eReaders

[Rumckle]

So I'm thinking of getting an eReader, and seeing as though a few people around here have them/know about technology, I thought I'd ask your opinions on them. I was thinking of getting a Sony because I've heard that they are pretty good, but after the PSN hacking and TOS thing, I'm not certain, they do use third party online stores, but still...

So do any of you have advice? I mainly want it for textbooks and science papers (but I also would like to be able to buy eBooks), so I need to be able to easily upload PDFs to it, also I don't need 3G connectivity.

Thanks in advance

[Salty]

While the nook simple is AWESOME i can't recommend it for pdf and textbooks, though that's mostly what i use it for. The formatting is jarring, images don't load right. I have to use my PC to get an accurate feel for diagrams. I don't really mind since its mostly the text i wanna absorb and it works fine in a pinch, plus the battery life is awesome. But if that's what you mainly want it for, and don't mind much shorter battery life, and have the cash, the nook color is probably a better bet.

[Salty]

The nook simple also does not allow you to make notations.

[Faust]

I have the Sony reader, it is by far the slowest of all readers at rendering a page but will take a lot of different formats.
There are better alternatives out there then the sony one.

[Luna]

I have a Kindle, and adore it.  It will handle a .PDF file, however, it can be a pain in the ass to read.  (Example, I have a couple RPG books in .pdf format.  I tried 'em on the Kindle, to have them for easy reference, but they were all but impossible to use.  Finding anything was a royal pain, and the print wound up too small to read.)  The kindle will take a .mobi format, which you can convert a number of other formats into using a free program called calibre.

[Cain]

I also have a Kindle, it seems to work pretty well.

It is easy to upload PDFs, but they are not necessarily easy to read, as it will display one whole page on the screen, and then you will have to zoom in to be able to read it.  Not ideal.

You can use the free program, Calibre, as Luna suggests, and convert files to the .mobi format.  The one downside I've discovered with that is, for citation heavy pieces of work, after every citation, it tends to break and start a new line, which can be very annoying (Calibre may fix this, eventually.  The program is a work in progress, and continually improving).  On the other hand, it is very easy to highlight passages and write notes.

[Luna]

PDF to Mobi works fine for books, but for graphics heavy stuff (like RPG books, or, possibly, scientific texts with a shit-ton of illustrations and notations), it's a little more iffy.  Though, I haven't tried in a dozen or so upgrades of Calibre.  As Cain said, it's always updating and improving...  I'll have to give it another shot.

[Cain]

I've found it can handle some graphical rendering quite well...it depends on the quality of the source file, though.  RPG books are usually scanned, and so not ideal for that (I have some scanned obscure books on strategy, and they turned out awful).

For instance, I coverted The Storm of War, a recent history of WWII, which has a ton of maps of the various WWII campaigns.  Each one of them came out beautifully.  Couldn't really zoom in on them, which was slightly annoying, but they were detailed and the Kindle did not struggle with them.

[Luna]

I've found it can handle some graphical rendering quite well...it depends on the quality of the source file, though.  RPG books are usually scanned, and so not ideal for that (I have some scanned obscure books on strategy, and they turned out awful).

For instance, I coverted The Storm of War, a recent history of WWII, which has a ton of maps of the various WWII campaigns.  Each one of them came out beautifully.  Couldn't really zoom in on them, which was slightly annoying, but they were detailed and the Kindle did not struggle with them.

Quite possible it's the source file.  I haven't played with many of them, I mostly use my kindle for reading for pleasure, not so much classwork (though the year I found two of the three texts for a class on the kindle, I saved a BUNDLE.)

[Cain]

I'm pretty sure it is.  So long as the pdf is a relatively small file (1-20 MB in size) it seems to handle the conversion to .mobi and display on the Kindle really well.

Anything above that, and things get....iffy.

[bds]

i adore my Kindle. the UI on the device itself is well thought out and does a great job of getting out of the way, and there are a few cool hacks you can do regarding the screensavers (and there are different custom firmwares out there that apparently do a better job with some pdfs and such). the thing that I love about it the most is just how EASY and fast it is to buy a book, even just using the Amazon Store on the Kindle itself. the ease of use has certainly got me spending a lot more money on books than I used to

[Jasper]

My nook does everything I ask it to, but that's because I don't ask it to show me PDFs with graphics.  If you can stick to text-only PDFs, or better yet epub files, then it's good.

Still not a fan of the screen at the bottom, but it's not heinous.

[Salty]

I didn't know how the kindle handled PDF. In that case I'd say i favor the nook simple then. The text portions of the PDF gets broken down and formatted to fit the screen so no zooming is necassary. 

The e-ink touchscreen works very well.
I'm hoping future software updates will include notations.

[Triple Zero]

The e-ink touchscreen works very well.

How do you avoid getting e-ink all over your fingers?

[Salty]

I use refreshing moist wipes.