Digital eBook reader devices...

[Parody]

Originally Posted by Daeglan

Does Repligo allowed tabbed PDF viewing?

No, but it renders faster than iAnnotate on my devices and you can switch easily by using the upper-left button to go back to the list of recent files.

[Daeglan]

I have found that that method.. in a word sucks.especially if you are trying to GM. I want the pdfs open to the page i need and just click on the tab. Which is why I want tabbed viewing.

[Peter Knutsen]

I'm hoping to get a bunch of input on this one:

Is the non-Retina iPad Mini good - not just decent but good - for reading margin-cropped GURPS PDFs? E.g. with GoodReader?

[johndallman]

Are you assuming that you'll be viewing a whole (cropped) page at a time? I ask because you've mentioned that before, but not this time. (I have no idea of the answer to your question, since my sight is too poor for mini devices).

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Are you assuming that you'll be viewing a whole (cropped) page at a time? I ask because you've mentioned that before, but not this time. (I have no idea of the answer to your question, since my sight is too poor for mini devices).

Thanks for asking for clarification, and yes I do want to be able to read a whole page at a time.

[Archangel Beth]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Thanks for asking for clarification, and yes I do want to be able to read a whole page at a time.

I have an iPad 1 -- non mini, non-retina. It would depend on your eyesight, but I think that you would be disappointed in a non-retina mini's ability to read a whole page at a time. With cropping, the font-size on a regular-size iPad is only a little smaller than the actual font in the book (and with more extreme cropping, possibly only very marginally smaller). On a mini, I think it'd be unpleasantly small.

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Is the non-Retina iPad Mini good - not just decent but good - for reading margin-cropped GURPS PDFs? E.g. with GoodReader?

Using the November issue of Pyramid as reference, with no cropping or magnification, I have little trouble reading normal text and some trouble with small text (such as the copyright information on page 3) with PDFReader on my original iPad mini. But then, I'm a bit nearsighted and am also very accustomed to this device.

If I turn the mini sideways into landscape orientation, still with stock settings, I have no trouble at all with the normal text and barely any trouble with the copyright text. For reference, in this mode the bottom line of page 3 is the "join the public discussion" line in the right-hand column.

With a Retina display, the antialiasing that gives me trouble with that smaller type should go away, and I would expect to have no trouble at all in either mode.

[Peter Knutsen]

Thanks for the replies.

[ClayDowling]

If you're looking to buy a tablet, be warry of the iPad mini, at least the non-retina version. Electronics stores around me are carrying the Nexus tablets, as well as Samsung. The Nexus tablets offer resolution that beats the non-retina iPad mini, at the same price point if not a little better. The Nexus 7 in particular is an amazing little tablet, and if I were in the market now wouldn't even consider its competitors.

If you're willing to go with the larger 10" tablet, pretty much all of them will provide an excellent reading experience for a GURPS pdf. The only problem I found was that the lower powered Samsung tablets didn't play well with some scanned 3E PDFs like Space Atlas, which take a lot of processing power.

You also shouldn't worry too much about interoperability. In spite of what the manufacturers like to say, I found that my Android devices played just fine with my Macbook Pro, as well as my Dell running Linux.

If the apple logo on the device is very important to you, then it sounds like the iPad mini will be fine. From experience though that logo doesn't buy you any improved interoperability with desktops. I have three android devices, and they have all worked exceptionally well with OSX, Windows and Linux systems. My music streaming, ebook reading, movie watching and document sharing works across all of the various laptops that I have used without any trouble, and I suspect that you'll find the same to be true of the iPad.

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by ClayDowling

You also shouldn't worry too much about interoperability. In spite of what the manufacturers like to say, I found that my Android devices played just fine with my Macbook Pro, as well as my Dell running Linux.

I'll second that. I have a couple of iPod touches, an original iPad mini, and an original Asus Transformer (TF101). They all play together fairly nicely, especially since the Transformer has USB ports and an accessible file system. (After all, Android is basically a special fork of Linux.) I've even used the Transformer to update my Kobo Glo's firmware.