Yeah, I'd say the technology isn't quite there for ereaders to reliably view academic pdf's yet. You can do it with some of them, but page turns and such will be slow.
You're probably going to want a tablet. I use a Nexus 7 and haven't had any problems reading physics & math books, but there is probably something better on the market now. Check for apps that will disconnect you from the internet and not allow you to easily re-enable it.
For example, android has
Timeriffic. You can disable wifi for 24 hours a day.