MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - cheap portable device for reading text pdf's

brehon · 02-09-2025, 11:09 AM

I see... I've checked and not only my phone does not support the "proper" cable screencast mode but also "miracast" doesn't want to work between my devidces. Perhaps I could work around it with "scrcpy" program but given other possible issues I doubt I will ever try.

I am still unsure what to get, point is Nxtpaper 14 costs around EUR480 here which isn't that cheap and I have no idea would it suit me or not. I'm bit afraid it might be too big and heavy and this will hamper mobility and how sharp the text is. For example can I hold it with just one hand when reading? The upside is definitely the fact that it's capable of displaying whole A4 page in portrait mode, but I might not need such luxury, as I am used to reading cropped PDF's in landscape on widescreen monitors.

Sparking of which, I've got 23" 1920x1080 as my main desktop screen but it's TFT and I don't like it for reading lenghty PDF's(oddly I have no issues when reading stuff on websites, but maybe it's because each page has different layout and color scheme so it's not as exhausting, not to mention I can zoom in and out and change font config as much as I want). I've been also trying to read on my laptop(ThinkPad x200s), 12" screen with 1440x900 resolution, it's not that bad but given I am running Linux there I have very big issues with PDF fonts(again, system and websites look fine), especially commonly used serifs like Times New Roman. I've heard that it's common issue with certain Linux distributions and the only real way of fixing it would be getting monitor with very high PPI. Oddly PDF text looks best on my phone, 5.8" 2880x1440 IPS LCD because it's very sharp(this includes serif fonts) except due screen size it's very small and hence not usable for lenghty sessions. The one odd thing is that I prefer reading green text on dark background(P39 phosphor style) on each device albeit I am switching between color modes quite often.

Because of that and the fact that Nxtpaper 11 is around EUR180 here I have it as my current priority. If I measure properly, Nxtpaper 11 screen size allows of viewing cropped A4 PDFs in lanscape mode without any need of resizing - please, correct me if I'm wrong because it's very important aspect. Moreover I would like to know how is the text sharpness, Nxtpaper 11 has around 207ppi which is good but not excellent and it also does a have matte screen that probably adds more distortion. I've been browsing web searching for answers, but sadly these days reviews are useles, so for example I've never seen any direct comparison to normal 11" glossy tablet with similar ppi. Finally, Nxtpaper 11 has apparently 500nits brightness but I don't know if it's distributed properly and how does it work in direct sunlight. I guess it should be enough with matte screen and portability but I want to double check on that.

02-09-2025, 11:09 AM	#10
brehon Enthusiast Posts: 26 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2025 Location: EU Device: none	I see... I've checked and not only my phone does not support the "proper" cable screencast mode but also "miracast" doesn't want to work between my devidces. Perhaps I could work around it with "scrcpy" program but given other possible issues I doubt I will ever try. I am still unsure what to get, point is Nxtpaper 14 costs around EUR480 here which isn't that cheap and I have no idea would it suit me or not. I'm bit afraid it might be too big and heavy and this will hamper mobility and how sharp the text is. For example can I hold it with just one hand when reading? The upside is definitely the fact that it's capable of displaying whole A4 page in portrait mode, but I might not need such luxury, as I am used to reading cropped PDF's in landscape on widescreen monitors. Sparking of which, I've got 23" 1920x1080 as my main desktop screen but it's TFT and I don't like it for reading lenghty PDF's(oddly I have no issues when reading stuff on websites, but maybe it's because each page has different layout and color scheme so it's not as exhausting, not to mention I can zoom in and out and change font config as much as I want). I've been also trying to read on my laptop(ThinkPad x200s), 12" screen with 1440x900 resolution, it's not that bad but given I am running Linux there I have very big issues with PDF fonts(again, system and websites look fine), especially commonly used serifs like Times New Roman. I've heard that it's common issue with certain Linux distributions and the only real way of fixing it would be getting monitor with very high PPI. Oddly PDF text looks best on my phone, 5.8" 2880x1440 IPS LCD because it's very sharp(this includes serif fonts) except due screen size it's very small and hence not usable for lenghty sessions. The one odd thing is that I prefer reading green text on dark background(P39 phosphor style) on each device albeit I am switching between color modes quite often. Because of that and the fact that Nxtpaper 11 is around EUR180 here I have it as my current priority. If I measure properly, Nxtpaper 11 screen size allows of viewing cropped A4 PDFs in lanscape mode without any need of resizing - please, correct me if I'm wrong because it's very important aspect. Moreover I would like to know how is the text sharpness, Nxtpaper 11 has around 207ppi which is good but not excellent and it also does a have matte screen that probably adds more distortion. I've been browsing web searching for answers, but sadly these days reviews are useles, so for example I've never seen any direct comparison to normal 11" glossy tablet with similar ppi. Finally, Nxtpaper 11 has apparently 500nits brightness but I don't know if it's distributed properly and how does it work in direct sunlight. I guess it should be enough with matte screen and portability but I want to double check on that.