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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

And of course the day before Apple announces its new iPad (allegedly). I really like having two very well funded companies in all out competition, it makes for some really great features and options in both products.

The size thing is what I'm interested in though. I'm waiting to see if there actually is a 12" iPad pro tomorrow, otherwise I'll pull the trigger on a Note Pro. I get the pocket/purse argument for 9" but my iPad has become pretty much a replacement book. Between 1dollarscan, Oreilly's drm free ebooks, and my pdf library of papers and data sheets, and various magazines, nearly all my space is being consumed by reading material. So for me (weird case I know) it is my library in my hand, and I really would like it to be a 12 - 13" screen.

That said, the Nook HD+ is my 'budget' 9" Android tablet that is my 'look up things' / 'play music' / 'cast netflix' device and this could easily replace that.

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So far the best PDF annotation device, I have used is the Surface Pro 3. At 12 inches it displays PDFs very well. The pen is pressure sensitive and will reject any outside inputs.

Out of curiosity, have you tried a Samsung tablet with a Wacom digitizer and their S-Pen stylus? I'm currently looking for a device that lets me scribble into language learning work books, I'd be interested in hearing your comparison to a SP3.

Some people in my lab have samsung tablets (including myself), and others have a surface 3. The samsung tablet has all the right hardware but the software is lacking. In general. I've tried all of it, really. Android onenote, lecturenotes, papyrus, s-note, etc. It all kinda blows.

I'm curious about your lecturenotes negatives. It has so many customizable options I have a hard time imagining how it failed you. I've been using it for over a year for mostly math applications and it's been indispensable.

The only feature I would want integrated is the "infinite workspace" of papyrus. But even then who cares I can still have infinite pages.

Bluebeam? ezPDF? Any software than allows on the fly translation (word by word)?

Thanks

FWIW (anecdote warning) I have the Galaxy Note Tab 2014. The Stylus works great, but I only use it for drawing, and definitely wish I'd just waited for the Surface 3.

What program do you use to annotate PDFs? I have a Lenovo thinkpad with wacom support, but I haven't found a good piece of software to sign PDFs with.

I use qPDF Notes (there's also a qPDF Viewer, which I think is their free app) on my Samsung Note Pro (12.2")

I think you can import PDF's into Lecture Notes also, and annotate around them there, but I haven't bothered trying that, and I /expect/ it'd feel sluggish.

You find 9-10" is insufficient for reading material?

I have a 7" Android I got to test the waters, and reading ebooks/pdfs/textbooks/magazines is my use case so I'm thinking of going up in screen size- but how much?

   > You find 9-10" is insufficient for reading material?

No, I find 12 - 13" better for reading material. The reason my Retina iPad became my default "book" is because it was sufficient. :-)

12.5" is the 'printable' area of an 8.5 x 11" page with 1" margins. (14" if you include the margins). So especially for PDFs that are 'zoomed to the margins' a retina 12.5" display can be pretty much a 1 for 1 reproduction. And that is something I've wanted for a very very long time.

Reference or casual/fiction reading?

I ask because I found the standard sized Ipad to be slightly heavy for bedtime and commute reading, whereas the small Ipad (no retina) was more pleasant experience.

I would really love a Retina quality smaller sized Ipad as long as it maintains battery life quality but considering just going Kindle for day to day and full sized Ipad as textbook / video replacement.

Primarily reference, although I recently read the Daemon/Freedom series on it and it was sufficient for that application, my wife much prefers the Nook e-paper device for fiction. I agree it can be heavy for bedtime reading but for commuting I usually have my bag on my lap and read with the ipad on top of it so I don't get any weight at all (other than the bag of course)

Personally I strongly prefer my Kindle for linear text (e.g. novels). The tablet is primarily for nonlinear and/or mixed-media reading (e.g. reference, magazines, etc)

Competition is good, though if Apple does put their fingerprint sensor on the iPads it will be hard to steer me towards alternatives. I have gotten spoiled with this feature, it lets me have the best of both worlds - long passwords and fast access.

That and I am still not sold on the apps on Android

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