PDF reading: 701IQ vs. 902/903

[GUdrus]

Hello. I am planning to buy a device solely for PDF textbooks reading. I study medicine, so most of the ebooks are large format textbooks with lots of pictures and diagrams. Also the files can be up to 100Mb large and more. Which device would better suite my needs? Or is it none of them?

[omoplata]

I don't own any of these so I don't know much about them. But 902/903 cannot display in color (it's grayscale).

[hiaig]

I don't own a 902/903, so cannot comment. I can tell you that it is not easy reading pdfs on the IQ701 and I would not even try with medical text.

I find any kind of technical reading (especially pdfs) is best done on a computer. My siblings are in the medical profession and they have tablets.

If it is in your budget, I would get a tablet and bluebeam pdf revu (an excellent pdf annotator) so you can highlight and annotate your textbooks.

Cheers

[skydive]

I own the PB902 and I am using it to read TEchnical docuements. I am very pleased with it, large display 9.7", G-sensor, so you can turn the device and read on landscape mode, taking notes are not the best, but is the better on the market.

Depending on how the PDF was created, the features of table of content etc will work fine.

If tech documents are your main reading, search for big displays.

Hope this helps

[Latinandgreek]

You could have a look at the Notion Ink Adam:

http://www.notionink.com/
http://gizmodo.com/5471559/notion-in...pecs-finalized

The Pixel QI screen model can be read in sunlight, with the backlight turned off.

[GUdrus]

Whats about when reading PDF files using Pocketbook IQ in landscape mode? Does the page turn is to slow?

[fjtorres]

The biggest issue isn't speed.
It's functionality.
You're not going to get much in the way of features on the pdf viewers available on Android since most are geared for cellphone use.
If you're looking to use it for textbooks you'll probably want to do anotations and maybe even roundtrip the annotated pdfs to a PC. Those kinds of things are best done on a PC.
If you just want to "print to screen" and just look at the page image then the IQ will be decent and the 9xx eink readers good.
But if academic PDF use is your primary focus you really need a more robust *computing* platform.

[paola]

Originally Posted by GUdrus

Which device would better suite my needs? Or is it none of them?

I guess a lot of it depends on what your needs are - if you left nothing implicit, and you really only need to read books, unless colour is crucial I would have thought the 902/3 should work just fine. But if you need colour and you need annotations, the former is just not possible, while for the latter I still have hope - but at the moment forget about it.
And if you need to do some editing on your own file, I couldn't agree more with fjtorres with the need of a pc (although I am ignorant of tablets).

To me the great thing of the smaller devices is portability - e.g. today I was traveling for work, and I did need my laptop to change some documents, but for reading papers my 903 proved brilliant - you can read it on the plane, on the tube, on the bus, and even the up-to-now-useless scribble did its bit today, as I could just use it to work out some stuff in the absence of paper.

[GUdrus]

I want the device only for reading. Making annotations isn't a think that I would really need and can live without that. It's just that reading lots of PDF files is uncomfortable with laptop and I want some smaller and lighter device for that. And yes, colour is important to me (unless 902 has enough contrast and shades of grey to make looking at complex pictures easy).

I thought that with touch screen, you could just scroll the PDF page easily and zoom in the pictures if you need it. Isn't it so?

[fjtorres]

If it's solely for color PDFs you should go as big as you can heft.
Pandigital has a 9in Android tablet for under $200 and Archos has a 10in for around $300.
Or you can go for a iPad or one of the new Win7 slates if the budget will let you go to $500.

[fishNco]

hi @GUdrus, i'm a medical student AND doing a phd, so i have to read both medical textbooks and scientific pdfs.

at the moment i have a tablet PC (Dell Latitude XT) with Bluebeam PDF Revu to read PDFs, OneNote for storing notes, Mindjet MindManager for taking short-term notes. (these are all tablet-friendly programs) unfortunately most proper tablet computers that i know don't have very high specs, so you'll find that it's not productive to be running more than 3 programs at a time.

it's OK to read books and journal articles on a tablet PC, but it depends on whether your eyes can take the strain. can you manage with long hours of reading medical / academic text on your current computer screen? if you can, then a tablet PC (proper laptop, with a decent processor) will fit your needs.

don't expect wonders from a touch screen. i personally like big screens so that i can view a whole page without having to pan and zoom. imho touch technology at its current state isn't precise enough, and winds up being rather annoying.

also, i'm not sure how much colour you need - usually a lot of diagrams and pictures are passable in black and white, if you really do need to view something in colour you can always go check it on a proper computer. i say this because my girlfriend is happy reading her medical textbooks on a Kindle 3, which has only greyscale, and she doesn't mind pan and zoom.

you're very sensible to not prioritise annotations. from personal experience, it's more useful to take notes in a separate location, where you can quickly browse through them, rather than have to flip through the book page by page.

however, my eyes tire quite easily and i don't like to read for a long period of time on my tablet PC screen. so i've pre-ordered a pocketbook 903 because it's one of the few 9.7" e-ink readers that supports a large variety of formats. i decided against the Kindle DXG because it only handles PDF natively, and even so, i've heard that the DXG pdf renderer (? if that is the correct term) isn't as good as it is on the Kindle 3s. that said, i am still waiting for my PB 903 to arrive.....

[skydive]

Totally agree!! I am very pleased with my PB902..

Originally Posted by fishNco

hi @GUdrus, i'm a medical student AND doing a phd, so i have to read both medical textbooks and scientific pdfs.

at the moment i have a tablet PC (Dell Latitude XT) with Bluebeam PDF Revu to read PDFs, OneNote for storing notes, Mindjet MindManager for taking short-term notes. (these are all tablet-friendly programs) unfortunately most proper tablet computers that i know don't have very high specs, so you'll find that it's not productive to be running more than 3 programs at a time.

it's OK to read books and journal articles on a tablet PC, but it depends on whether your eyes can take the strain. can you manage with long hours of reading medical / academic text on your current computer screen? if you can, then a tablet PC (proper laptop, with a decent processor) will fit your needs.

don't expect wonders from a touch screen. i personally like big screens so that i can view a whole page without having to pan and zoom. imho touch technology at its current state isn't precise enough, and winds up being rather annoying.

also, i'm not sure how much colour you need - usually a lot of diagrams and pictures are passable in black and white, if you really do need to view something in colour you can always go check it on a proper computer. i say this because my girlfriend is happy reading her medical textbooks on a Kindle 3, which has only greyscale, and she doesn't mind pan and zoom.

you're very sensible to not prioritise annotations. from personal experience, it's more useful to take notes in a separate location, where you can quickly browse through them, rather than have to flip through the book page by page.

however, my eyes tire quite easily and i don't like to read for a long period of time on my tablet PC screen. so i've pre-ordered a pocketbook 903 because it's one of the few 9.7" e-ink readers that supports a large variety of formats. i decided against the Kindle DXG because it only handles PDF natively, and even so, i've heard that the DXG pdf renderer (? if that is the correct term) isn't as good as it is on the Kindle 3s. that said, i am still waiting for my PB 903 to arrive.....

[fishNco]

thanks @skydive! hope i'll be really pleased with my 903 too

[fishNco]

update: my PB 903 has just arrived, and i have managed to load both scientific papers and medical books as PDFs into it. they display very very nicely, and the whole page is readable at the default zoom (fit width). images display very nicely too, even in black & white.

@gudrus, if you don't absolutely need colour, you should seriously consider a PB 903.

[paola]

Originally Posted by fishNco

update: my PB 903 has just arrived

hurray!