MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Samsung Galaxy Note

macminer · 02-13-2012, 08:48 PM

I've recently acquired a Galaxy Note, even though I already have a Kindle.

While Kindle is good enough for reading most stuff, it simply cannot be considered a mature reader if one needs to read some serious academic stuff. Page layout in .mobi files is quite simple and cannot really represent many books which rely heavily on tables, footnotes, in-text frames etc. That's why so many textbooks and academic books are published as PDFs. Kindle can display PDFs, but its screen size makes most of them unreadable (characters are really tiny or just "greek").

I expected Galaxy Note to be able to display such stuff much better than my Kindle and so far I can say I am not disappointed in the least. PDF support is truly great. I have already installed three different PDF readers (in addition to Polaris Office, which was preinstalled) and all of them are way better than Kindle.

Polaris built-in reader is rather basic and page navigation is non-existent (you can't easily jump to some place, you must scroll through the text).

ezPDF reader is quite feature-rich and does a great job at displaying various documents. It is not the fastest reader, but is fast enough. It can also reflow a PDF. It is a paid app, but well-worth the money.

Smart Devices Reader (free from Samsung Apps) is blazing fast. It has also good annotation options, comparable to ezPDF. Overall, if one doesn't need some pro features (form filling etc.) this would be good enough for all PDF reading.

iAnnotate is an evolving application. So far it is not as complete as ezPDF or SDReader, but it looks promising.

All of these allow pinch-to-zoom, but even without zooming the text is quite readable for most PDFs. I was amazed when I saw the difference between our National Statistics Yearly displayed on Kindle (7 inch!) and Note. On Kindle it is barely readable, and not navigable at all. On Note it looks perfect, despite significantly smaller screen (5.3") and navigation is as easy as can be.

Obviously, Note is not just a PDF reader. It came preinstalled with Samsung's reader's hub, which gives access to Kobo's library and also with an app for one of our local e-bookshops (Nexto.pl). I was surprised to see that books I had acquired at Nexto got automatically downloaded to my mobile device. That was clever and quite Kindle-like!

One area where Note doesn't compare well with Kindle is battery life, but that should be obvious. You either go for an e-ink screen, which is extremely battery friendly or for a beautiful color AMOLED screen, which is quite a battery eater. But with reasonable use the Note can survive the whole day without recharging.

02-13-2012, 08:48 PM	#34
macminer Connoisseur Posts: 98 Karma: 660420 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Poland Device: Boox Nova 3, Lenovo Tab 4 8" (formerly many others)	I've recently acquired a Galaxy Note, even though I already have a Kindle. While Kindle is good enough for reading most stuff, it simply cannot be considered a mature reader if one needs to read some serious academic stuff. Page layout in .mobi files is quite simple and cannot really represent many books which rely heavily on tables, footnotes, in-text frames etc. That's why so many textbooks and academic books are published as PDFs. Kindle can display PDFs, but its screen size makes most of them unreadable (characters are really tiny or just "greek"). I expected Galaxy Note to be able to display such stuff much better than my Kindle and so far I can say I am not disappointed in the least. PDF support is truly great. I have already installed three different PDF readers (in addition to Polaris Office, which was preinstalled) and all of them are way better than Kindle. Polaris built-in reader is rather basic and page navigation is non-existent (you can't easily jump to some place, you must scroll through the text). ezPDF reader is quite feature-rich and does a great job at displaying various documents. It is not the fastest reader, but is fast enough. It can also reflow a PDF. It is a paid app, but well-worth the money. Smart Devices Reader (free from Samsung Apps) is blazing fast. It has also good annotation options, comparable to ezPDF. Overall, if one doesn't need some pro features (form filling etc.) this would be good enough for all PDF reading. iAnnotate is an evolving application. So far it is not as complete as ezPDF or SDReader, but it looks promising. All of these allow pinch-to-zoom, but even without zooming the text is quite readable for most PDFs. I was amazed when I saw the difference between our National Statistics Yearly displayed on Kindle (7 inch!) and Note. On Kindle it is barely readable, and not navigable at all. On Note it looks perfect, despite significantly smaller screen (5.3") and navigation is as easy as can be. Obviously, Note is not just a PDF reader. It came preinstalled with Samsung's reader's hub, which gives access to Kobo's library and also with an app for one of our local e-bookshops (Nexto.pl). I was surprised to see that books I had acquired at Nexto got automatically downloaded to my mobile device. That was clever and quite Kindle-like! One area where Note doesn't compare well with Kindle is battery life, but that should be obvious. You either go for an e-ink screen, which is extremely battery friendly or for a beautiful color AMOLED screen, which is quite a battery eater. But with reasonable use the Note can survive the whole day without recharging.