
Ask HN: A large tablet for PDFs? - 1024core
Black Friday is coming up (here in the US). I have a large and growing collection of papers (and some books), and I&#x27;d like to be able carry them around with me. I don&#x27;t like the idea of reading PDFs on my MBP, so I&#x27;ve been considering a  full-sized (12.9&quot; of larger, which is the size of a US Letter sheet of paper) tablet.<p>I&#x27;d like to be able to annotate the PDFs, and search them. I used to use Goodreader on an iPad, but reading on the smaller-sized iPad feels straining.<p>One option is the new &quot;iPad Pro&quot;, but the dang thing is $1200 if you include a stylus! That seems like a lot if you just want to have easy access to your papers and books.  Sony&#x27;s DPT RP1 is another option, but it seems like it&#x27;s not well supported.<p>Anyone have any suggestions? Good battery life, and a large and readable screen are all I need.<p>Thanks for your time.
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rpeden
I got a used Surface Pro earlier this year for exactly this purpose.

It was the previous gen at the time - Surface Pro 4, instead of the newer 2017
Surface Pro. It looks the same as the 2017 model and the new SP6, though.

Since I mostly wanted it for PDF reading, I got the low end one with a core
m3, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. It cost about $400 (Canadian) on eBay, and
came with a Surface Pen.

If you don't mind buying something pre-owned, it might be worth a look. There
seem to be lots of them on eBay that were leased by companies and then used
very gently. The one I got looked like new and even came in the original box.

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dodgyb
I came across this beauty a couple of days ago> Not seen it in the flesh but
is does seem to fit your use case.

[https://remarkable.com/](https://remarkable.com/)

Specs

[https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/11500455428...](https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-
us/articles/115004554289)

I use a refurbished 1st gen sony xperia 10.1 tablet that I bought for £100 on
ebay. It is very light and has good resolution but the screen could be a bit
bigger. The big plus is it takes an sd card and also a portable s/hdd can be
attached so storage is no problem.

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konradb
I have one of these; I got it specifically to read large PDFs on. I like it
very much. The software has been a bit of a journey but broadly works. As a
bonus you can ssh into it and screw around if you have the time or the
inclination; there is a bunch of people who experiment with it. I just stick
with the reading. It isn't backlit. But it is a beauty, having such a large
e-ink screen is fantastic and being able to take notes/draw diagrams etc is
great.

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tchaffee
After my Samsung tablet was stolen I ordered a cheapo (~$100) replacement
tablet online without having tried it. Bad decision. The lower end tablets are
horrible for reading due to the lower screen resolution. Movies and photos are
fine. But with text you can see the individual pixels and it's almost
unreadable. I just ordered another Samsung Galaxy S3 (less than $500) and will
sell the cheapo brand I bought. I haven't really seen anything match Samsung's
AMOLED displays, and it's half the price of the iPad Pro which has an LCD with
less contrast.

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LarryMade2
I went with a low end Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1, the size is good, battery is
great, the hardware is not beholden to the software (i.e. no lock-in with
Amazon Kindle, Nook, iPad-iOS.) Good speed and google Play certified (that's
the gotcha on cheap tablets make sure you can run google play) I know it is
reparable (Have fixed friends Tabs'). Has a relatively new OS (Android
Nougat)), SD card slot, dual camera.m Maybe not some of the other extras of
higher end tablets like IR and extra ports.

In general usage has been great, and the benefit of PDFs on a tablet is being
able to zoom and scroll (Got a scan of Computer Lib/Dream Machines in it, the
zooming/scrolling is very helpful to read it.) Though if I had a choice I
would prefer paper books if available the screen can affect your reading and
also light reactions staring as the display closer than a monitor.

Beyond that I'm not too impressed by the ebook stores "buying" ebooks though
them is no discount (plus you get the added dread of the e-book outlets still
have complete control your "purchased" \- er licensed content).

library ebooks are nice, and also magazines (though library e-editions seem
more ad-riddled than print ones.)

Tablet apps are pale next to desktop stuff, and you may have to hunt to find
tablet stuff that actually are comparative to good desktop FOSS.

In hindsight I like it, I would not have found more value in the bigger screen
of a page size (except more heft and expense)

If unsure borrow a friend's and try it out. Though if they only have the
supplies PDF viewer, I would get acrobat or some other more capable PDF reader
to test the built-in ones are usually kinda lacking.

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alienreborn
I suggest iPad 2018 (330 but you can get it for 250 this Thanksgiving from
various big box retailers) or iPad Pro 11 depending on how much you wanna
spend. iPad 12.9 is too big and unwieldily to hold, its great if you mostly
read/draw with it laying on a desk.

I just upgraded to iPad Pro 11 and its a great PDF reading device. I use PDF
Expert with synced cloud folder so that any annotations or notes I made on
iPad are available everywhere on the pdfs. LiquidPDF is another costly but
more powerful PDF annotation tool.

Samsung make great tablets with AMOLED screens but please be aware that
android has non existent tablet app ecosystem.

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borncrusader
I use the larger iPad pro - I understand it's quite expensive but that's the
only Apple device we have for our home and me and my wife use it for our own
purposes and we find it to be worth the money. She uses it mostly for art
while I use it for reading and taking notes - the split screen view is a
really amazing with a PDF open and a note taking app (I use OneNote).

The iBooks app is also good for taking notes on the PDF - I usually use it to
take notes of papers but prefer to use OneNote for the books.

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burtonator
You might like the app I'm working on:

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

I've given up on the idea of using tablets for PDFs. I think the main issue is
annotation.

I think you need a mouse and a keyboard.

This is why I stated working on Polar. I wanted to do my main reading on a
laptop/desktop but sync my notes to a mobile app.

Right now the mobile sync is done by Anki but at some point I'll probably add
a PWA or mobile app to sync directly.

A PWA is more compelling as it would work on ios + android of course but that
requires more work.

~~~
hiaux0
This is amazing, thanks for sharing and creating!

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walterbell
A used iPad Pro 12.9" 1st generation will meet your needs. Same screen
resolution, much cheaper, runs iOS 12. Devonthink has a local search engine
for PDFs.

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snazz
Agreed. Although the iPad Pro is large enough to display a whole sheet of
paper at native scale, I find that the smaller 6th generation iPad works just
fine too at less than $400 (it also supports the first gen Apple Pencil).

Apple Books (previously iBooks) works well enough for annotating and searching
PDFs and ePubs, although Notability is much faster and works more like paper.

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DrNuke
My iPad mini 2 retina is so good for PDFs and casual surfing I still use it as
my main device indoor, Apple even gave it new life with iOS 12, for which I’m
grateful indeed. That is meant to say you should be fine with the very good
and relatively cheap 2018 iPad entry level.

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awaywopassd
I got 10.5" iPad Pro. I know it is expensive and not up to your requirements
but I do find it very enjoyable for reading books and pdfs. Though it is
pretty heavy for extended use.

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badpun
I read PDFs on regular iPad. If the text feels too small (which it often
does), I crop its margins before uploading to the iPad.

