Just tested an iPad for reading scientific journal papers - bad news of iPad 2

[Q-Dog]

I love the iPad for PDFs, but, I do use it almost exclusively in landscape mode.

I suspect you don't really need higher resolution, you just need a larger screen.

 

[thesmoth]

I find it funny how many people who respond here either do not read scientific papers at all or did not read or understand the OP's first post.

His (and my) problem is simply that we need to scan through tens of papers to look for certain key content. After that it's easy to zoom in and read the details.

Often we download 20 papers and read only 2% of the content after skimming through them in 10 min and identifying the descriptions of a specific method or such.


However the skimming through papers requires a full page overview and a good rendering of the fonts. That in turn is much better with a higher resolution screen.

All the suggestions of "buy a kindle" or "download good reader or any other pdf program" or "you know you can double tap to zoom in" do actually not address the problem at all.

I have shown the iPad (and other tablets and computers) to dozens of colleagues and they all have the same problem. We all still print out most of the papers and skim over them to identify whats relevant for us.

The only solution I can see is a higher resolution screen. On top of that it may even be better to have a 12" high res. screen but that is not going to happen anytime soon and I think a 9.7" high res. screen would be sufficient to go paperless.

Ah thank you for clarifying my issues!

I've been using it a bit more and it's not as bad as I first thought, but the small text from a full-page view could really benefit from a high resolution screen. I'm borrowing my friends iPad next week so i'll get to use it more and really see how I like it.

Another thing to mention, is that for andiwm2003 and I it's best to have it in portrait view so that you can see the entire page at one time and quickly flip through the paper to find what you're looking for (for me, maybe a part of the discussion, a graph, an experimental procedure, etc...). After using it more I can use it this way, but it's not ideal.

 

[seveej]

Ah thank you for clarifying my issues!

I've been using it a bit more and it's not as bad as I first thought, but the small text from a full-page view could really benefit from a high resolution screen.

Now that's the new iPad's out, I thought this thread could be resurrected.

Anyone?

Pekka.

 

[thelookingglass]

Now that's the new iPad's out, I thought this thread could be resurrected.

Anyone?

Pekka.

Not sure how much there is to discuss. The OP's wish was granted. PDFs look stunning now. I use Goodreader and the high resolution is perfect.