Hi there,
with CES and CeBit happening I feel somewhat overwhelmed at the idea of actually making a choice with all the new devices...so I'm hoping you can clear things up for me
So, here's what I would like to do:
- read and annotate pdfs, preferably scribbling on the pdfs directly, and being able to export these notes (oh, and how about handwriting recognition...but I shouldn't be greedy...)
- most of these pdfs will be from academic journals and some will have pictures, but I'm not that interested in the pictures (I can always check them out on the pc or mac), so I assume they will be a4 or letter sized with lots of margin - is it possible to make those margins disappear or reduce them? is that an existing feature?
- I prefer a stylus over tapping on a virtual keyboard
- dictionary (tap word and look up) would be great, but isn't a necessity
- I may read the odd 'bestseller' for fun on it, but mostly it's for work, which formats should it ideally support to be easily used for casual reading?
- search function within text and ideally across the library of texts (though I could do that on the mac anyway)
The texts I read are mostly academic texts, possibly the occasional textbook, but that seems unlikely at the moment. Most important to me is the annotation function. I would like the device to be comfortable to hold and read on a train trip or lying on the couch (and yes, I still call that work
).
It seems to me that my choices are the iRex Iliad, the entourage edge (seems heavy though, but has deals with academic publishers which might come in handy in the future), the iRex 800S (if it adds annotations...), the que proreader, the bebook neo - have I forgotten something? The Iliad seems pretty much perfect from what I've read, and if I understand correctly one can print anything to it, could someone confirm this? I.e. could I 'print' a powerpoint to it? It just seems a little old and I'm worried that it will soon be superseded (I guess that the case with any gadget...), so it might be better to hold out for the 800s to add annotation and zoom functionality. The Edge is coming in a close second, especially considering it's price and added functionality, but might be too heavy for long reading session (though I guess I do that now with a notebook on my lap and surely it can't be heavier than that?).
I'll stop thinking out loud now - I appreciate any and all thoughts on this! If there are people out there who use a lot of journal articles from humanities journals I'd be particularly interested in your experiences.
cheers and thank you in advance
Katarina