Add a low power e-ink kind of screen to consumer tablets and the advantage of dedicated ebook readers becomes close to nil. Price excepted.

IMO e-Reader is far more superior than tablet if the books you want to read is OK in B&W. However that's not the case with photography books (for me)... I like to pass time by reading and applying photography techniques and reading those books in color display is 1000x more enjoyable.

What Doug said. All those features will increase price/weight and lower battery life.

As an aside, I recently bought an original Nook (refurb, $90). It's working pretty well for me, but one thing I really wish I had was zoom on PDF. Not sure which of the newer ones have that, but on mine reading good old books from google's free archive makes for a little eye strain.

Hi John,

Kindle does zoom on PDFs, but I don't know about the Nook.

Cheers,

Rick

<del></del>

Edited by asdzxc57 on 01/29/2012 13:18:59 MST.

no pdf zoom can and will be a detriment to reading maps in some cases

I chose the sony prrs350 ereader when I lost my previous ereader.
just weighed it at 5.4oz. With the case with integrated light + rechargeable 2aaa it weighs 10oz total , battery life on the light last easily over ten thousand pages for me (= not an issue).
Compared to the other ereaders, it only has a 5in screen but it is the lightest and most pocketable ereader.
It has the latest pearl display so the refresh is as fast as anything available out there.
Battery life should be measured in page turns (refresh) and with all the wireless stuff turned off you all can read several novels before recharging.
The sony accepts pdf, epub, and you can easily convert purchases from amazon (kindle format).


The touch screen on the sony isnt as nice

Compared to tablets ( I had the ipad, currently have the ipad2 and an asus transformer - get tablets with IPS screens), well you can't. They have different purposes for the most part.Another thing not mentioned is the difference in weight.

ipod touch

I just got my wife the Kindle 3 and its great to read on. Much easier to read on then any tablet I have picked up.

As far as tablets go...they cost more or just as much as a laptop. I dont see myself ever getting a tablet when I can get a laptop for less. Plus I carry an android phone if i ever need some quick browsing etc...

i got a sony prs 350 on ebay for just over $100 delivered. nice!

it's fantasticly light and small. will easily fit in the side pocket of my pack where i typically keep my maps (hopefully i won't lose it).

i took a screenshot from mytopo from kyle's wenthiking.com printed it to pdf and pushed it to the sony reader. it zooms and pans great!
i was afraid i'd have to put the various pieces of maps on different pages. i'm sure i'll do that for large maps, but for just one hike i'm sure i'll just create a giant pdf "page" and zoom/pan around.

only issue i see is lack of color (hard to distinguish water), but we knew that already.


AA battery for scale.

i'm psyched.

Edited by er0ck on 06/16/2011 15:07:15 MDT.

I just recently purchased the kindle (no ads) wifi edition and weighed it at 7.7 ounces. I loaded a few e-books in mobi format that really look great in direct sunlight, etc.. I also loaded the thru-hikers guide pdf and two maps I have in pdf format and they both look clear and you can zoom in on them if needed.

I have a cellphone that I pay a stupidly high fee on for the internet, games, blah..... the e-reader give me simplicity and actually weighs less then the paperback I am currently reading. I think I will bring it on my next 2-3 day trip and see how durable it is in a ziplock bag in my pack.

Edited by Jay_NJ on 06/16/2011 17:43:17 MDT.

Hey sorry to bump this thread, but I'm picking up the new Nook Simple Touch and was excited to take it out backpacking next spring. I was wondering what you guys thought would be the best kind of lightweight case for these e-readers? Just a neoprene sleeve/nothing/a lightweight hard case? I kinda don't know the direction to go on a lightweight case for the e-reader cuz I would just throw the e-reader in my backpack and I'm a little afraid of doing that as it might get broken that way. I know you guys always have the best solutions, so I wanted to tap that creative side. Thanks!

I protect my Nook with a bubble wrap envelope. They last several month and just add the right amount of protection without adding to much bulk, are free and weigh next to nothing.

When you take your Nook on trips with cooler temperatures (aprox <10°C), you have to warm it before switching it on - else you get a "Can't switch on because battery is empty" message or it doesn't switch on at all. At least this is the case with my Simple Touch reader. Apparently they use a very thin Lipo battery inside that is very sensitive to temperature.
Once switched on it keeps running, even when cooling down - but I didn't use it in very cold conditions yet.

You can download almost every USGS topo map for free from their website as a pdf. I do this and cut out smaller sections to print for dayhikes. It would be really useful to be able to carry the entire map on a reader. The only downside would be if you were truly lost and needed to look at larger areas to rule out where you weren't, but nobody on this site would ever get that lost, would they? ;-)

good idea andy!

i tend to take screenshots from mappingsupport.com (i prefer mytopo in most cases to usgs), and then print small-ish pdf pages from those (otherwise they are slow to load in my sony e-reader).

i have yet to fully figure out how to create multiple pages of my intended hike in one pdf doc, but that's what i'll try to do next time...

The new basic kindle is now down to 5.98 oz.

Adding touchscreens, keyboards, 3g, etc. adds a little weight.

Eric, it may be easiest to make multiple copies of the original pdf file, crop each for each day and then recombine those into one pdf file using free software.

Okay, someone has to bring up smartphones as an alternative in this thread, so it might as well be me ... :-)

Seriously, I certainly agree that dedicated eReader hardware has its place in normal life, but backpacking? Give me the best multi-function device. Since I already also want to carry a cell phone and a camera and maybe a GPS, why not combine these functions along with book reader, internet access, MP3 player ... you've likely seen this list of funtionality before, but perhaps worth repeating.

A modern smartphone is a pocket computer that happens to also function as a phone. The suite of apps available on it is likely to beat out what any dedicated reader hardware can do, indeed until these are supplanted by more general purpose tablets. And then a smartphone with a decent screen is going to be a better choice for backpacking due to the overall size, weight, and perhaps durability on trail issues.

My Droid X worked great on the CDT for all of these things, to include as a book reader in the last month or so when nights got pretty long (limited daylight hours). It has a 4.3" screen, so really not a bad book reading experience IMO. But I'm also content to read on the 3.2" screen on my new phone, one I just got because Verizon charges me too much to use my Droid X at home (!).

So when you're thinking about a book reading device, do think "multi-function device" and consider going the smart phone (or even the smaller-variant tablet) route.

i believe we covered some of this previously in the thread.

two words: battery life

otherwise i'd totally agree with you,and it's a good point.
on trips of two days or less i just bring my cell phone