What device to read PDF files for long hours (tablet or e-reader)

ukknifer said:
Would you guys recommend The galaxy tab 10. or Microsoft surface?
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I'll give a shameless plug for the tablet I bought and love, the LG G Pad 8.3. The size and weight aren't much different than most 7" tablets like the Nexus 7, yet has a nice bump in screen size. And unlike 10" tablets, it can be gripped in one hand easily without discomfort of fatigue. The 1920x1200 resolution gives it a 16:10 ratio, which is a bit better for reading than the typical 16:9 of most Android tablets, and the 273ppi pixel density makes fine print easy to read without discomfort.

As for .pdf and e-readers, they don't always play nice with each other. There's office applications, there's e-book readers, comic book readers, dedicated .pdf readers, etc. Some give you different display options, but you won't have much choice when it comes to .pdf because when you get down to it it's still a .pdf.

Unlike e-reader formats like .mobi or .epub, .pdfs aren't flexible. With those, you can change the font size, margins, spacing, etc, and everything formats to fit. But with a .pdf, everything is set. You can zoom, but you can't change the font size or margins without editing the file and making those changes in the actual file. Every time you zoom and want to change the page, you have to re-zoom. Frankly, .pdfs on a tablet are a PITA.

There are converters, but they won't preserve image files and the formatting with text and images, like if you're viewing a .pdf of a textbook or something. Plus, something always seems to go wrong with conversions. Weird paragraph formatting, letters or symbols get replaced by ?'s, missing characters, etc.

A Microsoft Surface or other Windows tablet might be able to work with .pdfs better. Just make sure you get one with actual Windows 8.1, which can run anything your computer can, and not Windows Phone or RT. The Surface Pro 3 is easily the most capable of them, but it also costs as much (or more) as a regular laptop. Whether or not a Windows tablet will work with .pdf better, I can't say.
 
I've played around with PDF's briefly on a kindle and ran into several problems with small text and I think it kept running out of memory or some other problem which required me to constantly shut that document down and reopen it. And this has been my experience with it on several different PDF documents after playing around with it for a few hours. Too bad I wanted a kindle for PDFs but it just doesn't work well.

Haven't tried a tablet but I've used PDF's on multiple smartphones running Android. Works better but definately not perfect but a large step up from the kindle, trick would be to get a high quality large screen on the tablet to make reading it easier.

Portability wise for PDF's it seems my Chromebook has strangely taken the lead as being top dog despite it lacking in practically everything for options for using PDF's. It displays the PDF and doesn't screw it up, thats about all I can say about it. Far from perfect, but it's best for my uses so far. A larger laptop would make life easier by giving me more viewing and program options for PDFs.

I think your best bet for reading would be a desktop or laptop hooked up to a 24in or larger IPS display as you can easily view 2 pages side by side and have the text clear and legible.

Though if the monitor is giving you a headache so will most other devices I think, only exception might be the e-ink but I honestly don't know of one that will display PDF's that good. I tried finding one in the past and had no luck.
 
My Nexus 10 works okay for PDF's. I should note that I generally don't read something over 4 pages on it. For a price effective choice, I would buy another Nexus 10 if I needed to. It isn't tightly coupled to anyone's ecosystem (apple/microsoft) so, it seems to work pretty well with a broad spectrum of applications.

Normally, I will just use my ZR2440 IPS monitor and my glasses for any extended reading.
 
I find reading on my phone easier than paper books, most of the time.

I'll explain, I tend to get distracted easily when reading. A large page filled with lots of words can take a while for me to read depending on the content and my level of interest in the topic or story. Sometimes I have to reread the page twice just to get all the information. Must be the ADHD.:).

A phone screen, my HTC One has a 4.7", contains fewer words per page which helps me stay on task for long texts or books. I primarily read from my phone first, then move to my larger HP Envy X2 11.6" screen if I need more screen real estate, and read it in portrait mode after disconnecting the keyboard. If the book is interesting, I'll read from paper next, with shorter stories or articles being easier for me to follow along than longer books or volumes. I guess I'm just strange like that.

Another benefit, I can carry lots of books with me on my phone and not increase the mass I am carrying. A literal library in my pocket.
 
Actually my chromebook is pretty much the same way as you describe your smartphone a wall of text. Hit the button to fit to width and than the full screen button and you now have a large full screen of text that's pretty easy to read in my experience. Easiest thing I've used portability wise for reading PDF's, I've tried to find better but failed. On the plus side I believe HP put out a budget chromebook with an IPS display that probably be pretty nice to read on. 11.6in display is plenty big enough as it will only allow you to read 1 page at a time so unfortunately there will be a lot of scrolling. Only thing keeping me from recommending it fully is lack of programs you can instal due to being restricted to Chrome OS.

Ever get the chance to play with one download a PDF on a display model and test it for yourself you may be quite surprised, I know with what a little laptop can do.

If it means anything to you I've used mine to type up a lot of papers and notes and once you go full screen which is only a button away the small screen anxiety goes away. Also helps with keeping the taskbar minimized when your not full screen. Reading full pages of text isn't fun but easily doable. It's better than most laptops with how easy they made it to reduce on screen clutter to maximize screen real estate. Nice perk over tablets it's easier to plop it down somewhere and read instead of holding the device to read.
 
ukknifer said:
...I find the computer screen irritating to my eyes and gives me headache...
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What's the lighting like around your computer? Ideally the wall behind your screen should be as bright as the screen itself, being in a well lit environment helps a lot.

I put a diffused lamp with a 1600 lumen CFL on the back of my desk, the light is directly above my laptop screen (and beside my desktop monitor). For years and years I kept my screen brightness low because it was irritating, but it's only irritating when it's the only thing putting out a lot of light. You need enough surrounding light to convince your eyes to adapt.
 
Content Formats Supported:
Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion

How do PDF's look on a Kindle Paper White? Are they legible? How are the colors and graphics handled?

Thanks,
Sid
 
PDF's on a kindle paper white are crap to put it shortly. Their not as legible as a real kindle book, your stuck at the default size of the pdf so you may have to zoom in to read. When I tested it the pdf frequently reported it ran out of memory if my memory serves me correct which required me to close down the pdf and reopen it. This happened VERY frequently. In short it was the complete opposite experience of using an actual kindle book.

I highly reccommend NOT going that route. I wanted to convince myself (and I am good at doing so) that a kindle paper white would have been good for school after I convert my textbooks to pdf, but the support for them sucks so much I can't bring myself to doing that. I found my chromebook to being a far superior product for this use. Tablets probably be better for most people in this regard though, just get one with a 10in screen to make life easier while reading.
 
To get an idea of what its like to read a PDF in a e-reader, take a standard printed page. Then make a cardboard cut out the size of the reader screen (4x6inch or whatever) now try to read. also, every time you need to move the "window" to see something, get someone else to do it. Its about that level of frustrating. I've loaded PDFs onto my KoboTouch, and it will do it, but the full page view is about 6 point font. zooming in works, but there is no way to move the window efficiently, so it often just skips to the next page instead of moving over or down to the text I need. Its even worse with large format books.
 
gadgetgeek said:
To get an idea of what its like to read a PDF in a e-reader, take a standard printed page. Then make a cardboard cut out the size of the reader screen (4x6inch or whatever) now try to read. also, every time you need to move the "window" to see something, get someone else to do it. Its about that level of frustrating. I've loaded PDFs onto my KoboTouch, and it will do it, but the full page view is about 6 point font. zooming in works, but there is no way to move the window efficiently, so it often just skips to the next page instead of moving over or down to the text I need. Its even worse with large format books.
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Put a sheet of plastic wrap or clear plastic taped to that "window" very tightly on it and now try to read. That would be my experience with the kindle paper white with PDF's. You can "zoom out" by moving your window back to view the entire paper but than it's not legible as well, or "zoom in" by putting it on top of the paper and than your stuck with a still not a legible text as one made for the e-reader but you can still read it.
 
Just started playing around with some of the long forgotten apps I had for my android (ok I wasn't signed into amazon app store for a year or two so didn't have access to everything) and I just started to play with Documents to Go which I have the Premium version of and it displays PDF's exceptionally well on my RAZR M. The trick is to do "Word Wrap" and than choose 50%/100%/150% zoom depending on whichever looks the best to you and it does a pretty dang good job of formatting the PDF. My suggestion play with the app before buying something to use it on, but I found reading PDF's on a 4.3in screen quite a bit easier using this.
 
Thank you Bob6794 and thanks to everyone for the input. This forum is a great place with fine people. :)
 
Since early this morning when I posted that I found Quick Office and Quick Office Pro has a similar setting where it wraps the text like Documents to Go, for some reason though the 2 different Quick Offices have different interfaces on my phone. Experiment with both if you have the option.

Also from my research it looks like the Nook HD+ is starting to look like the best bang for the buck for PDF reading in terms of tablets. Screen size and resolution seems to play a good part in that. Price is decently cheap if you look around when you compare it to the competition.

I've been looking into this stuff all night trying to find a good solution to being able to read PDF's on the go for my own personal PDF books. Will this work for you though, I don't know. It may or may not be easy on your eyes if a normal monitor is giving you problems. Trick I do with a computer though is I instinctively built in breaks from looking a the monitor. When I type I look at the keyboard, and I let my mind wander away from the screen for 5-10min at least per hour it seems (very rough estimate by end of the day) by either doing something random or getting up and doing something. Try to build that into your habit on reading on the computer and whatever electronic device you decide to use as a portable PDF reader and it should help if your not doing something like that already.
 
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