Mobile devices

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This is a list of Mobile Devices in no particular order. These are mostly more generalized devices that are designed to do multiple things, not just read eBooks.

Contents

EBook Dedicated Readers

These devices are specifically designed to enhance the reading experience. Full information on these units can be found in the article on E-book devices.

Cell phones and PDAs

  • PalmOS PDAs Personal Digital Assistants running the Palm Operating System
  • PocketPCs Personal Digital Assistants running the Microsoft Windows Mobile Operating System
  • Smartphones Cell phones incorporating additional functions. These can be running any of several operating systems and programs (E-book readers) that you can use depending on the operating system.
    • Symbian Smartphones A PDA or smartphone running the Symbian OS. This typically supports Java as do some of the other OS's. Note that Symbian replaced Psion.
    • Windows Mobile Smartphones The is a cell-phone operating system that differs from the standard Windows Mobile in that it is designed to support the smaller screens on many of these devices (240x240) and the lack of a touch screen. Note that cell-phones with a touch screen usually run the PocketPC Windows Mobile OS.
    • BlackBerry This is a popular cell-phone OS and email messaging system from RIM.
    • iPhone is a cell-phone from Apple running mac OS with much added functionality. They also have a similar product without the cell-phone functionality called iPod Touch.
  • Cell phones Many modern low end cell/mobile phones have a java J2ME runtime environment, these can support eReaders.
  • Palmtop running WindowsCE is a PDA platform similar to PocketPC devices but without the standardization of functions that PocketPC provides. Note that the Window Mobile OS running on Pocket PC devices is a superset of the basic WindowsCE OS.
  • Linux - A stripped down version of the Linux OS running on PDA devices such as Sharp Zaurus although there are also Linux OS ports to some iPAQ units.

The thing that this list has in common is that they are all mobile devices or mobile devices OS's that can use add-on or built in programs to read e-books but this is not generally their primary function. They typically have smaller screens than those used on dedicated eBook readers.

Alternate Ebook Readers

The following are some devices that have been tried by members of this forum and found to be usable.

Larger General Purpose Devices

These will typically have a 7" screen or larger.

PMP Devices

Portable Media Players are abundant and often have larger 7" screens. Small PDA sized devices are also found such as the Zune or iPod. Usually this requires converting the text to graphics images. Even Digital Frames can be used as Readers if the text is converted to images.

Game machines

Even some game playing machines like the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS can be used to read eBooks.

Laptops

A laptop is typically portable but not mobile. They are too large to be comfortably used in a mobile environment, they are too heavy, the screen is oriented poorly for eBook viewing, and they have poor battery life.

Even with all these negatives many people will use them to read eBooks and there are many programs available that can be used with Windows, MacOS X, and Linux devices. Some use them in conjunction with a more portable unit and many eBook formats are available for both a portable device and a laptop permitting sharing of eBooks. In a few cases you can even sync between the portable device and the main computer so that you can start a book on one and pick up where you left off on the second machine.

Software

In order to use one of these devices you will likely need some specialized eBook Reading software. Although you may be able to get by with browsers, text editors, and Word processors, generalized software will not provide the best reading environment.

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