Recommend a Replacement for a Sony PRS-350

[purplecat]

My Sony PRS-350 is becoming increasingly flakey so I'm looking around for a new eBook reader and I'd love to hear any recommendations.

My main requirements are:

1. ePub format support (I have a lot of ePubs)
   
2. Plays nicely with Calibre (I read a lot of fanfic on my ereader and use Calibre to manage conversion)
   
3. Decent zooming of PDFs.
   
   This is something of a specialist requirement, I find not all PDFs worked well in the Sony reader when I just enlarged the font size (diagrams and equations in particular didn't like it), but the Sony eReader's actual zooming function was really horrible and you kept having to switch in and out of it to turn pages, so I'd love something that would let me read scientific papers on the device with a bit more ease.
   
   EDIT: I know I'm never going to get Adobe Reader style functionality on an e-Ink device. I never expected to be reading PDFs on it, but it's become something I find useful. So anything that improves the PDF experience over that on the PRS-350 is good and anything that makes it harder is bad.
   
4. At least 12 hours battery life (which most ereaders have, but not all tablets if you want to recommend one of them).
   

I probably want something a little larger than the PRS-350. I loved the portability of it, but I was magnifying everything up at least one font size, and that's a problem that will only get worse and the lack of screen real-estate also contributed to the problems I was having with the PDFs.

If I can access Analog Science Fiction and Fact from the UK on it (which I've not been able to do since Barnes & Noble bought out Fictionwise) then that would be an added bonus.

Playing nicely with Adobe Digital Editions on a Mac (which the Sony doesn't) would also be a plus since I have a book I purchased for $1 in ADE and I'd sort of like to read it some day, even though I only paid a dollar for it.

Beyond that I'm open to suggestions. I've managed quite happily without a wireless connection but I'm prepared to be convinced I would benefit from one.

Comments

[lauredhel]

I would say to look at the new Aura (not Aura HD, the new six inch Aura). It's a true six inch screen but smaller even than the Glo, and the new multi-touch implementation (including pinch-to-zoom) with the capacitive touch screen looks pretty good. Check out video reviews. There have been some QA issues with light guide defects (manifesting as pinpricks of light when the light is turned all the way up), so buy in-store if possible so you can check it out before leaving. Or if you're not inclined to have the light on high, this might not be an issue.

But yes, for PDFs, really a tablet is the way to go. Any e-ink reader is a compromise.

As above for Calibre shelf management - it works great.

Another good thing about the new Aura is the Pocket integration, which might be a useful way of getting new fanfic onto the reader easily.

Kobo plays fine with ADE, but I'd still recommend DRM-stripping for various other reasons - you can format the book yourself (eg reduce line spacing, alter paragraph spacing, strip embedded fonts, etc), and you'll still have access to your books when Adobe or Kobo or wherever you bought the book from falls over.

[purplecat]

I'll check out the Aura, thanks.

For various reasons I'm not terribly keen on getting a tablet, and I've managed with PDFs on the Sony, it would just be nice to have something that improved the experience.

ADE works with Sony's just not via a Mac. It was a very specific combination of hardware and software that caused the problem, and one that required a certain amount of digging to uncover. So I'm sort of looking for someone to say they've used their ebook reader with ADE on a Mac... DRM is so rubbish though, I don't have any problem with the idea in principle but I've not seen a practical implementation.

[lauredhel]

I have a Mac and a Kobo - never had a problem with ADE :)

[purplecat]

Ooh! Pocket sounds Awesome...