PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#111

Post by vdp » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #101

jkestner wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little smaller, a lot cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp...

How is the PDF reading experience?

It's actually quite good if you "root" the device and install koreader[1](the original developer is the same guy who wrote the vnc viewer for kindle, that was mentioned in this thread), or its librerator fork[2]. In contrast to Amazon's practically unusable PDF reader, these open source projects support custom zoom levels, 2-column mode for academic articles etc. Another option is to use k2pdfopt[3].

[1] https://github.com/koreader/koreader

[2] https://github.com/kai771/kindlepdfviewer/tree/librerator

[3] http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#112

Post by levesque » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 2:48 PM UTC

jkestner wrote: post #99

WettowelReactor wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony has one that comes close: https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-digitalpaper/resource.sol...

A little smaller, a lot cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp...

Didn't even know those exist. Talk about failed marketing.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#113

Post by peatmoss » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #101

jkestner wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little smaller, a lot cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp...

How is the PDF reading experience?

Horrible. The screen refresh was fast enough, but the actual PDF rendering was grossly underpowered. I was reading technical articles with embedded plots that would take quite literally minutes to render.

I sold my DX (the "current" gen) and bought a 3rd Gen iPad the minute the retina display was released. I still pine for the eInk display though. I've half considered a hobby hack project that involves a Kindle DX brain transplant.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#114

Post by ytjohn » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 2:53 PM UTC

ArtB wrote: post #94

Is there an e-ink reader with a 8.5"x11"/A4 screen that'll display PDFs? All I want is to be able to bring all my tech ebooks with me to work and be able to look things up/brush up on things on the commute/flight etc.

If you can find an Entourage Edge 10" on ebay or somewhere, you would probably be set. I had the pocket edge version. These were very solid android dual-screen tablets - an e-ink and lcd display. The e-ink was also a digitizer, so you could use a stylus to take notes.

Sadly, being a hardware company is tough and the product line became unprofitable. The android version ended at 2.3, but it was sufficient to put on several readers. If your books were in a standard format, the built in reader worked fine. There was also community effort to either mirror the screens or force other reader apps onto the e-ink panel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnTourage_eDGe

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=218

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#115

Post by turbojerry » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

lhl wrote: post #37

A few years ago I used to pine for an E-Ink (or later, a Mirasol) display so that I could have sunlight-visible portable computing, but sadly the iPad basically wiped that market away. While the standalone monitor is neat, I think the biggest use-case would still be for a portable/outdoor terminal. That being said, with MEMS-IGZO devices finally coming from Sharp/Qualcomm (Pixtronix) this year (they've been showing i…

I have a Kyobo tablet with a Mirasol display, and while it is vastly underpowered and less than 6 inch display it's still pretty good for watching video on YouTube etc. in full sunlight. The only real drawback of the display is that whites can look silvery depending on how it, you, and the sun are angled.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#116

Post by totalrobe » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #95

I have an old kobo e-reader that's been in flight mode since day 1. It's amazing the difference I feel between reading on a tablet and an ereader. The ereader doesn't really feel like a "device," more like a book. On a tablet, I'm googling (Can you really ride from Winterfell to Kings Landing in a week? How fast do ravens fly? Lets see what the internet thinks.). They might be related to the book. They might not. Ema…

I was thinking this would be fantastic for reading textbooks or code documentation. My eyes get fatigued after reading for any length on a tablet or lcd, but a traditional ebook reader is far too slow and small for scanning through textbooks.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#117

Post by Jedd » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 3:22 PM UTC

ArtB wrote: post #94

Is there an e-ink reader with a 8.5"x11"/A4 screen that'll display PDFs? All I want is to be able to bring all my tech ebooks with me to work and be able to look things up/brush up on things on the commute/flight etc.

The PocketBook 912 (and I think a few other models) had a 9.7" (diagonal) display size, with the usual 16 shades of grey, and a reasonable, if not over-powered, CPU.

I have one, and use it for good purpose with a variety of text books. The ability (or constraint?) to not be distracted by colourful networky things is grossly underestimated, but even more so is the ability to stare at the thing for several hours, in a variety of lighting conditions, and not feel any type of eye-strain.

Horribly expensive at the time it came out, and probably rare as rocking horse poo now. Looking at the other responses to your question there is slim pickings for contemporary devices with these specs, sadly.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#118

Post by detaro » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #22

detaro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are looking for something for those purposes, some e-readers used rootable android as their OS, which would make displaying custom stuff relatively easy.

do you know of which ones exactly? I was looking into using an old kindle for such a think, but couldn't figure out a straightforward way of pushing data onto it

Sony PRS-Tx (I think all 3). Seems like they all used Gingerbread, but for simple apps (e.g. just pulling a web page or text) that should be ok.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#119

Post by coliveira » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 3:36 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #95

I have an old kobo e-reader that's been in flight mode since day 1. It's amazing the difference I feel between reading on a tablet and an ereader. The ereader doesn't really feel like a "device," more like a book. On a tablet, I'm googling (Can you really ride from Winterfell to Kings Landing in a week? How fast do ravens fly? Lets see what the internet thinks.). They might be related to the book. They might not. Ema…

I noticed that reading on a tablet with reverse colors (black background) has some of the same effect as e-ink. Since I started doing this I feel it is much easier to concentrate on the book. It is probably the fact that you're less exposed to light, even though you never get a completely black screen on a tablet.

Re: PaperLike: 13.3″ E Ink Monitor by Dasung Tech

#120

Post by nyrulez » Mon, Jan 26, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

shna wrote: post #7

After a long day at work, I get home with my eyes "burned". I sit on the couch and the ceiling lamp hurts my eyes. I turn it off and can only stand the dim light. I think this monitor is perfect for people like me. (Recently started using f.lux, it's helping though)

I use this at work: http://www.amazon.com/Gunnar-Optiks-PPK-03001-Advanced-Compa...

Works great for me!