Getting an eReader

[gato]

What advantages do you see for Nook and Sony Reader over the Kindle?

Lots of local Chinese are happily using the Kindle, both the Wifi and the 3G version. I've read that the free 3G on the Kindle works well in China. Some people have been asked by Amazon to verify their US residency after trying to buy a book via 3G in China, but otherwise, it seems fine.

You can read about it in this Kindle discussion on Douban:

http://www.douban.com/group/Kindle/

[knickherboots]

gato: thanks for the douban link.

There are only two things I don't like about the Kindle: no access to EPUB format texts and no touchscreen.

I plan to get one or more library cards from U.S. libraries and would like easy access to the ebooks they have available to borrowers. The inability to use the Kindle to read such books is a common complaint. There may be a workaround, but I'm aiming for ease of access and am a bit of a technophobe. Also, I like to support systems that are as open as possible, and I don't like hardware that bundles content. Although neither Barnes & Noble nor Sony allow access to texts in a commercial competitor's proprietary format, they at least allow access to EPUB.

The touchscreen is a less important issue of aesthetics. The nook and Sony apparently feature touchscreens that work pretty well, and for all the positive things said about the Kindle, I haven't come across positive comments about the keypad.

[gato]

You can use the open source program Calibre to convert any EPUB file to Kindle's MOBI format. It's super easy, and you can even do it in batch using a .BAT file in Windows.

I've converted hundreds of EPUB files to MOBI using this little .BAT file to call Calibre (ebook-convert is a command prompt program included with Calibre):

for %%f in (*.epub) do (
echo %%f
ebook-convert %%f .mobi --output-profile kindle
)

[dreamon]

Does anyone have experience with HanLin eReader, which I saw being touted as the Chinese answer to the Kindle? What are the pros and the cons of, say, HanLin V60 versus Kindle 3? How about HanLin V90 - it is bigger but much heavier than V60 - is it still portable, does size improve reading experience? Is a large size a near-requirement for a comfortable reading of PDFs? Thank you.

(What, I just signed up - and it's already a year? So the forum isn't that old?)

[knickherboots]

gato: I did read about the Calibre conversion somewhere, and your point is well taken. We ended up getting a 3G Kindle and will see how well it works here in China.

[gougou]

So I finally ended up getting a Kindle too. (I still love my Desire, and will still use it for reading when I don't wanna be carrying anything extra, but I wanted to be able to go outside and read.)

Is that Dooland site still working for anybody? What other sources do you use to get Chinese reading material?

[Silent]

Does anyone know where to find an overview of ereaders that support Chinese? Preferably in English as my Chinese is not yet up to speed. For most models I come across I've a hard time figuring out which languages are supported.

Any suggestions about what to buy? I prefer a relatively cheap one above all kinds of fancy features as I'm not sure how much I will use it.

Must haves: Chinese support, eInk or comparable screen technology, epub support

Nice to haves:Chinese dictionary, mp3 support, SD card slot, chargeable through usb

I'm thinking about the Sony reader PRS-T1 as it seems to have the features I want, is reasonable priced and has positive reviews. I'm not sure how well the Chinese support is. Has someone experience with this model.

[tongzilin33]

Hello everybody! (this is my 1st post)

I found Gato's Post from February 6th very interesting.

He wrote:

"If having a built-in Chinese-to-English dictionary is critical to you, you might want to consider getting a e-ink reader by the Chinese company Hanwang: http://www.360buy.co...uct/262884.html"

As I understand, now in November 2011, there is still no way to get such a function (built-in Chinese-to-English dictionary) from an ink-based kindle. So my question is whether anybody has experience with using a chinese 电纸书. I would be especially curious to learn about how (and how well) the integrated dictionary works, in fact a chinese-chinese dictionary would also be fine as long as it has pinyin for individual characters like in a normal 字典.

[Silent]

I've been considering getting a Chinese reader but decided against it as it is more hassle (long waiting for delivery and my Chinese is not up to speed) and I've seen quite a few incorrect specs posted on Chinese sites for models I do know. It makes me doubt what I will be buying if buying a model I don't know.

Still not decided on which one I want to buy. Few sites provide info on language support and many suppliers don't care to answer questions about language support. For Iriver sources are consistently stating it supports Chinese. Bebook has informed me that all their models support Chinese and that custom dictionaries can be installed. http://xdxf.sourceforge.net/ has a collection of dictionaries. I guess we should convince them to add the cc-cedict as the present Chinese dictionary looks a bit tiny.

[c6ray]

dreamon said on 28 March 2011

Does anyone have experience with HanLin eReader,

I have an Astak 5" EZ Reader Pocket Pro, which is American licensed version of 翰林V5. It is not working right now, but I'm going to try a new battery. If you want to read Chinese books other than .pdf, then you must change the device to Chinese interface (there is a menu item for this,) otherwise all the Chinese books are titled [][][][][][][][].pdf in the catalog. But when the device is switched to Chinese, you can read GB encoded text files. And there is even text to speech of Chinese .pdf files. There is no dictionary function. The ereader appears as usb thumb drive to your computer.

[roddy]

Anyone getting any of the new Kindles (I now have the cheapo non-touch keyboardless one, although as I'm in the UK it wasn't that cheapo) might want to bear in mind they aren't yet jailbroken, so you can't install your own fonts or screensavers or so on.

[Matty]

I can understand the wanting to change the screensavers, but i'm curious what font you would want to change it to?

[flameproof]

I bought a Sony PRS-T1 - which is a brilliant e-ink eReader - but doesn't support Chinese characters without either complex ePub formatting, or rooting. So if you want an out-of-the-box Chinese eReader then Sony PRS-T1 is not the one to buy.

PS: eReaders don't need a screensaver. When OFF the Sony will switch to the book cover page I currently read.

Important update for Sony PRS-T1 users (and probably other Sony ereaders too)!

Then can usually not display Chinese EPUB files out of the box, but it's quite easy to to edit the EPUB file in a way to make it work.

1. Get 'Calibre' (http://calibre-ebook.com )

2. Open with ePub with 'Tweak ePub'

3. Find the *.CSS file inside the ePub

4. Add this at the end of the CSS:

@font-face {
  font-family: "DroidSans", serif, sans-serif;
  src:url(res:///ebook/fonts/DroidSansFallback.ttf);
  }

5. Press 'Rebuild ePub' and move the file back to your ereader

The PRS-T1 should now be able to display Chinese characters for that (and only that!) particular ePub file.

[Silent]

I searched for an e-reader a while back too and came to the conclusion that it's hard to get decent info on Chinese support.

The info I got: Bebook, Iriver and Pocketbook support Chinese out of the box.

On questions about a chinese dictionary Iriver says it's not supported, Bebook says it is, but when I try it doesn't work, it's not described in the manual and a request for an explanation/manual is not answered.

For now I've decided to stay with my netbook and pop-up dictionary despite the lesser reading comfort as I really need a decent dictionary functionality and my Chinese is too poor to check properly on Chinese websites. I saw however that those can be very tricky as on several Chinese sites they provided incorrect specs for e-readers (e.g. they say eInk while it has a lcd screen)

[roddy]

Fonts I wouldn't change, but some might want to. It is possible with the Kindle Keyboards. Screensavers aren't necessary for eInk, but the Kindles do bring up what might be more accurately called a 'sleep screen' when they're idle. It's nice to be able to put your own on, but Amazon don't let you.

As for dictionaries - I've got into the habit of reading with my phone next to the Kindle so I can quickly look stuff up if I need to. To be honest, given the way ereaders work best for reading and only reading, I can't see any really decent dictionary applications on an ereader. A quick definition check, sure, but clicking through to other definitions, adding to flashcards, zooming in on complex characters?

[Ted C.]

I have no experience with Kindles, but I've read a Chinese EPUB on a Kobo reader.