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Old 04-15-2012, 12:16 AM   #1
bobj
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Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a device that will allow me to avoid my current procedure of printing out papers to read. I feel very conflicted about how to proceed, so I'm hoping people might be able to suggest some ideas and perspectives to help me out.

I study math, and I need to read the following:
  • PDFs from various online journals
  • PDFs from the arXiv
  • Occasional Google / Wikipedia searches
  • Old notebooks scanned to djvu
It's very important that I can efficiently flip between various sources. Also I need to be able to work both online and offline.

In 2008, I purchased an iRex iLliad. I found it impossibly slow and unresponsive. Rather than reading, I spent way more time trying to hack it to do what I wanted. It was not that stable, and it would choke whenever I tried to load a djvu. Consequently, I sold it.

Recently, a visiting colleague was raving about how much he likes the iPad 2 for reading documents. This got me thinking about searching out another e-reader.

I have been checking out both the Onyx Boox M92, and the iPad 3. I have serious reservations about each.

M92: The e-ink is very appealing. I also greatly appreciate that it runs Linux. However, I'm very concerned about responsiveness. The refresh lag is annoying, and I worry that it would hinder my ability to read nonlinearly. I'm worried about a repeat of my experiences with the iLiad. Also, I would love to take this outdoors on a sunny day, but I'm troubled by the first guideline I read in the manual:
Quote:
Do not leave the product in direct sunlight for long periods of time and do not use in extreme high or low temperature environments...
I thought this was supposed to be the strong suit of e-ink.

iPad3: 2048x1536!!! This resolution would be incredible for me. I'm fortunate to have excellent eyesight, so I really appreciate such a high-res display. (I want the largest possible resolution in the smallest possible display.) Also, from what I have seen, the interface is extraordinarily responsive. On the other hand, I can't imagine buying an Apple product. For example: no SD card slot??? Do I really want to be captive to their ecosystem?

What should I do? Perhaps I should hold out for the impending slew of 1920x1200 Android tablets. I love my Nexus S, and find it very easy to download and read articles. But I want higher resolution, and I don't want a glossy mirror. Maybe I'm exaggerating the difficulties of browsing the web for scholarly articles on the M92. But in all the demo videos I've seen, users struggle to achieve response to their input. What do you think? Any other possibilities I'm overlooking?

Thanks so much for reading my wall of text.
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Old 04-15-2012, 02:53 AM   #2
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Go for the iPad - it's a superb system for reading PDFs. The SD card slot "issue" is a total non issue, to my mind; even the smallest 16GB model has sufficient storage to store thousands of documents. Books are not large files, on the whole.
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Old 04-15-2012, 07:42 PM   #3
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Basically, no e-ink device is going to have a really great refresh rate. You will have to choose between reading outside and responsiveness.

If I were you, I'd pick responsiveness, and get the iPad 3. If you're concerned about storage, try using Dropbox or other could storage. The ecosystem IMHO doesn't really matter for you, since you're not thinking about buying from iBooks, so you won't be locked in anyway. Reading apps don't cost that much, so if you want to switch to Android or Windows on Arm in the future, it won't be that difficult. The reason you should get iPad 3 is that you care about resolution, and IIRC the high res Android tablets coming out are going to be more expensive, and also for reading documents, 4:3 is the ideal format, and there don't seem to be any 4:3 high-res Android tablets.

I have one of the Tegra 2 Android tablets, and it works fine for reading docs, but the 16:9 screen ratio just is suboptimal for doc reading.
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Old 04-16-2012, 03:46 PM   #4
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Thank you charmian, I find your argument very convincing. You make an excellent point regarding the aspect ratio, and I hadn't considered that.

I'm still open to what others may have to say, but probably I will research it a little more, and then buy an iPad 3.
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Old 04-16-2012, 04:30 PM   #5
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+1 on the iPad 3. Forget the built-in PDF reader, though. Definitely get GoodReader. It's $5 but well worth it for reference material.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
The SD card slot "issue" is a total non issue, to my mind; even the smallest 16GB model has sufficient storage to store thousands of documents. Books are not large files, on the whole.
Not strictly true. My technical PDFs and manuals clock in at 80MB a piece (lots of images and diagrams) so 1,000 of those would be ~80GB. Scanned documents (300dpi, unoptimized) clock in at ~100-300MB so it'll hold even less of those. That said, 16GB is still plenty of storage and can hold a sizable amount of material.
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Old 04-17-2012, 02:02 AM   #6
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The iPad doesn't have a "built-in" PDF reader; you have to install an app for it! I would second the recommendation for Goodreader.
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