I don't /personally/ need a phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop for myself. A laptop/tablet lets me double dip, plus it's a 15" screen which is nice as a mobile yet stable sheet music display for my keyboard.
phone is not wide enough, I don’t have a kindle, and I can’t sit upside down on my couch with a laptop (I mean I can but it doesn’t end well), so tablet of course.
These seem to be orthogonal concerns. The device I choose to read on is whichever is most convenient at the time. It generally has very little to do with the length of the material.
That said, I find myself reading the vast majority of my PDFs on my phone, mostly because it is always with me and I can easily resume reading nearly any time.
You're right. Computers run on electricity from coal power plants. Best to keep them running full-tilt ALL THE TIME. You'll show that filthy coal: you'll BURN IT ALL UP!!!
I tend to print long documents 2-up, double-sided or 4-up double-sided depending on the font sizes. Black text on a white background is too much eyestrain for me on a backlit screen, and I often want to mark the things up and spread a bunch of stuff around on a table side-by-side.
Computers are pretty good for HTML or epub or whatever, because they just reflow to fit and you can just style them for dark mode. But PDFs are designed for printing, and have things like "pages" built into the model. If you don't want me to print it out, don't use a print-specific format like PDF!
@spacehobo yes, I get it. I feel pretty bad printing out a lot of pages for a single read. But if it's something I'm going to re-use, it may make sense to print it.
Voted "tablet" but it's really "it depends". If it's linear text that I'm reading from beginning to end without diagrams or pictures, my Kobo (like a Kindle but better and comes from a good Canadian company) is the more comfortable choice. If it's a long document that I have to jump around in a lot, I'll want the tablet. (Deadtree version if I have to jump around a lot)
That said, I usually don't get documents for reading beginning to end in PDF. Those tend to be the other kind.
multiscreen desktop because heck if I'm gonna make it away and back to any other screen when (not if) something comes up and distracts me from the task.
The OP simply said “best”. Best in what? You’ve obviously not used an OLPC. Phone, tablet, & laptop can all be scratched off because you can’t read a backlit LCD at all in sunlight & batteries will die before you finish reading. Kindle can be scratched off b/c it’s proprietary closed-source, brings DRM, & supports one of the most unethical corps in the world: #Amazon.
I use an #OLPC for /only/ two purposes: reading long PDFs & flashcards. I have a smartphone, desktop, & laptop, which are suitable for short PDFs but not long ones. It’s more relaxing to the eyes to get away from the backlit LCD, go outside, and read off epaper- which is nearly as good as reading hardcopy paper.
I like the mulit-purpose aspect. I get to have my full-power laptop with a decent keyboard, but I can also fold it over and rotate it into portrait position to read a PDF.
Liquid Mode in the Adobe Acrobat app for Android is actually very nice. Although I'm pretty sure it's sending copies of all my PDFs to Adobe, and therefore at least 3 intelligence agencies
@jesse How much longer do we need to wait for a large, bright-color e-ink device? I see the 7" Boox one, but that is so small - and it looks so un-saturated.
I tried to do this with SICP right before going on a trip in the year 2001, in a pre ebook era. I ran out of paper halfway through. This is why I have read exactly half of SICP
yes, I regularly print out papers if I'm having trouble reading them at my desktop. It helps a lot with eye strain, which is a problem I unfortunately have in spades. I can also write on them and annotate as I go. Paper can be recycled easily, the same is not true for a tablet or iPad that is built to die in several years.
I voted “tablet”, but I think printing is fine if your alternative is buying a tablet. I expect the environmental impact of printing, let’s say, 100,000 pages is still far less than the impact of producing an iPad.
According to some quick searching, the carbon emissions are roughly the same (100kg of CO2), but (a) computers also use a lot of rare minerals and (b) we can massively reduce the impact of paper much more easily than electronic devices (for example by using recycled paper).
It’s better on your neck than using a laptop on your sofa. Ergonomics are important.
About 10 years ago I gave up using my laptop as my primary personal computer (although I still have one for work but it’s attached to two LCDs) and switched to a desktop.
I can do a lot on my phone. But I no longer have a laptop sitting on the ottoman. I have an excuse to keep work limited mostly to work hours. And I can read PDFs 🤣
I have the same issues as you do with the non-tablet alternatives, and find a tablet very comfortable and useful. I usually keep notes on a separate laptop. A friend has been enjoying the reMarkable 2 a lot - I'd buy one if I didn't already have all my use cases covered with what I already own
pre formatted full page pdfs are exactly why I prefer the iPad to the iPhone for this. Hardware manuals and college textbooks come to mind. They don’t reflow well.
I missed the poll, but I use a dedicated Galaxy Tab A from Samsung (<$300) with a stylus - no email or social installed - and the Xodo app syncs well with Dropbox, so edits are automatically synced. Game changer for me.
wait. Huge difference in reading for enjoyment and reading for knowledge: you will want the ability to take notes. Later, when you're compiling, you're going to want your notes available with the text.
I found the screen size of an iPad great for reading PDFs. The problem with any device that can do ~other things~ is that it's all too easy to get distracted. If you have strong willpower and don't get easily distracted, then fine.
My ideal reading device would be colour e-ink that can render PDFs to a high fidelity in both dark (with a backlight), in ambient indoor light (no backlight), and bright sunlight, and with NO distractions (a decent synced note taking app, perhaps).
The interesting part is the annotations. All my college textbooks are full of color markup and pencil annotations. And taped-on little stickies to make it easy to find important sections quickly. Theoretically computers could help with that incredibly well, but practically I have never seen software that does this well.
@est well, I've actually got more used to reading long documents on a phone. I prefer it for ebooks at least. It's just you specified PDFs, and *those* have funny formatting, so it's just not an option on a phone without something like liquid mode, which is imperfect.
Camilo Bravo :drumset:
•aeva
•Matthew Bradley
•r@ndol.ph :nonbinary: :trans:
•Evan Prodromou
•r@ndol.ph :nonbinary: :trans:
•jeraldina:python_logo:☁️
•Evan Prodromou
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•Erik Nygren :verified:
•Ian McKellar
•jph
•lime with barcode
•Jason Brooks :fedora:
•moggie
•★discrust★
•James Wynn 🧐
•That said, I find myself reading the vast majority of my PDFs on my phone, mostly because it is always with me and I can easily resume reading nearly any time.
Oblomov
•Jan Adriaenssens
•Phil L.
•pcfe
•Stephan Hochdörfer
•Kevix (he/him) :debian:
•Eric G.
•Ekaitz Zárraga 👹
•Space Hobo
•Evan Prodromou
•If that's your goal, you can also just buy reams of printer paper and throw them directly in the trash.
You can yell "Fuck you, environment!" and "Take that, arboreal species!" as you do it. Probably very cathartic.
Weirdly, though, a lot of people aren't trying to deforest the planet as fast as possible, so they're going to need some alternative reading tools.
No accounting for taste, I guess!
Space Hobo
•Evan Prodromou
•Space Hobo
•Space Hobo
•I tend to print long documents 2-up, double-sided or 4-up double-sided depending on the font sizes. Black text on a white background is too much eyestrain for me on a backlit screen, and I often want to mark the things up and spread a bunch of stuff around on a table side-by-side.
Computers are pretty good for HTML or epub or whatever, because they just reflow to fit and you can just style them for dark mode. But PDFs are designed for printing, and have things like "pages" built into the model. If you don't want me to print it out, don't use a print-specific format like PDF!
Evan Prodromou
•nekojet
•John Francis
•Darwin Woodka
•Vincent St. Pierre :mw:
•https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobat/android/en/lmode.html
Use Liquid Mode — Acrobat for Android Help
www.adobe.comSteve Scotten
•That said, I usually don't get documents for reading beginning to end in PDF. Those tend to be the other kind.
Renoir Boulanger
•If so, Zotero. Then all of the above. With annotations ahared
mt
•Manitcor
•Simon McGarr
•Al Downunder
•Andrew C.A. Elliott
•Evan Prodromou
•No.
like jam or bootlaces
•Peter Oram
•Evan Prodromou
•censored for “transphobia”
•Evan Prodromou
•censored for “transphobia”
•Evan Prodromou
•If it's good for you, great.
censored for “transphobia”
•Jeanne (spellboundblog)
•Honestly, find a copy as an ePub so I can read it on my eReader instead.
Evan Prodromou
•Jeanne (spellboundblog)
•PR ☮ ♥ ♬ 🧑💻
•Bø!rge
•Evan Prodromou
•mcc
•Evan Prodromou
•mcc
•Jerry
•Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•I have to read a lot of PDFs for my courses right now of 50+ pages.
I find reading on a phone too difficult. Even when I let the PDF Reader reflow the document, it's still hard on my eyes.
A laptop is OK but not great. Big screen, but it's kind of far away on my lap.
My Kindle is nice for reading, but it doesn't show preformatted full-page PDFs well.
I'm interested in trying out a tablet or iPad. We'll see.
Thanks for the responses everyone.
Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•Jesse Vincent
•Evan Prodromou
•Vincent St. Pierre :mw:
•Jeanne (spellboundblog)
•Basil
•That must be a thing. A PDF viewer for the Oculus.
Evan Prodromou
•mcc
•aeva
•samir, refactors yer people
•According to some quick searching, the carbon emissions are roughly the same (100kg of CO2), but (a) computers also use a lot of rare minerals and (b) we can massively reduce the impact of paper much more easily than electronic devices (for example by using recycled paper).
Manitcor
•Bill Plein🌶
•Evan Prodromou
•Bill Plein🌶
•About 10 years ago I gave up using my laptop as my primary personal computer (although I still have one for work but it’s attached to two LCDs) and switched to a desktop.
I can do a lot on my phone. But I no longer have a laptop sitting on the ottoman. I have an excuse to keep work limited mostly to work hours. And I can read PDFs 🤣
Evan Prodromou
•Bill Plein🌶
•If one is actively bookmarking and copying relevant texts to a note app, then I’d go with the desktop any day.
Dan Scott
•Evan Prodromou
•Dan Scott
•Aphrodite ☑️ :boost_ok:
•for whatever reason my kindle is as hard to read as paper is :/
OliverUv
•jph
•Nate
•Matt Mastracci
•Roland Kaber
•https://remarkable.com/
Home | reMarkable
remarkable.comChris Riley
•Amye Scavarda Perrin
•Huge difference in reading for enjoyment and reading for knowledge: you will want the ability to take notes.
Later, when you're compiling, you're going to want your notes available with the text.
JJ Peterson
•Vincent 🌻🇪🇺
•Charles Roper
•My ideal reading device would be colour e-ink that can render PDFs to a high fidelity in both dark (with a backlight), in ambient indoor light (no backlight), and bright sunlight, and with NO distractions (a decent synced note taking app, perhaps).
Johannes Ernst
•twodimes
•Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•mcc
•Bill Seitz
•http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/MoonReader
MoonReader
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