Large reader for academic PDF reading

[mrpotts]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Light is light. Your eye doesn't care whether the photons come through the screen (as in LCD) or are reflected from it (as in frontlit eInk). I have noticed, though, that many people have the lighting on tablets set way too high. The screen should be bright enough to read clearly, but it should not be visible "shining".

I will respectfully disagree on this. At least until I read some solid science proving this is so. In my opinion, your body handles looking a a light source very differently than a white reflection of light and even a black reflection of light. And my emphasis is on 'body', not just on the eyes.

Phil

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mrpotts

I will respectfully disagree on this. At least until I read some solid science proving this is so. In my opinion, your body handles looking a a light source very differently than a white reflection of light and even a black reflection of light. And my emphasis is on 'body', not just on the eyes.

Phil

Can you explain what, in terms of the physics of the situation, you believe the difference to be? A photon source is a photon source.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have noticed, though, that many people have the lighting on tablets set way too high. The screen should be bright enough to read clearly, but it should not be visible "shining".

Similarly, many devices (my experience is all Android) will have automatic or adaptive brightness, and this will frequently overcompensate and set the brightness too high. I usually take over with manual brightness and dial it down quite a bit, even for daytime reading.

[mrpotts]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you explain what, in terms of the physics of the situation, you believe the difference to be? A photon source is a photon source.

Originally Posted by maximus83

Similarly, many devices (my experience is all Android) will have automatic or adaptive brightness, and this will frequently overcompensate and set the brightness too high. I usually take over with manual brightness and dial it down quite a bit, even for daytime reading.

Maximus, I would agree. I find auto-brightness very annoying and disruptive. To me, a perfect application to do something manually.

Harry, like I said, I haven't researched the science. I'm going by my own experience. I am very aware and sensitive to light. Big difference to me reading on a tablet VS eInk with a light over my shoulder. I feel it in my eyes and my head over time. Maybe it's just me, but I don't agree based on my experiences.

Phil

[Bob Willis]

I owned a Boox Note and I used it mainly for reading PDFs. I think it works well for the PDFs and I could crop the sides of the documents and therefore I do not need to adjust the font size all the time. The most important thing is eye-friendly and less distractions.

[Philippe D.]

I have both a reMarkable and an Onyx Max 2, and my main use for them is scientific PDF reading and note-taking.

The reMarkable is smaller (10"), and is great for note taking or annotating a PDF. If you need to read PDF files in small fonts, for instance in double column, the smaller display might be a problem. It's also slightly less easy to transfer files to it - you cannot just plug it into a USB port and copy files (you can use a Web browser though, so it's not abysmal - just not the best). The company is also very active, rolls out software updates that make things better. And it is really great for writing and drawing.

The Max 2 is larger (13", so full format for PDFs), and is running Android so you can add Android apps - more versatile. It's good if you need your PDFs to display at full size. The note taking is not quite as comfortable IMHO, but still pretty good. File transfer is exactly as I want it: plug into a USB port, copy files, done.

I found that I take my reMarkable with me all the time, but not the Max 2.

One thing that I'm not too happy with it is that when reading long documents (full books - my latest experiment is with 700+ pages), navigating from one page to a distant other takes some time for the device to display the new page. It's not an issue if you're reading typical short papers.

[karl1c]

For my PhD, I used GoodReader on an Apple iPad. GoodReader can sync directly with Dropbox, so you have the same papers on PC/Mac and iPad. GoodReader also supports a wide range of annotations. The iPad might cost you more, but you can do more with it than something that is just a reader.

You should be able to get academic discount on the purchase price and (I think) reduced/free AppleCare. Alternatively, buy from John Lewis where you get free extended warranty.

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by maximus83

On my Android Nexus 7: there are 2 things I have used.

1. I flip the display into "Reading mode", which is a grayscale for the whole tablet. This however is feature of the custom AICP ROM, so available to Android users only. And of course, do the same in accessibility settings in regular Android. No idea if Apple has something equivalent in OS or via an app. But would be surprised if they don't. This is now what I use regularly on this tablet, because it's so awesome.

2. On Android in general--including my S10 phone, and my Nexus prior to the custom ROM--I'll flip into the night mode settings in daytime, dial down the blue light, then change text and background colors in the reading app I'm in. For my comfort, typically something sepia with black text, and rounded type of font. This combo has really helped avoid irritated eyes during extended reading sessions. And doesn't require flipping the whole device to grayscale.

One last thing to keep in mind. I hesitate almost to mention, as so many folks I've seen are dead solid convinced that only e-ink is easy on their eyes and nothing else will do. But....there are some--and I emphasize some--indications that there's really no measurable difference on your eye health between e-ink and LCD devices. Like the study cited here. It wouldn't surprise if there are also studies on the other side--it seems like there usually are. :-) But particularly if you use good eye health practices (the 20-20 rule, proper distance from screen, blinking regularly, etc) you should be ok while reading regardless of screen type. While I am not an opthalmologist and cannot prove it, based on research like this, I'd suspect that the preference for e-ink by some is mainly that, a preference. That doesn't make it bad, for them, but it also means it isn't about eye health. I've worked in front of varieties of LCD screens for many years and long days of 12+ hours, and not had a problem with eyestrain or other eye health problems provided I followed good eye health practices.

Agreed. I have never had any issues with eye strain using LCD/OLED screens. I think it may be overblown and people think they're supposed to feel eye strain and so they do. A big key is turning the brightness down, though. So many people really have their phones/tablets dialed up way too bright and I think this could be what is causing the eye strain, not the LCD/OLED screen itself.

[Pajamaman]

The majority of people I speak to agree they cannot read books on LCD. I agree with them.

I use Onyx devices. They have their faults, but the software is very open and flexible. The OS is robust and will run most apps stably.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

The majority of people I speak to agree they cannot read books on LCD. I agree with them.

EInk devices first appeared in 2006. People (myself included) were happily reading ebooks on LCD screens for 20 years prior to that and I don't recall anyone complaining about an inability to do so!

[Philippe D.]

Inability is certainly a strong word, but it certainly is something I don't like to do - even with low screen lighting. I'm much more comfortable reading on an eink device now that the option is available.

I used to print papers all the time before reading them in any detail - I'd have a look on my LCD screen, and if I decided I wanted to read them, I printed them. Now I almost never do; I just transfer them to my reMarkable, and read them there.

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by Philippe D.

...

If you need to read PDF files in small fonts, for instance in double column, the smaller display might be a problem. It's also slightly less easy to transfer files to it - you cannot just plug it into a USB port and copy files (you can use a Web browser though, so it's not abysmal - just not the best). The company is also very active, rolls out software updates that make things better. And it is really great for writing and drawing.

The Max 2 is larger (13", so full format for PDFs), and is running Android so you can add Android apps - more versatile. It's good if you need your PDFs to display at full size. ...

Unlike with single-column pdfs (17-19 cm text width + white margins), there should not be a problem with reading a two-column (double-column) A4 textual pdf on 7.8" devices if there is two-column mode available or good zooming capabilities, because I've used to read them even on 6" readers some seven-eight years ago.

The column width in two-column pdf is about 7-8 cm on the paper, whereas 6" readers are 9 cm wide in portraite, and 7.8" readers about 12 cm, so, we can get a significant column magnification compared to the paper document.

I'm only talking about the font(letter) size here, because it takes four screens per page reading this way, so, some might find it slower than preferred or not comfortable enough as with seeing the whole page at once, e.g. if there are many tables and diagrams across the page that can't be easily zoomed in depending on the application used, or there are many colours used therein, so, that in that case we should simultaneously use tablet for the colored tables and e-ink for reading the text, if it would be easier on the eyes that way.

Although beside A5 sized pdf books I can also read many single-column A4 pdfs using landscape mode on my 7.8 " Kobo Aura One (16 cm width; 300 ppi), by cropping the margins completely using fit-to-content-width mode in Koreader app, but it is not as comfortable for the prolonged reading as by using the same landscape mode & cropped margins on 10" reader, especially if the pdf text width was 18-19 cm instead of 15-17.

[you sir name]

Ha, interesting and unexpected discussion here ... thanks!
I don't really have that much to contribute, never having owned a tablet (although I've borrowed one from friends on occasion)... the thing is I don't necessarily want "Bang" for my bucks, I've already got a laptop for that (or if I really were after "bang", I'd probably get some silly gaming rig with liquid nitrogen cooling or whatever); I want something that (ideally) does exactly one or two things and doesn't get me distracted.

As for reading books from LCD screens in 1986, I somehow doubt that... but I won't argue with the idea that modern lcd screens if handled correctly can be easy enough on the eyes. You've in fact got me into looking into the ipad option more seriously. I'll probably see if I can find something used from a few years back for cheap, in addition to whatever e-reader I end up buying (tax return coming through, eh...)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by you sir name

As for reading books from LCD screens in 1986, I somehow doubt that...

Why do you doubt it? There were lots of different handheld devices with LCD screens available from the mid ‘80s onwards. I started out reading books from PG on Psion devices in the mid ‘80s, and in the 90s moved on to Palm and Pocket PC devices. Commercial ebooks started to appear in the mid ‘90s, but I’d read literally hundreds of classics from PG by that time.

[you sir name]

oops, I stand corrected - up to today I had lived in the belief that LCD devices beyond pocket calculators were available only from the 90s onward... (because I do remember a lot of CRT monitors standing around in my childhood) ... and never bothered to look into it!