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best e-book reader?

Wraithbane said:
Maybe another ex-palm user could help me. I was using Plucker to read books on my Palm lifedrive, and I had an extensive library, 800+ or so, but they are in a .pdb extension that I cannot find a converter for. I found one that claimed to, but didn't work. Any help appreciated!
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I'd try the Mobileread forums for that if you don't have any luck here - if it can be done at all, somebody there will know. I wish I could help, but I never got into Plucker or iSilo.
 
Wraithbane said:
Maybe another ex-palm user could help me. I was using Plucker to read books on my Palm lifedrive, and I had an extensive library, 800+ or so, but they are in a .pdb extension that I cannot find a converter for. I found one that claimed to, but didn't work. Any help appreciated!
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Did you try iReader?
In it's feature list is Palm .pdb
Features list - iReader

Harry
 
Harry2 said:
Did you try iReader?
In it's feature list is Palm .pdb
Features list - iReader

Harry
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.pdb is the generic Palm database extension, kind of a wrapper. They probably mean it reads Ereader files and/or PalmDOC files, both of which are more commonly found than Plucker format.

Aha, here it is:
iReader can only support three PDB foramts now:
  • Standard palm document, includes compress and uncompress type.
  • zTxt PDB, compress text data with zip format.
  • Mobi PDB, compress html file data. iReader can not support DRM protected Mobi book.
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So no Ereader format or Plucker. FWIW, Mobi .pdb's are pretty rare - most are .prcs. I think Baen uses .pdb for their mobi files though. zTxt seems to be the old Weasel Reader format.
 
I did a bit of digging and it looks like the full desktop Plucker package contains a utility "unpluck" which may be helpful. However, I don't know whether your files have DRM, which would no doubt throw a monkey wrench into the works. But hopefully unpluck will give something that can be fed into Calibre and converted to .epub. I have also seen an obsolete tool called "explode" mentioned. Mobileread is probably the best bet for further info. There appears to have been talk over there about including a Plucker converter in Calibre but I don't know the status of that.
 
I use aldiko because it was the first one i tried and works great on my desire, however my g/f has a San Francisco and aldiko is very very sluggish on that thing.

So trying alternates, a MUST is that it can connect to my Calibre library epubs over the net so you can get a new book when you're out and about and finish one.

I added the library to Laputa OK but it lists no books whenever you go into a category to d/l one (by author, by title etc) this happens on both phones.

shame!

FBreeder works fine with the calibre library but the interface is pretty lo-fi and not the prettiest.

Going to try ereader, ireader etc.

Edit: ireader doesnt do online catalogs.

starbooks sees the catalog, loads the list, then fails to download them :(

eReader doesnt do custom catalogs.

wordoholic loads the catalog then says connection error.
 
Heinz said:
The public library books are DRM protected. There are only 2 ways (to my knowledge) to read them on an Android. One is via txtr conversion (which maintains the protection). A bit of an effort required to get the conversion, but one has then access to the public library (on loan) books. Hence, I am looking for txtr apk, because i have no access to the market.

Overdrive is working on another solution, and I hope they have it working soon.

Other readers cannot handle protected ePub books.
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Overdrive has their OverDrive Media Console available for downloading epub ebooks from public libraries, I just downloaded it on my Fascinate. Seems to work pretty well so far.
 
EDIT!!!!

Moon+ Pro Beta is amazing!

faster than calibre, status bar at the bottom (tiny one) with battery level and time and book %.
you can scroll line by line vertically (or turn it off) has text to speech, loads of really nice themes (more than just changing the font and background colour.

so many options you can customise.

so long aldiko, and thanks for all the fish!
 
Kindle every time :-) Huge selection of books, whispersync, cross-platform, and when you eventually get eye strain reading on your phone you can buy a Kindle (easily the best ebook hardware) and instantly have all your books just where you left them.

I started with Kindle for iPhone then got a Kindle (which I adore) and now if I get stuck someplace without a book my Desire HD app opens wherever I left my Kindle at - awesome :-) If you travel then the worldwide 3G on the Kindle is well worth having as well.
 
wayrad said:
I did a bit of digging and it looks like the full desktop Plucker package contains a utility "unpluck" which may be helpful. However, I don't know whether your files have DRM, which would no doubt throw a monkey wrench into the works. But hopefully unpluck will give something that can be fed into Calibre and converted to .epub. I have also seen an obsolete tool called "explode" mentioned. Mobileread is probably the best bet for further info. There appears to have been talk over there about including a Plucker converter in Calibre but I don't know the status of that.
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Just wanted to tell you thanks again, I sincerely appreciate all the info you've given me!
 
Wraithbane said:
Just wanted to tell you thanks again, I sincerely appreciate all the info you've given me!
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You're very welcome, and good luck! It would be a shame to have to repurchase that many books.

PS. I just realized I put the words "package" and "explode" in the same post. Thank goodness I'm not planning to fly anywhere. ;)
 
I have only had my Android phone for a few weeks, but the first thing I did was to copy my current books to it and find a book reader app. I downloaded Cool Reader and so far it has been great. It reads my .mobi books just fine and handles a good number of other formats. I notice FB Reader only lists a couple of formats, Cool Reader seems much better to me.

On Cool Reader I can tap the left side to go back a page or right side to go to the next page, but I also found I could use the volume up/down buttons too. I still have my clock & battery meter showing up the top of the screen, which is pretty useful. I can set the brightness for this app in its settings as well as background & text colour. In fact, every option I wanted to set was available. I'll be keeping this app on my phone even if I load others!
 
I still haven't seen anything better than moonreader.

Being able to turn on voice and have my phone read a book to me while Im doing something else is killer.
 
Gareee said:
I still haven't seen anything better than moonreader.

Being able to turn on voice and have my phone read a book to me while Im doing something else is killer.
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OOOOOooooooooooooooooooo :eek: How's the voice? It's like an audio-book then but you have an ebook instead?
 
If you install the free alternate svox classic speech synthesis, and get the $2 grace american english voice, my wife says it sounds better than some of her audio books.

(We use svox grace for all our droidx speech applications. Why they don't just include that instead of the crap default voice tech is beyond me.)

That said, if you are reading sci-fi or fantasy, its probably going to mangle some place or people names, but that is kind of expected.

That was one of the big features I wanted moonreader for.. ebooks to audio books. Now if only moonreader supported pdfs. 8(
 
Gareee said:
If you install the free alternate svox classic speech synthesis, and get the $2 grace american english voice, my wife says it sounds better than some of her audio books.

(We use svox grace for all our droidx speech applications. Why they don't just include that instead of the crap default voice tech is beyond me.)

That said, if you are reading sci-fi or fantasy, its probably going to mangle some place or people names, but that is kind of expected.

That was one of the big features I wanted moonreader for.. ebooks to audio books. Now if only moonreader supported pdfs. 8(
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would this be correct: How to Use? | SVOX Mobile Voices

I guess that replaces all of the audio voices like Google Nav as well? (hate that voice)
 
Yep. if you set svox as the default voice, its used for everything. They have many languages to choose from, and the voice quality is outstanding. Like any text to voice, there is still some mispronunciation, but its SO much better than the stock voice we can forgive that.

They even have things like a ghost voice, a dark sppoky voice, and of course both male and female voices. I picked up the american english female voice, and the british female english voice. I swap back between them every now and then for variety, but the american voice pronounces more what we expect to hear, I think.

There are also options to adjust pitch and speed on svox to suit your tastes.
 
I'm new to e-books, and since I expect to be buying books rather than running around all over the web searching for free books or looking through individual publisher archives, I figure Amazon Kindle is the obvious choice?
I definitely like it so far on my Galaxy S 2 ,where I'm half way through a Peter F. Hamilton sci-fi novel so far.
 
You don't need to hunt the web for free books.. most of the ebook readers come with the ability to download thousands of free domain books. Of course if you are buying them through amazon anyway, using the kindle app makes sense.

They are behind though, feature wise.
 
I downloaded Moon Reader and there are certainly some books in those freely available archives I would like to read at some point (plus the reader software itself has more features than Kindle, but for the main purpose, reading text, Kindle does what I need it to do quite well). But free books - typically old classics that are now public domain - at most make up a fraction of the literature I'll be interested in reading most years or months.

If I wanted to use another ebook reader - say Moon Reader - for books I've purchased elsewhere, eg. Amazon, can those be imported directly or through some kind of conversion software?
 
I think amazon's are kindle only.. since I don't buy them from amazon, I honestly don't know. Maybe someone else can chime in on that?
 
I am new to using an Android tab I want to download a book reader I do not know which to choose I need something easy to use and easy to download books also able to change page colour from white to like a cepia also one that will mark the page when closing app as I said I am very new to this :(:(
 
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