Tablet/E-Reader for Gaming PDFs? Options

[Socinus]

I'm thinking of picking up a tablet or e-reader to use for gaming and other general PDF documents. I dont really need it for anything beyond that.

Has anyone else found a good tablet or e-reader to use for this? Shadowrun PDFs are VERY visually intensive.

I'd like to have it for general PDF reading in general, I have TONS of them and I want to find one that does PDFs well.

[Yerameyahu]

Like an iPad? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Do other tablets even exist? You should be able to find old and/or refurb ones for cheap.

[Socinus]

For starters, I hate, HATE, Apple and Apple products for a myriad of reasons.

Second, I've looked at the iPad before and it seems to have trouble with larger PDFs or PDFs with large images/PDFs that ARE images.

[BishopMcQ]

The iPad with GoodReader (app) does pretty well for me, YMMV on if you can get past your dislike. Alternately, my wife has a Kindle Fire that she likes and reads plenty of books and PDFs on. I find the interface to be counter-intuitive, but she does fine with it.

[Socinus]

From my research, the Kindle series is good if you're going to be reading Kindle format books. They tend to do very "meh" with general PDFs and it has problems with more complex formats, IE: Shadowrun books.

[Yerameyahu]

Hehe. Yeah, it'd be sad if your emotions stopped you from getting the best solution. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) There really isn't much else out there for PDFs.

[Bigity]

I use an iPad 2 with iAnnotate, and it handles most game pdfs well, but it does have issues with some. Those I end up saving as PDF in adobe and they work, but I lose some images, but not worried about that so much on the tablet.

[Thanee]

Don't have a tablet myself, but the new Samsung Note 10.1 Tablet might be a good choice, if you do not want to go with an iPad (which I can perfectly understand (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ).

Forget the Kindle, if you want to read game PDFs. The Kindle is for reading books, and vastly superior to any tablet for that purpose. But it is also the only thing you can do with it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Mister Shed]

I use Repligo Reader on a rooted Velocity Cruz T301 for pdfs at the table. Admittedly, it's not the fastest but if you know the page you're looking for (or just have it bookmarked) it's pretty good. If you're not sure of the page you're probably going to have to spend several minutes looking since it takes 2-3 seconds for a Shadowrun pdf page to load fully.

And honestly, because I picked it up on sale cheap as an Android play around device so I don't have to worry about screwing up my phone, I'm not worried about how slow it is compared to anything else on the market right now.

[Blade]

I have a Nook Touch, that I rooted in order to be able to access Android.
The stock PDF reader is ok for reading a SR book from cover to cover. It has some layout issues, but other than that it let me read through Seattle 2072 correctly.
I also bought ezPDF reader, and it's far better at reading the PDF than any free reader. Don't expect to flip through the pages, though. It still takes too long to load a page for that. Thankfully, the index support is good enough to let you find the page you're looking for quickly. I don't know how well it works on more powerful tablets.

The drawback of the Nook Touch is that it's smaller than a Shadowrun book and when displaying the full page in the screen, reading is difficult. Zooming works, but I guess the experience would be better on a bigger screen.

The big advantages of the Nook Touch are that:
- It uses e-ink. So I can bring it for a complete gaming week-end without having to worry about having to charge it. And when reading a complete book, it's easy on the eyes. That's how I was able to read Seattle 2070 in the train/buses without having to carry a big book.
- It runs Android so I can do more than just read e-books. I can, for example, display James McMurray's GM screen which is pretty convienient (and the e-ink allows me to have it at all time in front of me without having to wake the device from sleep mode).
I'm also working on a GM tool to help in combat, but due to the complexity of Shadowrun's system, it might take a while before it's ready.
- It's cheap ($150 or maybe just $100 now)

[Shortstraw]

I believe delta electronics have a 13.1" (A4) e-reader coming out.

[_Pax._]

I'd like to have it for general PDF reading in general, I have TONS of them and I want to find one that does PDFs well.

I have mine on a NookColor. It works reasonably well, but the screen is small enough that I have to zoom in pretty far to actually read a page. Also, the native PDF reader doesan't like Catalyst' very-poorly-optimised files at all. I had to go with ... I think it's called ezReader, or ezPDF, or something similar. Free or very low-cost, though, so not a burden. Including Errata and FAQ material, my SR4 collection on PDF comes to 29 files, and about 540MB.

...

The thing is, you do NOT want one of the cheaper "e-Ink" readers; they are not as good with PDFs as other tablets are. Mainly, they (a) don't handle scrolling or zooming as well, and (b) of course, can't do color to save their lives.

So the NookTablet or Kindle Fire are probably the best "e-reader" choices. Or a full-blown Tablet computer, like the iPad.

[Blade]

e-Ink tablets don't handle scrolling very well, and it's not very easy to zoom manually with them, but they've got three advantages: they're far easier on the eyes, they've got a far better battery life and they can keep the display on as long as you want (useful if you display your GM screen or scenario there and don't want to have to unlock your tablet everytime you want to take a look).

So it depends on your use. If you want to read the books cover to cover, spend a lot of time without being able to plug it in, or want to use your tablet to display a GM screen, the e-Ink is better. If you're going to do a lot of scrolling/zooming (like trying to find something in your PDF) it'll be better with a regular tablet (which is what "color e-readers" are).