Slashdot Mirror
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 used to have the Kindle DX. I bought it so I didn't need to carry a bunch of paper or books around with me. But I soon found, that it was VERY annoying for using as reference or reading papers on. Jumping from page to page with the clicky buttons was very slow and you couldn't do any side-by-side comparison. Not to mention, if the PDF or whatever is an Image PDF, it takes a decade to load. I just went back to paper and books, can take notes in the margins, highlight easily, do side-by-side comparison and easy reference by keeping bookmarks and flipping between pages faster. Maybe its just the method Amazon uses to render the screen, but I didn't like it for those purposes. Others might have a different opinion than me or a better solution (which I'd be glad to hear since I hate carrying all my books, etc around).
Two words describe a problem with that: vertical panning... although I'm not so lazy that I'm unwilling to pan a page, it's still roughly as detaching from the experience of actually absorbing the content as flipping a physical page is, and creates a discontinuous impression of a single page that would otherwise have been seamless if you could see it all at once.
Simply put, for some types of content, you need to see a whole page at a time... and you need it to be presented large enough that you will be able to see all the text clearly.
The DX doesn't do that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I am in the same boat as you. I wanted an ideal portable device for reading PDF documents. Here is what I have tried so far:
1. Barnes and Noble Nook B&W e-ink device. PDFs simply do not look right on this device.
2. Barnes and Noble Nook Color. Slow processor and small screen. Some squinting and patience is required to read PDFs on this device.
3. ipad (1 & 2). Really good PDF rendering and pages turn fast. Downsides are: a) No easy way to transfer documents. Some may consider iTunes easy to work. I do not. b) Lower resolutio and physical size of the display when compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and other similar Android devices.
4. Samsung Galaxy Tab 7". Very portable and reasonably fast processor. Downsides are: a) Battery drains faster than other modern tablets. b) Small and low resolution screen when compared to its big brother.
5. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. This is my current PDF reading device. I use it quite frequently. Display is excellent. Battery performance is outstanding. There are many ways to transfer documents. I just mount a share over the network and drag and drop content. Messing with cables and another computer etc. for doing this is stupid and Steve Jobs should know it. The only downside is that the PDF reader options on Android are not as good. The built-in reader on ipad is really really good. On Android, you have Adobe reader, that is missing some really critical functionality. For example you cannot bookmark a page. I currently use Aldiko. It is OK. It is a bit slow. And appears to render PDFs not as sharp. Also it acts utterly dumb if you switch to landscape mode. There is no way to tell it to fill the width of the screen. So I mostly read my docs in portrait mode and for that it is quite good. I really like the ability to change brightness level without using menus and moving my finger up and down.
E-ink products will not serve your needs. I'm a grad student in physics, and I tried doing exactly this. I love my Kindle for reading books, but the delay and screen size issues (even on the DX) made reading technical papers, where I often am moving back and forward quickly, frustrating. This leaves aside the difficulties of organization - ereaders are not really designed to have 200+ papers. I suggest getting a tablet instead - the ability to download new papers directly from the tablet is worth the additional money.
I bought the Nook Color for the same reason. The Nook Color PDF reader is a very capable viewer. I didn't want the Nook version of Android so I bought one that was already rooted with CyanogenMod.
I'm mostly happy with it for reading PDFs. Like any tablet-sized reader you will have to pan. You can view the pages in portrait mode fully zoomed out but it's hard to read that way. I read in landscape and just pan the document a bit. I'm finding more authors are publishing to PDF using one column. In those cases it just work. Pinch-zooming works but the text rarely (if ever) re-flows the way web pages do in Chrome.
I don't like the Adobe file browser on Android, though. It adds every PDF on the SD card to the master list. It's a giant scrollable list with each folder path as a section separator. I would like the option to toggle between hierarchical folder view and list.
I tried using Calibre to convert some PDFs to ePub. Two-column PDFs have been a disaster. I rarely get anything that's usable. YMMV. I decided to stick with PDFs (or .ps files I convert to PDF).
Using Chrome to read web pages is mostly workable. Strangely, clicking an HTML file in the file manager doesn't launch the regular Chrome browser. Rather you get the "HTML Viewer". It's mostly Chrome but has no open dialog or access to bookmarks (AFAICT).
As an Android device it's quite functional. Most market applications install without a problem. The one I have problems with are those for which the Download button doesn't appear. I haven't chased the issue down yet. Not sure whether it's a Cyanogen issue.
Google Books works great but you have to have internet access to read the books. Just goes to prove Android is really designed to be an always-connected OS. FBReader, on the other hand, just works.
As you can tell, it's no iPad in terms of "It Just Works". In sum, as a PDF reader I'm mostly happy with it. All the other features are bonuses. The issues are mostly irrelevant.
Lastly, if you check E-Bay or B&N's website they sell refurbed Nook Color's for $199. For an extra $50 you can get the extended warranty (if you're into those). For the same $249 for a new one with 1-year warranty you get a unit with a 2-year warranty.
3. ipad (1 & 2). Really good PDF rendering and pages turn fast. Downsides are: a) No easy way to transfer documents. Some may consider iTunes easy to work. I do not. b) Lower resolutio and physical size of the display when compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and other similar Android devices.
You don't need to use iTunes to transfer PDFs. There are several hundred PDF readers written specifically for the iPad. I've only tried a few of them but my favorites are Papers, GoodReader and AirSharing, none of which require you to use iTunes for transferring files. Direct access to servers, including mail servers and dropbox, is common. Did you actually try an iPad?
Current e-ink screens, while very nice outdoors, are far too small for a scientific paper. Until there is an A4-sized e-ink device you will not be able to use it to read scientific papers. I've found that using a tablet is the best way to go so far. While the screen is lower resolution and not very good outside the advantage is that it updates very quickly so it is easy to enlarge plots, enlarge the text and scroll around the now too-big-for-the-screen page etc. which you cannot do with e-ink.
If they ever release an affordable A4/letter e-ink device which displays PDFs then I'd go for that but until then tablets seem to be the best for scientific papers.