Samsung Note 8

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by vxf

I use both an iPad and an iPad Mini - and I teach, so I have been doing a lot of 'academic' reading. In my experience, 10" is barely enough, 8" is clearly insufficient.

From a teacher's view point I get it, what about from a student's? Reading isn't done in the class room, but the ability to take notes inside the textbook and index those are, in my experience, a real boon to academic efficiency. Things like taking pictures of the white board and recording voice notes should be an added bonus.

[tubemonkey]

The Nexus 7 is great for on-the-go use and the Fire HD 8.9 is great for stay-at-home use.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Got myself one of those, but in reality they are not practical. To much sun and you see zilch, also you worry yourself sick on pebbled tracks.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Got myself one of those, but in reality they are not practical. To much sun and you see zilch, also you worry yourself sick on pebbled tracks.

Ride at night on a smooth road

[thinkpad]

People should start to use the A6 format instead of A4 paper size that way we would have no problem with 7-8 inch devices .




Reading PDFs intended for a bigger screen is not a very pleasant experience on a 7-8 inch device.

For those in the U.S, short facts about the A series paper sizes:
http://www.papersizes.org/a-paper-sizes.htm

The A series paper sizes are now in common use throughout the world apart from in the US, Canada and parts of Mexico. The A4 size has become the standard business letter size in English speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the UK, that used to use British Imperial sizes. In Europe the A paper sizes were adopted as the formal standard in the mid 20th century and from there they spread across the globe.

[thinkpad]

I thought this article was interesting comparing display size vs display density:
http://www.imore.com/ipad-mini-nexus...y-size-density

Here's how the iPad mini and Nexus 7/Kindle Fire HD 7 compare in terms of physical screen size (iPad red, Nexus blue)

Now in the case of the Note 8 it's got a larger screen and higher pixel density compared to the iPad Mini so you should be able to see more without turning to scrolling but if I understand the article correctly it will also mean that things will look smaller, perhaps not a plus if you got bad eyesight.

Here's some more information on pixel-density from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_density

Display size/Physical image size from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_size

The display size (or viewable image size or VIS) is the actual amount of screen space that is available to display a picture, video or working space, without obstruction from the case or other aspects of the unit's design.

Display resolution/Logical image size from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution

The display resolution of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.

[Kumabjorn]

Isn't that what pinch zoom is for?

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Isn't that what pinch zoom is for?

That would probably work fine for the first couple of pages I would go nuts pinching in and out after perhaps about 10-15 pages

[shanghaichica]

This device went on sale today in the UK. Samsung are selling the 16 GB version in their store for £339.

[Kumabjorn]

With £60 of extra goodies no less. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of the white models.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Unfortunately I'm not a fan of the white models.

^ this

Where Apple is hung up on thin, Samsung is hung up on white and chrome. Utterly ghastly!

[shanghaichica]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

^ this

Where Apple is hung up on thin, Samsung is hung up on white and chrome. Utterly ghastly!

I seem to be mad for the white versions I wanted to get the iPhone 3G in white but it wasn't in stock so had to get the black. Couldn't get the iPhone 4 in white, got stuck with the black. Since then I keep getting white devices at every opportunity, I have the white Samsung galaxy note, white galaxy tab, white iPad mini, my iPod touch has a white face

I just find black so boring. My devices would be pink if they were available in that colour. They all end up in pink cases anyway...

[kevinp]

The other guys at the fire station probably wouldn't let me live down a pink device.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

From a teacher's view point I get it, what about from a student's? Reading isn't done in the class room, but the ability to take notes inside the textbook and index those are, in my experience, a real boon to academic efficiency. Things like taking pictures of the white board and recording voice notes should be an added bonus.

I am not sure I understand your question. The ability to take notes and index those is independent from screen-size... so I don't see how it relates to the 8" vs 10" discussion.

As a side note, the ability to take notes is a huge problem. While many applications exist that allow annotation of textbooks on e-readers, many of the large publishers are now distributing electronic versions of textbooks through their own apps. I have tested some of those and found them terribly clunky. For example, CourseSmart, which is a platform used by multiple publishers to distribute textbooks is, for lack of a better technical term, utter garbage. I have used it on multiple operating systems - and it crashes, it is slow, it does not allow easy browsing of books or fast jumping to specific pages/sectors, no handwritten annotations on any platform, no syncing of annotations across devices. Yet, it is the only (legal) way to access textbooks by some publishers.

I have students buying e-textbooks on Amazon. The Kindle apps are a bit better - but still clunky. The biggest drawback is still the lack of handwritten annotations.

Those are just two examples. But the point is, as long as publishers are locking users into outdated software, no screen size will matter. We are still not smoothly converging to a world of electronic reading of textbooks.
Academic articles (journals) are different. Because they have embraced PDF (which, for how despised, is a format accessible across platforms and through countless software).

[Kumabjorn]

I interpreted your answer on a 10" being insufficient size as not meeting your needs in the pulpit, i.e. running a presentation while having your notes visible in a different window. Those needs would differ from a student who might want to jot down some notes on top of a presentation made available at the lecture. Hence, the thought that an 8" may be sufficient for a student.