E-book reader for A4 PDF's?

[wayne2612]

I use my iPad for reading pdf files, especially magazines. Whilst the screen eventually strains your eyes, you can read everything clearly on the iPad without having to zoom in and out all the time.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by David Munch

I bought my iPad primarily to read scientific PDF's. it does the job perfectly.

Technical PDF is also one of the reasons I upgraded to a retina display iPad. It really does handle the job quite well. As far as form factor is concerned, ~10" 4:3 is ideal for A4- and letter-sized PDFs if you want to maximize the display area. The 10.1" 16:10 form factor of most Android tablets just leaves you with huge margins when viewing fullscreen in portrait mode.

There are actually some high resolution Android tablets utilizing a 4:3 aspect ratio (Archos 97 Titanium HD, Archos 97 Platinum HD, various Chinese tablets running AOSP Jelly Bean). However, for now the iPad is still better (mostly in terms of battery life and performance).

[Razi]

Apart from the color option, tablets have faster processors as well. You need a faster processor to load and smooth reading experience of a large pdf. I have read pdfs above 100mbs on my iPad without any problem whatsoever. The worst thing about eink readers is the cheap and unreliable feeling you get while using them. They are slow and market is only accommodating obsolete processors.

I store my books in Google Drive (5 GB free space), it is half full and my whole library of academic books is there. I just scan my books as images and upload them to my drive and Good Reader takes them straight from there. No iTunes required. I can't read on eink at all. Too dark, processors too slow, no pdf annotation, no colors. Compared to reading pdfs on a tablet (in my experience) reading on eink feels primitive and a retrograde step. Most of us spend our days in front of backlit screens to earn our living, why can't we do the same to do our reading as well?