The basics:
What I liked -
Anything not in a chart works and is readable.
Artwork is lovely.
Load time is quick if noticeable when skipping to different chapters.
Book marks still work.
What I didn't -
Re-flow works pretty well but oddities do occur.
Some large text actually text and not art which did some odd things.
Charts as charts didn't re-size but some charts are text so re-flowed into an odd list.
Chapter list is a list of book marks which makes it almost too long to use effectively.
Page numbers off by 1.
Detailed break down -
If you're still here you either have a Nook, Kindle, Kobo, etc. or are thinking about getting one. One of the chalenges I have with gaming is that PDF is still the dominant format. PDFs will work on e-ink devices but there are things you need to keep in mind and this product is no different However, I feel I must mention, this is also part of a new trend in game books to be a smaller form factor and that has helped in some tertiary ways that I'll bring up later in this post.
After a quick side load to my Nook I was off and running without a hitch.
At the second to smallest font size you get the book as 'printed' with no re-flow. This option is do able with reading glasses or younger eyes than mine but I personally could not read for any length of time at that setting.
As with most of my reading I bumped the font up to the middle setting and was quite happy with how things looked over all. You will notice though that on this page the "Player's" is cut off when I do that. It is not an issue of blowing up a picture too large it is actually that "Player's Guide" is text which means it looks very nice no matter what size you set it too but also that it gets split up oddly when you up size the font.
After tapping the middle of the screen to get to the content tab I was surprised to find that all of the book marks had turned in to functional 'buttons' that you could touch and hop right to where you need to be. I actually have ebooks that lack this function so I was quite pleased to find it so easy to hop around a PDF. This, like most PDFs I've dealt with, came with a slight down side as well. Since it turns every book mark you normally just click on to a touch button I ended up with 15 pages of options to scroll through. Not a huge issue but is a little daunting if you need something toward the back of book. There is also a slight lag when using this feature as the book loads up from a new point.
Aside from the front and back cover the all black and white art works beautifully on e-ink. Some picture run over 1 page in length but are still lovely.
In this shot you'll notice that this 'chapter' starts in the middle of a sentence. Oddly something I didn't notice when reading on the PC in a double collom format is that each set of two pages has a header "Earthdawn Players's Guide" on the left page and the chapter name on the right. At proper size these are done well and do their job. At the exaggeratedsize I have thing set to be a bit more eye friendly they are rather distracting when they pop up.
Charts were an odd mixed bag. For reasons I am not nearly savvy enough to understand some of them retained their standard sizing as if they were a picture. While this means the text and numbering are quite small they are still readable. Bust back out the old eyes and reading glasses.
While others started out looking correct at the smaller font size but when enlarged busted out in to a long list of nonsense.
Conclusion -
While not an unqualified success you can take your PDF with you and study up on the vast majority of the rules and feats. Gear and few other chart centric items may require some squinting. The size change is a /huge/ bonus to this product. If you own a larger tablet or a Kindle DX I doubt you'll even need to fiddle with the font. For those of us like me who only had a little mad money for a digital reading device it is a step in the right direction. I would rather have a chance to play with an actual epub version but beggars can't be choosers as they say.
It may seem I didn't pull any punches and this post is mostly negative, which I suppose it kinda of is. However, and this is a big one, it is not due to the actual PDF itself. I have read through several section on my PC using Acrobat and every thing works perfectly. I am especially thrilled with the page numbering matching the actual pages, simply awesome. Redbrick has been very proactive in response to other content based reviews and I believe the good things pretty much speak for themselves and didn't warrant as much attention. There is little, if anything, I can suggest to improve the listed issues as most of them are simply inherent with being a PDF, which e-readers are not natively intended for in the first place, but none of them are deal breakers. If the only way I had to read this document was a standard e-reader I am confident I could make a character and understand what all my feats and skills did. As is, I am still itching to get my hands on a physical copy but between my Nook and my PC I am still good to go.
This is my first review as it were so "Thank You!" for taking the time, if you did
, to read this and I hope you found at least some of it helpful or informative. There wasn't a lot of information when I went looking for an e-reader in regards to gaming and game books so this was a chance to try and give a little to some one else out there like me.Kindle note: I am not aware of Kindle having re-flow for PDFs. When last I investigated you could only zoom and pan. The kindle was able to switch to landscape though which the Nook can not and that feature helps quite a lot. If any one lets me know the Kindle dose re-flow I will remove this last bit.
Very lastly! If there are any questions I didn't answer about using this PDF on a Nook Touch please feel free to post them up and I will experiment with mine to give you an answer if I can.