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Using The N810 - The Book Reader
Ever since I opened the N810’s box, I thought to myself “this screen is huge! I can’t wait to use it as an ebook reader!” You already know how much it took me to get my mobipocket ebooks to work on it. But I’m happy to see that they finally worked, although they don’t make use of the great big screen.
Another way to read ebooks is much more easy. The N810 comes with a built-in PDF reader. And actually it makes a great job of displaying those pdfs that I got. When I got it, I didn’t lose a second and immediately filled it with a great deal of PDFs. The first time I launched it, I was surprised by how fast and well it rendered the 5MB genetics ebook that I threw at it. Every page was displayed like on the desktop PC and all images and tables were exactly the same. I toggled to full screen mode, zoomed in and there I was, enjoying ebooks on a device as small as my hand.
I know many might think that S60 3rd devices come with an Adobe reader that does the same job, except that you won’t know the difference until you see it with your own eyes. The default landscape layout of the N810 as well as the 4.13″ screen make it possible to easily remove the need for horizontal scrolling, only vertical scrolling is needed to move to the rest of the page. This is a major benefit, and I absolutely loved the experience.
One more advantage was that I could stow away the stylus and only use my finger to flip pages forward or backwards, and move my finger around the page to drag it and scroll vertically. I mostly used the ebook reading experience to work on my thesis.
Back to ebooks, FBReader does a good job of displaying prc lit rtf chm and other formats, but I didn’t have the least positive feeling about it. I never dismiss an application this quickly, but I had to do it with FBReader. After reading that many users swore by it, I was immediately disappointed after opening it. The most important letdown was that I couldn’t turn pages without opening the keyboard and clicking the directional keys.
Now if yours come in .doc format you can use something like Adobe Acrobat Professional on the computer to convert them to pdf (results are impressive). One more resource is online reading which the N810 handles very well too.
What needs improvement
I use FBReader, and I don’t have to have the Keyboard open, or anything…just tap the top part of the screen to go back to previous pages, or the bottom half to go forward.
You can also use the zoom rocker switch on the device to move back and forward also.
Regarding converting .doc files to .pdf: while Acrobat is definitely an option, it does cost $450. Openoffice.org (what I use for text editing and exporting to pdf whenever needed) does the same thing for free. :)
Is there an autoscroll feature? I have read thousands of books on my palm devices, and love being able to autoscroll pixel by pixel, adjusting the speed as i read…
Kreg,
I tried tapping the screen on the N810 with FBReader, doesn’t seem to work :s
Vlad, that is also an option, but a friend of mine gave me Adobe Acrobat Pro, so I never looked into the price. That is a tid bit more than I expected (read: whoooooa!)
Scrolling.
I have and N800 but It is hard for me to believe that the scrolling is different. I regularly use FBreader. Your scrolling options are…
Tap the top half or bottom half of the screen to go up and down…I do find that this feature can be frustrating because you have to tap hard and fast to get it to work…it seems to be ballistic and sensitive to the speed and pressure.
Yes….the zoom buttons work.
But you can also map any button to do this and you can alter the mapping based on orientation. I have the directional pad set so that it does the large scroll when I click it up or down with respect to the orientation…..I use this most often, sometimes using landscape (like when sitting at a table or perching the device somethwhere) or in portrait most other times.
PS…Using PDFs is a last resort….I convert PDF to RTF or TXT and read in FBReader….the full screen and properly wrapping text…along with the variable font size, ability to soften the background color to be easier on the eyes….etc make FPReader a winner.
In the past 3-4 months I have probably read at least 5000 (book) pages….
Oh…set the options to act on button release! This prevents a bug where when you scroll a page it “catches” and just keep scrolling.
K
I too regularly use FBReader and find that rotating the screen and using the volume rocker to scroll up and down pages on the N800 is a very relaxed and natural way to read.
On the PDF front I have been using Evince to read most of my PDFs and it does support bookmarks and page thumbnails which address most of your concerns about the built in PDF viewer.
Here is a guide for setting up FBReader for the Nokia N800/810. The default settings are not the best.
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/08/29/fbreader-ten-easy-tips-for-e-book-users-who-want-to-switch-to-a-linux-handheld/
May 12th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
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