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My ad-supported Kindle's buttons are dying, so I'm in the market for a new eBook reader. I figured the upcoming sales would be a good time to buy one. To my surprise, eBook readers seem to be regressing rather than advancing. My hard requirements are:
- e-Ink display
- Text-to-speech
- Don't need company's software to transfer books
And my preferred features include:
- Good PDF support (so a larger display with the same aspect ratio of a piece of paper). I want to read technical books on it, something I can't do with the Kindle.
- Stable software
- Doesn't spy on everything you do (Kindles track absolutely everything)
- Support for multiple voices. The same voice gets annoying after a few books.
I'm unable to find anything which fulfills all those conditions. Any recommendations? Before you say smartphone, it needs an e-Ink display. Are smartphones and tablets killing eBook readers?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I don't want a pickle,
I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.
And I don't want to die,
I just want to ride on my motorcy.
Cle.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 22 2016, @01:26PM
Only a slight derailment of the topic, I find it very easy to buy eink displays on ebay and so forth but interfacing to the real world seems stuck in 2013 if not before. And its almost 2017...
I was thinking of replicating this guys work:
http://essentialscrap.com/eink/ [essentialscrap.com]
For almost 20 years now I've been playing with variations on the concept of a digital picture frame. A super high res zero power eink is very appealing for art like Ansel Adams landscape photos but not so much a Monet for obvious color reasons. I wouldn't mind a near zero power dynamic self updating calendar. Or weather forecast. If I only look at it once a day but it displays 24x7 then being zero power e-ink thats not really a problem. Yes I know I can burn 50 watts on a LCD that runs 24x7 and the backlight will burn out in 4 years but I don't want to burn $200 of electricity over the time period. Besides e-ink won't keep my hallway lit up at night.
There are a handful of digital signage products that are awesome if you want to pay five to ten times the cost of a complete new kindle for a smaller display. Also there is an arduino shield (which I own and have F-d around with) that costs as much as a kindle and the display is the size of a postage stamp, well, technically smaller.
I'd like to buy a nice large kindle replacement screen from ebay for like $30 and attach a magic circuit board and feed in HDMI or VGA or have a microcontroller flip individual bits or ... The eink hardware is not as simple as some devices where you just apply Vcc and I2C lines and Gnd and you're done. There's like four voltages that have to be applied and pulsed in the right order (like a 4116 dram from 1979 or programming 2708 eproms in the same era). Its like a LCD without a controller yet somehow even worse.
Theoretically I'm not totally derailing the story as a "big ass arduino" connected to box-o-magic (that doesn't seem to exist) connected to a COTS e-ink display of your choice would make a nice homemade e-reader. Or if not nice, at least usable. What would make an interesting digital picture frame for me would make a possibly usable e-ink reader for OP, with wildly different hardware of course.
The problem with e-readers is we're in this weird stage where the market only offers for sale TV/VCR combo boxes and the market won't buy because they're all like F you mfgrs I want this display size with that backend electronics and that set of aux inputs and that other guys battery to the point that nobody buys anything because what few combos are out there suck, or the mfgr felt like it would be hilarious to silo and vendor lock in to hell and beyond etc.
I'd really enjoy a "just plug in this arduino shield and any ole e-ink display from ebay" experience but its not commercially available at this time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Tuesday November 22 2016, @02:02PM
Good Display makes those:
http://www.good-display.com/products_detail/productId=325.html [good-display.com]
http://www.good-display.com/products_detail/productId=326.html [good-display.com]
Look at my other comment for complete products using the 1600x1200 kit. You can find many of their kits in aliexpress.
Their 2.25" kit sells for 15$ so you can play around with it to see if it fits the bill.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday November 22 2016, @02:17PM
To expand on that, their dev boards go up to 7.5-8" (http://www.good-display.com/products_detail/productId=327.html http://www.good-display.com/products_detail/productId=329.html) [good-display.com] depending on how you're going to drive them.
For the 13.3" you're expected to do your own PMIC which isn't too bad considering you can pick up their 2.5" model and look how it's done there.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @07:50PM
If we go down this path I think this could make a very nice companion to an e-ink display. It will fulfill all the criteria listed. It's as free as computers get these days.
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-x200t [tehnoetic.com]