iPod touch What's the iPod Touch like for reading material?

[cossie]

Hey,

I've had an 8GB nano for a long time and am considering getting either a 32GB / 64GB Touch.

Unfortunately for the next while I'm not able to go check out an of the new devices in person. So I thought I'd ask people in this forum.

I read a lot of academic papers (pdfs mostly) and online articles. I'd like to be able to take these things with me to read when I'm on the bus / train or just sitting having a coffee without needing to take my MB everywhere.

So I'm curious to know if anyone else uses their Touch for anything like that and what they think of it? Does the Retina display make much of a difference to text quality?

Thanks,

Cossie

 

[tablo13]

Does the Retina display make much of a difference to text quality?

Yes. A LOT.

 

[fertilized-egg]

...
I read a lot of academic papers (pdfs mostly) and online articles. ...
So I'm curious to know if anyone else uses their Touch for anything like that and what they think of it? Does the Retina display make much of a difference to text quality?

I use it a lot for PDFs and IMHO, nothing even comes close to the new iPod Touch if you're looking for a small PDF reader. This is the best pocket-sized reader on the market by far with its high resolution and a speedy enough processor that can handle PDfs (most eInk readers simply aren't fast enough to handle PDFs) Having said that, sometimes it does feel a bit too small so I'm looking forward to the future where we'll have 300DPI+ 5-7inch phones/tablets.

 

[4DThinker]

Text is crisper, but it isn't any larger. The only real advantage shows up when you bring the screen closer to your eyes. The Archos 5 Android internet tablet is far better for reading ebooks and document, yet still pocketable. If you carry a briefcase then the $139 Kindle is a bargain, does PDFs, and designed to be read.

 

[dave1812dave]

Hey,

I've had an 8GB nano for a long time and am considering getting either a 32GB / 64GB Touch.

Unfortunately for the next while I'm not able to go check out an of the new devices in person. So I thought I'd ask people in this forum.

I read a lot of academic papers (pdfs mostly) and online articles. I'd like to be able to take these things with me to read when I'm on the bus / train or just sitting having a coffee without needing to take my MB everywhere.

So I'm curious to know if anyone else uses their Touch for anything like that and what they think of it? Does the Retina display make much of a difference to text quality?

Thanks,

Cossie

the display is much better than the earlier touchs for reading. I love reading using the Kindle app. very crisp text.

 

[Usernames Suck]

Well, I'm on the new iPod touch right now, and I could read the sidebar without zooming in, and it was crisp, so the retina display really does help. But that doesn't mean I would want to look at text that small if I were doing serious reading.

 

[burgundyyears]

Text is crisper, but it isn't an larger. The only real advantage shows up when you bring the screen closer to your eyes. The Archos 5 Android internet tablet is far better for reading ebooks and document, yet still pocketable. If you carry a briefcase then the $139 Kindle is a bargain, does PDFs, and designed to be read.

Only if you read PDFs like a book, in a nice, slow, linear fashion, with few or no graphics involved. If you're trying to do out-of-order viewing/searching of PDFs or quick skimming of something with graphics, it's just frustratingly slow. We have a few eInk readers sitting in a corner gathering dust at work because they are just not useful unless you're reading a novel or something.

 

[ct95]

as far as the new iPod touch, reading documents is much much nicer, since the text is a lot crisper. You can zoom out to fit more of the document and still read the text. PDFs are not exactly perfect, since academic articles are often small text, in columns. For example, I am looking now at some that are 8.5x11 format, 2 columns. In fact, I can fit the whole page on the screen and read the text, but it's rather uncomfortable because the print is so fine. However, that just tells you how good the resolution is that the text can be read at all!

Zooming to the column width is much more readable, although I have to scroll up and down the columns then left to right to go to the next column. It's not bad at all

On the old touch, I would have to scroll right to left to read a single column in pdf's, since the resolution was crappy. The old touch was just unusable for journal article pdf's.

 

[cossie]

Text is crisper, but it isn't an larger. The only real advantage shows up when you bring the screen closer to your eyes. The Archos 5 Android internet tablet is far better for reading ebooks and document, yet still pocketable. If you carry a briefcase then the $139 Kindle is a bargain, does PDFs, and designed to be read.

The Archos 5 was suggested to me by a friend, I'll do some research on it.

I had thought about a Kindle as like you mentioned it's "designed to be read" but I'd like to keep the number of devices down to a minimum and just have something that can go in my jacket/jeans/hoody pocket.

Maybe I should just stop reading so much

Thanks for your reply!