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Comment by divan | Hacker News Reader

Any chance of the A4 size device and higher DPI in the future? Will pay any money for that.

A4 e-ink has considerable audience that doesn't know they need it – people who read papers. All the academia is formatted for A4 and stored in PDFs, which is pretty unreadable even on 10". People literally print them on paper to read.

I currently enjoying A4-sized Boox Tab X and it's a game changer, as I read a lot of papers and want to read more outside. Love it so much, and having Android is important (instead of some own walled OS), as I can sync my papers via ReadCube Papers app. I also tried to use it as a monitor for coding, but even with their superrefresh technology refresh rate is still a problem.

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> A4 e-ink has considerable audience that doesn't know they need it

They know it very well. There's been a void for an affordable eInk device for this purpose for decades.

I’m guessing letter would be fine too, given how many times I’ve printed out European papers here in the states.

A stylus would help a lot a that point too. So would a hole in the tablet where you can store the stylus — my apple sits and collects dust with a dead battery. I bought it for occasional use, and it’s never ready when I need it, even at home.

yes, academia should totally love this, but my experience is that they just all got used to reading papers on their laptops or tablets.

but I would totally love this. in fact, I have a remarkable tablet just for reading "papers" (ahem Dungeons & Dragons PDFs). but switching quickly between pages is tricky there...

That depends. Back in the day, in my research institute, it was common practice to print out the papers that should be read thoroughly - after skimming them on a Laptop screen.

I read most papers on a secondary 19" monitor that's mounted portrait. Seems to cover all the requirements

Not all ones not mentioned in this thread yet. A secondary 19" monitor ties you to a desk. A tablet would allow reading wherever people typically read paper printouts (in the train, while sitting on a couch, etc.)

You're not wrong. But in those scenarios, I tend to be off the clock

When I have a complex paper to read I will spread it out on the floor. A single page at a time is too limiting, I want to be able to see page 5 and page 12 at the same time.

It was nice to be able to jot things down in the margins (math, not just notes). Provide yourself the couple steps the author skipped (to show how clever they are).

There's only a certain number of papers you can carry around and flip through like that. With a tablet, it can store hundreds or thousands of papers without getting any more unwieldy.

I do use a newer boox android eink tablet for coding via termux and ssh. Great for my needs. I wonder how this compares.

I've been waiting for 10 years for a A4 e-ink device. Only Sony made one, but it was never available anywhere. And pretty meh probably too :)

Remarkable 2 was pretty decent for notes, but terrible for reading imo. And the bs to get a proper ebook app on it etc was just too much for me.

Try Onyx Boox Tab X. I found it to be the only viable option now and it's really good. They did some own stuff to have "ultrafast" refresh rate (you can choose desirable tradoff some ghosting for refresh rate). Stylus and notes are pretty good too.

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