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Ask Slashdot: Ebook Reader for Scientific Papers?
An anonymous reader writes "I love the idea of getting an ebook reader primarily for reading research journal papers. However I've heard bad things about the handling of PDFs on the major ones. I don't particularly care for color, but having an e-ink display and the ability to handle PDF/PS docs without conversion would be a major plus. I'd even be open to a hacked Kindle running Linux if it were practical. Does any good solution exist?"
A few months ago I found the Asus Eee Note (some folks even figured out how the software works and got it to run other Qt apps), but my hopes were dashed when I learned they had killed it before it even arrived in the U.S. It seems right now that this particular niche is not being served: or is it?
I bought a kindle dx largely for this purpose. However, I quickly decided that e-ink is much better suited to novels than research. The problem is that I often need to flick through papers fast to see the main results or reread something and the 2second page load time makes this too tedious. The other problem is that I often need to have 2 or 3 papers open simultaneously to check and crossrefence stuff, and this doesn't work on a kindle.
I still highly recommend the kindle dx. It gives a nicer reading experience than even a real book in my opinion, but for novels not papers. I also have a galaxy tab 10.1, which is awesome, but again not really suitable for research. You need a desktop or a laptop, there's no real substitute.