Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops (More info?)
I'm getting a mite tired of reading ebooks off the computer, and am looking for a palmtop suitable for use as a bookreader. This means good screen resolution, long lasting battery power, a reasonable amount of storage (I might consider as low as 8M, but would actually prefer more), an easy way to connect to my PC (I'm pretty sure I can handle WiFi or USB, not as sure about Bluetooth), and the ability to read HTML would be nice, but it's not that hard to convert to Word or plain text on the main computer before downloading to the unit. It should also fit in my pocket, and not cost above $400 (lower would be MUCHLY preferred - and I really don't need games and spreadsheets and things.)
Anybody got any suggestions?
-- Kay Shapero
Domain address munged - use earthlink dot net to the right of the at if you want to email me.
http://www.kayshapero.net/
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops (More info?)
Kay Shapero <kayshapero@see.my.sig.invalid> wrote in news:MPG.1b9d56b8cf2f46589896b5@news.west.earthlink.net:
> I'm getting a mite tired of reading ebooks off the computer, and am > looking for a palmtop suitable for use as a bookreader. This means good > screen resolution, long lasting battery power, a reasonable amount of > storage (I might consider as low as 8M, but would actually prefer more), > an easy way to connect to my PC (I'm pretty sure I can handle WiFi or > USB, not as sure about Bluetooth), and the ability to read HTML would be > nice, but it's not that hard to convert to Word or plain text on the main > computer before downloading to the unit. It should also fit in my > pocket, and not cost above $400 (lower would be MUCHLY preferred - and I > really don't need games and spreadsheets and things.)
> > Anybody got any suggestions?
> > Any of the high-resolution Palms will work. If that's mostly what you plan to use it for, and never expect to connect any other peripherals, then the Tungsten E would do nicely. It only has a slave USB port, and no universal connector and thus no serial port, which is a major limitation to me, but you may not need those. Most Palm models are well under $400 and will work well as ebook readers. They won't read html directly, but Plucker will do the conversion quickly and very well. I get all my ebooks in html format if I can, and use Plucker to read them. eReader, formerly PalmReader, has lots of ebooks in that format available, probably more than in html. But if you want to convert your existing html ebooks, then Plucker will do it easily.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops (More info?)
In article <MPG.1b9d56b8cf2f46589896b5@news.west.earthlink.net>,
Kay Shapero <kayshapero@see.my.sig.invalid> wrote:
> I'm getting a mite tired of reading ebooks off the computer, and am > looking for a palmtop suitable for use as a bookreader. ...............
And excellent idea. You can hold a PDA as close to your eyes as you desire. Much more difficult with a laptop :-)
> ....................................................... This means good > screen resolution, long lasting battery power, ......................
Just about any Palm will provide a suitable screen and the ability to read ebooks. Longer battery life is more difficult. You might do better with an older generation Palm, like the Palm 515. Or a Gray Scale (Black&White) Palm as the color screens eat power.
If it wasn't for the fact that Sony is getting out of the PDA business, I would strongly recommend the Sony CLIE TH55 (what I currently have).
It has an excellent battery life and I can read ebooks for hours and hours without worrying about having to stick it in the charger.
> ............................................., a reasonable amount of > storage (I might consider as low as 8M, but would actually prefer more),
8MB can be enough to hold 2 to 5 ebooks (depending on size) and the utilities to read them. I used an 8MB Handspring Visor Edge for 3 years. I had to keep loading in new books as I finished reading a book.
A memory card will allow you to put tons of ebooks on your PDA. You can get a 64MB or 128MB memory card for fairly cheap.
My current PDA has 32MB of internal memory and 128MB Memory Stick. The Memory stick has about 30 ebooks on it.
> an easy way to connect to my PC (I'm pretty sure I can handle WiFi or > USB, not as sure about Bluetooth), .....................................
USB is the normal way to sync your Palm with your PC (or Mac).
http://palmone.com provides the Palm Desktop software.
And if you get a memory card, you can use a USB flash card reader to plug in your PC and then mount the memory card on your PC as an external disk and just copy ebooks to/from the memory card using your PC normal file copy facilities (drag and drop).
> ................................), and the ability to read HTML would be > nice, but it's not that hard to convert to Word or plain text on the main > computer before downloading to the unit. ........................
"Documents to Go" will read WORD files.
Text files can be converted to a format suitable for reading on a Palm, such as a utility to create eReader (PalmReader).
"Adobe Reader for Palm OS" will convert PDF files on your PC and the Adobe Reader, also provided, will read the converted files on your Palm.
Utilities such as Plucker, iSilio, and others will allow you to grab web pages and read them off-line on your PDA, as well as convert HTML formatted documents (I've done this with a few books available on-line as HTML).
And I should point out that there are PDA ebook formats, which you can find examples of as well as readers for those formats at places like http://ereader.com and http://mobireader.com, as well as others.
One plug for http://baen.com/library for a collection of free Sci-Fi ebooks. I am sure a lot of other people will toss in their favorite ebook web site.
> ........................................ It should also fit in my > pocket, and not cost above $400 (lower would be MUCHLY preferred - and I > really don't need games and spreadsheets and things.)
Most of the Palm models will fit in your pocket (for a flexible definition of "Your Pocket" :-)
And most Palms will fit into the $400 budget you have specified, even if you decide to spend a bit of money on accessories and some commercial software like "Documents to Go"
Good luck. I've been reading 2 to 4 ebooks a month for the past 3 years. I enjoy it very much. In fact, it is time to head off to bed and do some reading.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops (More info?)
In article <harris-F8B6AD.00123031082004@cacnews.cac.cpqcorp.net>, harris@zk3.dec.com says...
> > One plug for http://baen.com/library for a collection of free Sci-Fi > ebooks. I am sure a lot of other people will toss in their favorite > ebook web site.
>
Yeppers; I got most of these books either from the Baen Free Library or their Webscriptions service (though usually I just buy one book at a time since they rarely have more than one a month that I actually want.) Talk about instant gratification - see the book, buy the book (at less than it'd cost me in dead tree edition; certainly in the case of the hardbacks!), download the book and READ the book without having to leave the computer. Though to be sure I do want to leave the computer which is why we're having this conversation. :->
Thanks muchly - between the folks in here and the ones on csp.palm I've got a lot of info and shouldn't have much trouble finding palmtop and software.
-- Kay Shapero
Domain address munged - use earthlink dot net to the right of the at if you want to email me.
http://www.kayshapero.net/
