Reading technical books on eReader - advice

7 points by trusko 14 years ago | 9 comments

I am playing with the idea of buying ereader - Kobo, Sony, Kindle ...

I was wondering which reader would be the best for the job. I assume some of the books would be PDF, mayber convert them to epub.

Anybody to share experience? Is it worth or just stick to reading on laptop?

Thanks

swanson 14 years ago |

I put technical books into two camps: reference books and prose.

Reference books are like the "Python, the Definitive Guide" or "Web Development with Rails" and contain lots of code samples and snippets. Prose books are like Pragmatic Programmers or Joel on Software - they may contain some code, but the meat of the book is the narrative content.

For reference books, eReaders fail in my option (I've tried with kindle2/3) because of formatting and sizing issues. But for prose books, they are awesome and I prefer it to a pdf on a laptop. Another problem with reference books is that I like to be able to quickly flip through to find a specific passage - this is not easy on most eReaders (though you can try searching). I also miss having the physical copy around my desk as well, there is less chance for a coworker to notice the book and ask to borrow/discuss it.

Most technical publishers offer epub/mobi downloads of ebooks - I know Oreilly and Pragmatic both do firsthand; I've had decent success converting PDF to mobi with Calibre if you need to it yourself.

trusko 14 years ago | |

That's exactly what I was afraid of - skipping pages in reference books. Thanks for you response, I appreciate it.

mhartl 14 years ago |

I'm actively working on this problem, first with the Ruby on Rails Tutorial (http://railstutorial.org/) and eventually in general. Stay tuned: http://feeds.feedburner.com/railstutorial

trusko 14 years ago | |

I am not sureif this message wasn't misplaced. What problem? Converting PDFs?

mhartl 14 years ago | | |

The problem is that technical books suck on most e-readers. Try converting a technical PDF to, say, ePub and you'll see what I mean.

ActVen 14 years ago |

I bought the Kindle DX specifically for this purpose. The size and general text comes out well for Kindle format books. However, the PDF experience is really lacking. You can zoom in on the pages and exhibits, but it is not intuitive. If you have a PDF that has significant margins on it, it really starts to lose its appeal. I have found myself using an iPad pdf reader or my laptop quite a bit more than the Kindle DX for reading PDFs. Having a color screen also really helps for the code sections. I probably wouldn't have bought the DX if I knew what I know now about its abilities within the PDF sphere. It does a great job with ebook formats, but my books are split 50/50 between PDF and ebook formats.

adient 14 years ago |

Because I do not like the way e-ink displays look (such as the Kindle), I bought the Nook Color. To me, it is smaller and lighter than the iPad, but large enough to comfortably read books normally printed on large pages. For technical books, I paid $1 for the ezPDF reader app. Also, it has a browser (and other features you would expect in a tablet), so I can also easily read books on sites such as Safari, in addition to other sites if I want. Also it is quite affordable. Highly recommended for this purpose.

hopeless 14 years ago |

I'm in the same boat. I probably have 20 programming ebooks in PDF form that I'd love to read properly. I also have the same number of photography books. Because of the photography books I'm considering an iPad but really want to wait for a retina screen iPad 3

So maybe a cheap Kindle is the answer in the meantime. I'm not enthusiastic about ePub even though some of my books would have ePub versions. The books just don't seem as nice to read, and I can't imagine they deal with code sections very well?

trusko 14 years ago | |

The same here. I have tons of books in PDF that I read at the same time. I was told that eReaders are really easy on eyes as opposed to iPad. Cost is also a factor. eReaders are typically not more than $200 (canadian) while iPad is still more than that. I understand that it provides more functionality, but I am really looking for just a reader.