Hacker News Reader

Comment by speakspokespok | Hacker News Reader

For those on the market for something the size of a standard sheet of paper whats recommended? Side loading PDFs and the size I mentioned are the main requirements. I'd prefer not to jail-brake but I have and I can.

View on HN

Boox Note Max. a4 size, expensive as hell ($650 I think), but it runs Android, can install stuff from the play store or side load apk. Ships with a very capable document reader can handle ebook formats, pdf and has good support for drawing and annotations.

There's also the Box Tab X C, the color variant. Has color (and thus a backlight and the DPI tradeoff), and the pen is not Wacom.

There's also the Fujitsu Quaderno gen 3 as well - half the weight but can't do epub or mobi.

Regretably, the Boox Note Max or Remarkable might be a better choice than any Fujitsu reader. I am on my second device from Fujitsu and I will not purchase another one.

Like the Sony DPT readers, the Quaderno is would be great product ... however,

1. there is no customer service in the EU/US markets. Something broke? Bin it. 2. the devices are quite fragile, with poor longevity. 3. the closed source software does not support modern systems such as Apple's M4 Macbook series.

Disclaimer:

I think most people into these devices always advise getting the largest writing surface possible. This is a "cute" device, but if you are serious enough about note taking (which you'd have to be to get one of these things at these prices), then you are limiting yourself with this size.

I'm not sure that's true. For example, Supernote have done very well with their A6X/Nomad range (confusingly about the size of an A5 sheet of paper), I think partly because they're the only company that has targeted that size. Personally, I much prefer having a smaller page to make notes on, and that's part of the reason I went for the Supernote.

If you're reading and annotating a lot of full-sized PDFs, then bigger is better. But for just taking notes, drawing diagrams, etc, I found a smaller device was a lot more portable and convenient.

Kindle scribe if you can get it for cheap. I think it goes for $240 sometimes and it's a steal for 10 inch of eink. Not the best for writing, PDF may have few rough edges but pretty decent overall.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com