depends on how long are you gonna be looking at that screen.
LCD and TFT screens used on PDA's and cellphones, are made to be read in situations with different lighting conditions. Even in complete darkness. They cause a lot of eye strain due to backlighting, if used for long periods of time.
E-readers which use E-Ink technology have no backlighting. They need ambient light to be read, just like plain paper. Due to no backlighting, they donīt induce the same eye strain as PDA's and cellphones.
Now 2 questions:
1) Do you intent to be reading e-documents for long periods of time? and,
2) Will you need to read the in complete darkness?
Based on answers to the questions above you can narrow your choices.
Take care!
Mutley