Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#21

Post by Schiphol » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 8:52 AM UTC

Laptop when I'm at my desk, but otherwise I actually use my smartphone. It's a biggish one, and in landscape orientation it's enough to fit the (printed area of) the width of a pdf page in a decent font size.

The convenience of just taking the phone out of my pocket and start reading more than compensates for not having a whole page in view.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#22

Post by ComputerGuru » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 8:56 AM UTC

ouid wrote: post #15

I usually read with my brain.

You're new to HN, but as you'll find out, we don't really recommend posting jokes or wisecracks in the comments in an endeavor to keep the signal-to-noise ratio a little higher.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#23

Post by Fannon » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 8:58 AM UTC

A Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (2015?) with Xodo PDF Reader. The screen is very good and big enough to read and highlight/comment PDF's, even for todays standards. Xodo also saves the annotations directly back to the original PDF. Using Dropsync/Dropbox for syncing with the PC.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#24

Post by mmrezaie » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:01 AM UTC

yanhangyhy wrote: post #8

SONY DPT

I wonder why no one mentioned it, but I would like Mendeley to have a device like this that only has Mendeley and I will be so happy.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#25

Post by nwuensche » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:05 AM UTC

I really tried to use a 6'' kindle for that, but it just doesn't work. I tried it with .pdf, but the screen is just to small and scrolling is not really comfortable. When I tried to convert them to .mobi with calibre, all formulas just looked nasty. Today, I read them on my 14'' ThinkPad with Redshift installed. It does its job well, but it isn't as handy as a Kindle would be.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#26

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

Kindle Voyage. A bit slow for some graphics-heavy papers though.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#27

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:20 AM UTC

teekert wrote: post #12

A printer. What I need is an e-ink device that lets me take notes on it and is large and fast and shows the images in color. Zooming would make it superior to paper. It's just not there yet. I tried to read articles in NCBI's ebook format on my kindle but you can't hop back and forward easily on a Kindle and note taking is of course not an option.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#28

Post by rahimnathwani » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:21 AM UTC

CapTVK wrote: post #13

rahimnathwani wrote: post #4

GoodReader on iPad

Agreed, an iPad with goodreader is the way to go (in particular its notetaking and extensive file management options). I might even go for the 12.9" pro model at some point but the standard 9.7" model is enough for most pdf's.

GoodReader's zoom in-out is so fast (at least on iPad Air 2), even on complex PDFs, that it's easy enough to zoom in on the occasional thing that's too small to read.

I've been thinking about upgrading to a 12.9" iPad Pro myself, but the additional benefits (larger screen, Apple Pencil support, better colour fidelity) aren't worth it for my use cases.

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#29

Post by billconan » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:22 AM UTC

this device looks nice: https://getremarkable.com/

Re: Ask HN: What device do you use to read academic papers with?

#30

Post by cube2222 » Tue, Feb 07, 2017, 9:24 AM UTC

I'm always using my Surface Pro 4 in tablet form, it's great for that. (And I can also mark up using my pen)