Aura HD or stick with Android tablet for pdfs?

[leaston]

Hi all,

I currently read fiction on my Kobo Glo and pdfs on my Nexus 7 or ASUS Transformer (10"). I'm trying to get away from having to carry so many gadgets around all the time and have all but managed to ditch the Nexus by upgrading my mobile to a Galaxy Note 3. Ideally, I want to end up with just the phone and an ereader for everything.

However, I'm a bit stuck with this pdf problem and have asked some questions below about it. I've read a few threads which seem to suggest the Aura HD might be worth a look for pdfs with a 3rd party app installed (is it called koread?). I'm looking at this ereader specifically because of the screen size, increased resolution, backlight and because I don't know of any real alternative in the UK. Other suggestions welcome within this price range(ish).

Would buying an Aura HD be worth it for its pdf capability or should I stick with the tablet and why please?
I use the online scissor app to trim the margins from some pdfs, but with those I can't, does zooming a pdf page (to eliminate the white space) on an ereader have to be done after each page turn or would it stick as a setting for each?
How does zoom work on the Aura HD? Is it pinch to zoom, a slider via a menu or something else?
Can you pan pages and is it clunky?
What about reflowing? Does it work? Well, poorly or depends on the pdf?
How does it handle large pdfs? I'm talking about actual page numbers and file size. Will a large document cause the Aura to slow down or crash?

I know some of these questions may be quite subjective, but any help, advice, opinion or similar will help me make a decision about this potential purchase and therefore much appreciated

All the best,
Leaston

[RZetlin]

If you get the Aura HD, the PDF will be in greyscale, so if you colour documents it will not look well.

To zoom in on a part of the document double tap in the area.
To zoom out double tap again.

You have to options to
- zoom in/out
- fit to width
- fit to height
- rotate the document

To move to a different area you can hold and drag.

This video will explain the Aura HD PDF features better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK-1VY9x4DE

[davidfor]

The Glo and Aura HD use the same firmware. Hence, the PDF support is exactly the same. The larger screen size and higher resolution of the Aura HD should makes reading PDFs better. Whether it is a worthwhile upgrade, I don't know.

[leaston]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. The video helped a lot too.

The speed difference between the devices was significant and I think that alone may be a deal breaker for me. I need to be able to flick through and browse pages of textbooks, so to have to wait 2-3 seconds between page turns on the Kobo would become tedious very quickly. The problem with that delay would be because I often need to refer to specific articles within pdf documents, sometimes a few pages apart or dotted throughout the book. It would take an age to do this on the Kobo based on the page turn delay. That it's virtually instant on the Kindle makes a huge difference to me.

I noticed a few times during the video that he pressed the screen on the Kobo and it didn't register, forcing him to do it again. Despite my fondness for the Glo, this has always been an irritation for me. I'm not impatient by any means, but when I tap the screen I think it's reasonable to expect the page to turn and it doesn't always.

The lower res on the Kindle could be a potential issue as some of my pdfs are scanned documents and therefore the lack of pixel density and smaller screen would make some of these hard to read. I'll need to look through and decide how many of my documents could be unreadable compared to the native ones.

Rendering text in native pdfs on the Kindle seems to be much clearer, although it would be far better to have finer control over the zoom instead of the increments. Being able to create markup on the Kindle is a huge plus too. Lack of SD card slot is a pain, but manageable with some manipulation of the documents.

Another problem I have with the Kobo was the way the reviewer felt the need to alter all his pdfs to meet the 4:3 aspect ratio in order to accommodate the screen size. I understand why he did it and the results meant he got the most out of the screen real estate. However, I don't have the time or inclination to do that with the many docs I would need to install on the reader. Maybe I'm just awkward, but I'd rather the ereader have features to cater to my needs rather than my having to alter the way I work to accommodate shortcomings in software design

I found it really interesting and quite surprising that the reviewer said the Kobo blows the Kindle away when it comes to dealing with pdfs. My impression, based on his video, was the opposite. I was left with the thought that the Kindle would be a better deal. Perspective eh?

I managed to have a quick look at an Aura HD yesterday in WHSmith (a stationery supplier in the UK for you guys who haven't heard of them). As davidfor said, it was clear the firmaware on the Aura is the same as the Glo and for the purpose of reading pdfs, I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Unless I find another option within this price range, I'm leaning toward the Kindle now.

All the best,
Leaston

[Dr. Drib]

So how does one change a PDF to an aspect ratio of 4:3, so that it would be more 'viewable' on a Kobo Aura HD?

[jandrew]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

So how does one change a PDF to an aspect ratio of 4:3, so that it would be more 'viewable' on a Kobo Aura HD?

k2pdfopt offers options to play with reformatting pdf files for different screen sizes:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=144711

I've only played with it a little and haven't explored all the options, but some experiments look promising. (if you come up with the killer optimization for the AuraHD, let me know).

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by jandrew

k2pdfopt offers options to play with reformatting pdf files for different screen sizes:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=144711

I've only played with it a little and haven't explored all the options, but some experiments look promising. (if you come up with the killer optimization for the AuraHD, let me know).

Thank you for the information on this. I'm starting to play with it, too!

[markom]

Originally Posted by jandrew

k2pdfopt offers options to play with reformatting pdf files for different screen sizes:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=144711

I've only played with it a little and haven't explored all the options, but some experiments look promising. (if you come up with the killer optimization for the AuraHD, let me know).

Since AuraHD is small ereader, not that much bigger than other 6" readers there, we should use landscape mode (fitwidth) for A5 formated pdfs (resulting in two or three screens per page)

For A4 formats (if they are not 2-column) we should use a reflow mode.

k2pdfopt's reflow is different from reflow in ereaders because it reflows pdf image itself not just OCR text layer beneath, so there will be no errors because of the poor OCR layer, the images will stay there, layout will be less confused, and flipping through pages will be much faster because ereader's processor doesn't have to compute reflowing himself but just to show a page already perfectly tailored for its screen size and resolution.

There is also Koreader available for Kobos too, so that there'll be no need for k2pdfopt so often.

http://imgur.com/a/1NR7I#8

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=216960