Ask HN: What do you use for reading papers?

I use https://archivebox.io/ and point it at the uri / doi.

I tend to not able to find the page even 15 minutes ago if I'm on a dense information search.

how many papers are you reading? A single text file where you write down the 1-2 big ideas / insights in each paper will go a long way.

You don’t need perfect notes, just enough to jog the memory for random access. Less is more.

https://www.connectedpapers.com/ is nice for discovery.

For reading papers I have a laptop and a sofa, for organizing them I have nothing more except my brain.

Are you talking about devices, organisational methods, overall management, or what?

A large-format (10" or 13") e-ink reader works well for the actual reading. These tend to be lighter, and have far better battery performance, than an emissive tablet. There are colour e-ink readers as well, though these max at about 10" AFAIK, and command a price premium. Smaller displays can be used, though you'll find yourself zooming and panning through pages of lower-quality and/or smaller-font papers (all too common in academic publishing).

Get a device with ample storage. Particularly if you find yourself using the device for other purposes (e.g., podcasts). I'd consider 128 MB minimum acceptable storage, and would go up considerably from there if possible. Apple's tablets can be obtained with 1 TB+ storage, and that's not unreasonable. Cost of storage is really minimal compared to the overall device cost. I eliminated the Remarkable tablet for its absolutely inexcusably insufficient storage (16 MB IIRC), validated by the company's later pivot to cloud-based accounts (thanks, but no).

Few ebook-readers have organisational capabilities anywhere remotely up to the task, and little of what software does exist run on these.

For organisation:

Physical: An index-card file / Zettelkasten. Academics and other researchers can compile archives over their lifetimes of many tens of thousands of cards, filling cabinets. Niklas Luhmanns's archive is one of the most exemplary, site in German: <https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/nachlass/zettelkasten>. There are numerous essays and articles with more information on his use and system.

Software: Calibre and Zotero seem to be the main preferences. I ... can't really grok either, frankly. If you don't mind mainlining all your reading straight to Elsevier, there's the Mendeley reference manager. (I mind this in the extreme.)

There are also some archive / media management tools which can run off-device. I believe Plex is one of these, though I've really not looked into this. This can be run on a small server or NAS if you have sufficient articles.

There are tools for online web article management, notably Mozilla Pocket (I've used it heavily, I find it all but useless), Wallabag (<https://wallabag.org/>), and Pinboard (<https://pinboard.in/>). Maintainer of the latter is active on HN.

IMO the ultimate tools have yet to be created, though I lean heavily toward index cards myself.

I don't know if gwern (<https://gwern.net/>) has a specific method / system, but suspect they'd have a highly informed response on this topic.