Okay, I know this is silly… but ever since Tenerife, I’ve been wondering about an e-reader. You see, if you’re hauling all your luggage on your back, less weight and less bulk counts. A lot. On the other hand, if you’re backpacking, you have marvelous experiences with nature all day long. But in the evening, you might be resting in a mountain hut, in a tent, or anywhere else removed from civilization (read: television). Which means that you best be packing whatever it is you need to wind down.rgeous views don’t necessarily cut it — I like reading!
Well, carrying more than 2 pockets wasn’t really an option. I read fast. Especially when there’s not much else to do. So 2 books don’t last a whole holiday. As such, I wondered… an e-reader could potentially contain thousands of books, and thousand is more than two.
For months, I’ve been going back and forth between the Kindle 3 3G and the Sony PRS 650. Both have awesome screens. The Sony’s firmware seems a tiny bit cooler (PDF reflowing, support for ePUB format), while the Kindle 3G is cool because it offers 3G access to Amazon’s Kindle store. Almost everywhere. Then again, Sony’s trinket has a touch screen. Oh my oh my, how to choose??
One issue cropped up: PDF reading. You see, I don’t often go backpacking. I travel for work more often, and I usually take a big stack of papers along to read. If I were to splash out on an e-reader, wouldn’t it be great if I could take all relevant papers with me everywhere and read them easily? Frankly, when I went backpacking, I considered taking a small stack too…
Both the above readers are 6 inch (15 and a bit cm). If you have a PDF with only text, the Sony thingy can zoom in and out (Kindle apparently not so much without conversion, and the conversion apparently sucks). But if there’s formulas, it starts to suck. Apparently on both. From the few colleagues I know who have one, all mentioned that they gave up on work-related reading. Damn.
It would probably feel like a half-solution. Grr. Not good enough.
Along comes Amazon to help me out. Sure, you cannot read ePub on Kindles. In general, it’s more locked in than other devices. But: now they have the shiny new eInk Pearl display in a whopping 9.7″ (24.6 cm — almost the 29.7 cm length of an A4) format! Welcome, Kindle DX Graphite 3G! Can’t wait till I get my hands on this wonderful item (it’s actually a gift — how lucky do I get to be??). So yeah, excited and curious… will it be cool? will it be too big or perfect?
Will let you know later!
PS: They got E-inks in colour? cool :) Not necessary though, but cool :)