Recommended tablets and e-readers

[Teango]

I notice that some people use e-readers and tablets for reading books and pdfs in second languages, and I'd be interested to hear which devices work well for you?

Truth be told, I'm a big fan of traditional "dead tree" media (especially light paperbacks), but I use an old iPad 2 tablet from time to time to read pdfs (e.g., podcast transcripts, adapted e-books, articles) rather than print out mountain ranges of pages. I'm not a big fan, however, of reading novels on my phone, as I don't want to savor the words of Tolstoy through a microscopic window. This has led me to considering buying an e-reader out of curiosity and convenience...

Drawing on my own experiences, I'd say the upside of using tablets is that pages maintain their color and definition, navigation between and within pages in a pdf is a joy (i.e., rendered quickly, beautifully, and almost seamlessly), and it's very convenient to line up mp3s on the same device and play them through a shortcut menu while reading the corresponding text. The downside of using a tablet is that the device is quite heavy to hold over longer periods (my iPad is approx. 21oz), the battery runs a bit hot and doesn't last long, and the constant glare of the screen can be somewhat wearisome on the eyes no matter which settings I choose.

What attracts me to trying out e-readers is that they are reputedly much lighter (e.g., a top of the range Kindle is 4.6oz), they last longer between recharges, and can be read in normal daylight without additional backlighting and consequent eye strain. However the smaller size is still an issue for me (e.g., the screen on my iPad is 9.7" across the diagonal, compared to an average 6" on e-readers), pdfs render horribly with 1980s-esque delays (after all, electronic ink takes time to do its thing), and a lot of models fail to offer suitable in-built audio support for reading while listening.

So to reiterate the initial question, which electronic devices (other than phones) work well for you for reading books and pdfs in second languages, and in particular, are there any good e-readers currently out there that you could recommend?

[galaxyrocker]

Personally, I love my Kindle Fire. I have one of the older edition ones, but it works perfect for all my needs, and I don't think they've gotten rid of any features. For me, the biggest thing is having access to the Scribd app; Scribd contains pretty much every Irish language ebook released, and I can't use the app on anything but the Fire. Plus it allows you to read Kindle books and PDFs as well. And it's smaller than a general tablet, so more portable which is a plus as I take it just about everywhere.

[DangerDave2010]

I've just got an old keyboard kindle for free. After an initial period of disbelief, I've got quite addicted to it. I convert everything I want to read to TXT. If the text has Arabic script I need to convert it a custom layout PDF. This works very well.

Reading third party PDF files, however, would probably be unbearable, unless it is typeset for a paper size similar to the size of the screen, for zooming and scrolling work very badly.

[DaveBee]

I have a 4th generation kindle, I've stopped using it in preference for the Readlang website. That's just because its quicker to look up words by a mouse click.

Before I came across Readlang, I was thinking of buying a Kindle Paperwhite. It seems to have a touch screen (quick dictionary lookups) and a 'vocabulary builder', which looks to be flashcards for words you've looked up.

(I would definately choose the option with a backlight. My 4th generation Kindle doesn't have one, and it is not great in low-light situations. I'd probably pay the extra to avoid adverts too.)

This would be a good option for eBooks, for PDFs, I suspect a laptop or a tablet would be better - something with a larger screen.

[Doitsujin]

I've just got an old keyboard kindle for free. After an initial period of disbelief, I've got quite addicted to it. I convert everything I want to read to TXT. If the text has Arabic script I need to convert it a custom layout PDF. This works very well.

If you install the latest firmware and convert the original file to an AZW3 file with Calibre, you should be able to read Arabic AZW3 books with it. However, you might want to jailbreak the Kindle Keyboard first, because some jailbreaks only work with older firmware versions.

The default Arabic font is somewhat hard to read, but that too can be fixed by jailbreaking the Kindle Keyboard and installing a font hack to override the code2000 font.

BTW, there's also a great free Arabic-English Kindle dictionary.

Reading third party PDF files, however, would probably be unbearable, unless it is typeset for a paper size similar to the size of the screen, for zooming and scrolling work very badly.

If you jailbreak your Kindle Keyboard, you could install an older version of the KOReader pdf app, Liberator, which is much better than the built-in Kindle app.

Before I came across Readlang, I was thinking of buying a Kindle Paperwhite. It seems to have a touch screen (quick dictionary lookups) and a 'vocabulary builder', which looks to be flashcards for words you've looked up.

IMHO, the current eInk Kindle models (6th generation or better) are the best ereaders for foreign language learners because Amazon offers high-quality monolingual and bilingual dictionaries for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Russian and Japanese as free downloads for registered eInk Kindle owners. (Some of these dictionaries are also available as optional downloads for the Kindle PC/iOS/Android apps.)

For example, you could download the Oxford Hachette French-English dictionary for free. It's also relatively easy to export the Vocabulary Builder database, which only contains the inflected word, the root word and the context. (The definition is not stored in the database.)

[IronMike]

IMHO, the current eInk Kindle models (6th generation or better) are the best ereaders for foreign language learners because Amazon offers high-quality monolingual and bilingual dictionaries for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Russian and Japanese as free downloads for registered eInk Kindle owners. (Some of these dictionaries are also available as optional downloads for the Kindle PC/iOS/Android apps.)

For example, you could download the Oxford Hachette French-English dictionary for free. It's also relatively easy to export the Vocabulary Builder database, which only contains the inflected word, the root word and the context. (The definition is not stored in the database.)

What Russian dictionary are you using? I got one from Amazon (ABBYY Lingvo Comprehensive Russian-English dictionary), the only one I can find, for my Kindle (Voyage) and it won't find words that are declined or conjugated. Very annoying.

[Doitsujin]

What Russian dictionary are you using?

I'm also using the ABBYY Lingvo Comprehensive Russian-English dictionary on my Paperwhite and it actually finds conjugated words. For an example, see the following screenshot.

BTW, it's the free 2013 version. If you bought yours from Amazon it might be a different version without inflection support. The problem might also be caused by soft hyphens and/or other invisible characters in your Kindle book. To exclude problems with invisible characters download the test file* that I used and test it on your machine. If it also doesn't work maybe your dictionary file got corrupted and should be re-downloaded.

*The test file is a Russian-English Aglona Reader version of Pushkin's капитанская дочка that was converted to the Kindle AZW3 format.

[Serpent]

My first e-reader was a pocketbook, and my current one is onyx. I love onyx a lot more.
my main issue with pocketbook was switching between the books in progress. Often the whole "stolen moment" would be wasted trying to switch. it supports all kinds of formats out of the box though.
my onyx is slightly larger (6.8, and they also make 9-10" ones), it's an android device which you can use for browsing or things like music etc (but not video). of course the battery lasts less if you use these additional functions, especially wifi.
displaying PDF's is a bit of a hassle initially but by now it's not really a problem anymore.

I struggle with eye infections sometimes and eInk is just soooo much better than the usual LCD screens. unfortunately it's more fragile though. my first e-reader lasted me about a year. i've also already had my second e-reader's screen replaced. after that i've learned to be more careful

[Teango]

Thanks to everyone for their advice and recommendations so far! As I promised myself to finally buy an e-reader this weekend, I've ordered a Kindle Paperwhite based on the overall positive reviews (and also because the price has fallen down to $99.99 as part of the Black Friday week deal on Amazon). However I'm still intrigued by some of the larger e-readers such as the Kobo Aura One (which is currently out of stock till 2017), the 9.7" Kindle DX, and the Sony DPT-S1 pdf reader (which is way out of my price bracket but a nice size for reading and annotating academic articles). Who knows...by the time I save up to buy another ebook reader, the technology could have leaped forward considerably - fingers crossed!

[garyb]

I like my Kindle Paperwhite. It's a 3rd Gen which I believe is still the current model. My only complaints are that it has some kind of memory leak where dictionary lookups take longer and longer, but restarting it periodically (by holding down the power button) takes care of it, and that the touch screen isn't very precise.

I wouldn't try reading a PDF on it, at least not without putting it through some kind of conversion like Calibre's. I mostly just read standard ebook formats (Kindle store or epub).