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Cheap Tablet For Studying Pdf Files?

aeolion

By aeolion
in IT and Computers

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aeolion Explorer Member

aeolion

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I want to get seriously into a good tablet from the upcoming Christmas crop. Until then, that is, for a few months, I need something that will do a decent job of displaying heavily-formatted pdf files. (7-inch will do fine.) Will the cheap ones at Pantip do that? And not fall apart along the way?

Or any other suggestions?

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roban Advanced Member

roban

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Nexus and Ipads do not have memory slots for sd cards

The Nexus does not even have a HDMI output to watch movies on a TV.

Otherwise a nice device, but this is an absolute showstopper for me.

(Don't know about the Ipad, but don't care, as I would never buy an Apple device)

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aeolion Explorer Member

aeolion

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Cheap, and to read PDFs - why would you want a tablet when a Kindle or a Nook will do the job?

This would be for, as I say, studying heavily-formatted pdf files. Think anatomy textbook, not a novel. From what I see on the Web, Kindle and Nook do a terrible job with textbookish pdf files. Nook even has Nook Study for PCs, saying that tablets don't do the job with textbooks.

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aeolion Explorer Member

aeolion

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go to BIG C and get a upad (7") front camera only 3990 or jpad (9") front and back camera for 4999, both have andriod 4.0.3 installed, full wifi and all the usual apps and work rather well indeed.

Now THAT sounds just like what we are looking for. The 9", of course. I assume it has a memory card slot?

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BuckarooBanzai Gold Member

BuckarooBanzai

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Just an observation - on the Kindle touch reading pdf files is very difficult as the formatting is maintained and therefore you are fitting an A4 or 8 1/2x11 document in most cases on something half as big. Would highly suggest you try what ever catches your eye with some pdf files to see if your reading glasses are strong enough. Very small and if you magnify you lose the overall layout view of the document.

Edited by BuckarooBanzai
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aeolion Explorer Member

aeolion

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PDF files is quite intensive work.

A cheap tablet is unlikely to be satisfactory.

Comments such as yours explain why, whenever I have casually looked into tablets, I always ended up back in front of my notebook for pdf files. And damned if I will buy an ipad just to read pdf files.

Maybe I could drop by Big C with a couple of pdf files and try them out on that 4999 bhat tablet

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aeolion Explorer Member

aeolion

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Just an observation - on the Kindle touch reading pdf files is very difficult as the formatting is maintained and therefore you are fitting an A4 or 8 1/2x11 document in most cases on something half as big. Would highly suggest you try what ever catches your eye with some pdf files to see if your reading glasses are strong enough. Very small and if you magnify you lose the overall layout view of the document.

So the Big C 9 incher could be our best bet.

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jsat Silver Member

jsat

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go to BIG C and get a upad (7") front camera only 3990 or jpad (9") front and back camera for 4999, both have andriod 4.0.3 installed, full wifi and all the usual apps and work rather well indeed.

Now THAT sounds just like what we are looking for. The 9", of course. I assume it has a memory card slot?

Yes it does and I use a 4gb mini SD card, and use it for PDF as well.

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bendejo Ruby Member

bendejo

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heavily-formatted pdf files

I'm not sure what this means

I picked up a cheapo Chinese tablet in Pranthip for 4k baht running ICS. I tried every reader program I could download, the best one for pdf files is the reader from Adobe itself. For other formats (epub et al) I use Aldiko. Some of the other readers will open the pdf files but I was unimpressed with the viewing and navigation.

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BuckarooBanzai Gold Member

BuckarooBanzai

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I use Calibre as well but would not recommend it for converting PDF files to another format. Although Calibre works great for conversion of e-book, text, and html files it does a very poor job with most PDF files - a fact that the author of the Calibre program readily admits.

If you do not care if you read the PDF file in the original format (2 column etc.) and wish to convert it to a single column e-book format with variable font size the only thing I have found that does a pretty good job is by using Adobe Acrobat Professional and using save as to convert the PDF document to an html file which can then be converted by Calibre into a standard e-book format. Calibre for some reasons refers to html files as zip files so do not be surprised when an html shows up as a zip.

As mentioned previously, PDF is pretty complex and if you want a good conversion Adobe is the best way to go. Perhaps an expensive way to go however and be aware you will likely be changing the format of the PDF.

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dddave Platinum Member

dddave

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I purchased an AIGO 9" Android 4.0 tablet (B5000) for my GF at Pantip 5 months ago an it is still running strong. At the same time I bought her niece a MID 7" Android 4.0 tablet (B3000) and she continues to use it in school every day. I have an ONDA 9.7" Android 4.0 tablet (B5500) purchased at Fortune City 2 weeks ago and so far everything is OK. I installed Chrome a few days ago and it works very well.

There are many brands available: Aigo, Aineo, Nova, Onda. If you are looking, there are many models and configurations available so be sure to open "SETTINGS" long menu and open "Storage" to see the RAM and inboard storage. Most have WiFi, a few also have 3G. Most will take up to a 32 G mini SD card, some have HDMI output. Prices vary according to features. I found they would usually accept 10-15% off original asking price.

If you can get by with an earlier 7" model, there are still some with 512K, 4 g internal selling for B2000 to B2500.

They all can access the 1 million+ apps available on Google Play Store, formerly Android Market, thousands for free including many PDF readers.

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borovik Senior Member

borovik

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Cheap, and to read PDFs - why would you want a tablet when a Kindle or a Nook will do the job?

This would be for, as I say, studying heavily-formatted pdf files. Think anatomy textbook, not a novel. From what I see on the Web, Kindle and Nook do a terrible job with textbookish pdf files. Nook even has Nook Study for PCs, saying that tablets don't do the job with textbooks.

You are right - Kindle doesnt handle pdf very well.

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TommoPhysicist Ruby Member

TommoPhysicist

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I purchased an AIGO 9" Android 4.0 tablet (B5000) for my GF at Pantip 5 months ago an it is still running strong. At the same time I bought her niece a MID 7" Android 4.0 tablet (B3000) and she continues to use it in school every day. I have an ONDA 9.7" Android 4.0 tablet (B5500) purchased at Fortune City 2 weeks ago and so far everything is OK. I installed Chrome a few days ago and it works very well.

There are many brands available: Aigo, Aineo, Nova, Onda. If you are looking, there are many models and configurations available so be sure to open "SETTINGS" long menu and open "Storage" to see the RAM and inboard storage. Most have WiFi, a few also have 3G. Most will take up to a 32 G mini SD card, some have HDMI output. Prices vary according to features. I found they would usually accept 10-15% off original asking price.

If you can get by with an earlier 7" model, there are still some with 512K, 4 g internal selling for B2000 to B2500.

They all can access the 1 million+ apps available on Google Play Store, formerly Android Market, thousands for free including many PDF readers.

Which is strange as my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10" @ 16k can barely manage PDF in a way I find acceptable.

But them, maybe I'm a bit impatient, about 2sec to load and render each page using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

(Looks beautiful when fully rendered ...... just too low)

I'm guessing your ideas of 'acceptable' differ from my ideas of 'acceptable'.

Or maybe you missed the point of the thread ..... reading PDF files !!!

As for Calibre, hopeless for converting native PDF files.

Edited by TommoPhysicist
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dddave Platinum Member

dddave

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I purchased an AIGO 9" Android 4.0 tablet (B5000) for my GF at Pantip 5 months ago an it is still running strong. At the same time I bought her niece a MID 7" Android 4.0 tablet (B3000) and she continues to use it in school every day. I have an ONDA 9.7" Android 4.0 tablet (B5500) purchased at Fortune City 2 weeks ago and so far everything is OK. I installed Chrome a few days ago and it works very well.

There are many brands available: Aigo, Aineo, Nova, Onda. If you are looking, there are many models and configurations available so be sure to open "SETTINGS" long menu and open "Storage" to see the RAM and inboard storage. Most have WiFi, a few also have 3G. Most will take up to a 32 G mini SD card, some have HDMI output. Prices vary according to features. I found they would usually accept 10-15% off original asking price.

If you can get by with an earlier 7" model, there are still some with 512K, 4 g internal selling for B2000 to B2500.

They all can access the 1 million+ apps available on Google Play Store, formerly Android Market, thousands for free including many PDF readers.

Which is strange as my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10" @ 16k can barely manage PDF in a way I find acceptable.

But them, maybe I'm a bit impatient, about 2sec to load and render each page using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

(Looks beautiful when fully rendered ...... just too low)

I'm guessing your ideas of 'acceptable' differ from my ideas of 'acceptable'.

Or maybe you missed the point of the thread ..... reading PDF files !!!

As for Calibre, hopeless for converting native PDF files.

As I mentioned, there is a varied selection of PDF readers in the Android Market, some perhaps more in tune with the tablet environment than Adobe. It does appear you want a standard of performance that may be out of reach of most tablets.

Have you checked out the latest version of the ASUS? Everything I read about it says it's the fastest tablet available, but not cheap.

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TommoPhysicist Ruby Member

TommoPhysicist

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I have a cheap "Eye-On" 8" tablet from Big C.

After reading this thread, copied a 252 page pdf truck manual on to it. Adobe reader is terrible. Very slow, "no jump" to function. Tried same doc with Aldiko reader. Brilliant. Try it.

Just tried Aldiko.

Rendering a full page is fast, but pinch zoom is totally unworkable.

Can't really say it's useful when pinch zoom is so poor.

Adobe wins slow to render but once rendered, pinch zoom very smooth..

Edited by TommoPhysicist
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  • 6 months later...
Hawkman Advanced Member

Hawkman

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Bump this thread.

Re these tablets from Big C. Anybody had any experience with these?

I, also only want to use it for reading ebooks and pdf files. Is it easy to copy these files over from the mac to the tablet or do I need a sim card for that?

I can see that they do one tablet for ever 2990 baht now. As said, I'm not bothered about games just want it for reading stuff.

The sales guys said you could not use them for pdf files only word and excel; but I really don't think they knew what they were talking about.

Many thanks.

Edited by Hawkman
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Turkleton Silver Member

Turkleton

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Is it easy to copy these files over from the mac to the tablet or do I need a sim card for that?

You will need an USB cable, nothing else.

The sales guys said you could not use them for pdf files only word and excel

BS. As these tablets are running on Android, you can install any "reader-app" you like, for reading "pdf", "epub" etc.

With Aldiko, or even better Moon Reader, you can open almost any available file.

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