Quote:
Originally Posted by kellemonster
Okay, I haven't done much research, I'd rather let you all tell me what to do.
Law student who wants to scan in his textbooks and make his own PDF so I don't have to lug them around.
These are large books. So need a large screen.
Since these will be my own PDFs, I won't have a TOC. But I also need to be able to skip ahead to page 300 if necessary and not have to go through each page.
Thanks.
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Your best bet, hands down, is to find a good used Compaq TC 1000. That was a wonderful Tablet PC that ran XP and had a close to letter sized screen.
Put the rest of the money into purchasing a good scanner and Adobe Acrobat, or another good PDF creator. (Unless you've can find one that you really like for free).
In order to study effectively, and I do mean effectively, you need to be able to color highlight PDF. In addition, using a color tablet and the internet, you can get a lot of your reading material through Lexis or Westlaw without the need to scan it. Print it directly into PDF and then use the included stylus to highlight it.
The TC 1000 is thicker than most ebook readers, but not by much, and you'll have close to a full sized keyboard to work with. In addition, if you can find an extra battery or two, you can take one along to class rather than hauling all of your books along with you (and the need to take both your hornbook and your case book along is absolutely necessary).
Further, you need something that allows you to bookmark pages in PDF (and the DX does not allow you to do this), so that when the prof tells you to turn to page 347 of your hornbook, you can do it quickly.
Last, but not least, while I normally prefer reading on something other than a backlit screen, this is one time that I would suggest otherwise. The lighting where you need to read or study may be less than optimal, and that, combined with the ability to highlight in color (different colors for facts, issue, rule of law, analysis, and holding or conclusion) make having a tablet PC much better than an ebook reader for this particular usage.
Handwriting recognition software can also make it possible to take notes on the tablet PC and create your outline for study much more quickly than from handwritten notes on paper. Either that, or being able to scan your notes (assuming they are legible) and have Adobe's OCR turn them into printed text, can save you hours.
If you can't find a TC1000 (I still have mine and love the thing), a good tablet PC is much better than any ebook reader on the market (even the Kindle DX) for law school. I say this as a former law student. Trust me on this.
If you create your PDF's using Adobe, at least the page numbers can be maintained to match those of the book, and that is a godsend when you are trying to find the correct page in class.