Quote:
Originally Posted by EndlessWaves
4. Screen resolution. PDF is a format designed to replicate appearances as closely as possible rather than aiming for maximum readability so it is actually affected by screen resolution unlike most text. Denser screens will help mitigate the fuzzyness of PDF text and this is probably the best argument for getting a different device, with a tablet probably being the cheaper option.
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I don't understand the comment ``fuzzyness of PDF text'' --- text in a .pdf is stored as text, possibly along w/ an embedded font --- it's all-but unheard of for the font to not be a vector font these days, so it will be rendered using the technology and settings which the .pdf viewer uses.
Type display has long been a subject of optimization / rendering improvement, so should render quite well, and I'm unaware of any technology intrinsically limited to a tablet, e.g., a MacBook w/ a Retina display should render text just as nicely as an iPad w/ a similar pixel density Retina display.
That said, I find a tablet quite convenient to read a .pdf on, even though I use either convertible or slate-format Tablet PCs. Advantages (as noted in this thread) are battery life, screen brightness, unit weight / size.
On the other hand, it's not that bad reading on the slate machine (and it has the advantage of a transflective LCD which is readable in full daylight), and for the convertible, sometimes I read it w/ a rotated page display, holding it in laptop mode as if it were a book.