PDA for PDFs?

[face_p0lluti0n]

Does anybody have a recommendation for a PDA/Music Player/Handheld-Whatever that is good for browsing RPG PDFs? Most of them are pretty image-heavy and take an eternity to load a single page on my Palm Tungsten E2, even the properly-formatted, searchable-text ones (the majority of my library consists of well-formatted PDFs).

In my personal experience, the only major advantage my print library still holds over my PDF library is that it doesn't have a 40 second boot time or a 4 hour battery life. Being able to browse the Completes and the Core Books without hauling the laptop out of my backpack or stuffing my bags and car with 20 pounds of D&D manuals just so I can work on my campaign while waiting for lunch would be a particularly nice convenience.

Anybody have experiences with expanding the limits of their PDF library beyond their computers? iPods? Kindle? I'm open to ideas, hope all the other gadget freaks are too ( :

-Andrew

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Does anybody have a recommendation for a PDA/Music Player/Handheld-Whatever that is good for browsing RPG PDFs? Most of them are pretty image-heavy and take an eternity to load a single page on my Palm Tungsten E2, even the properly-formatted, searchable-text ones (the majority of my library consists of well-formatted PDFs).

In my personal experience, the only major advantage my print library still holds over my PDF library is that it doesn't have a 40 second boot time or a 4 hour battery life. Being able to browse the Completes and the Core Books without hauling the laptop out of my backpack or stuffing my bags and car with 20 pounds of D&D manuals just so I can work on my campaign while waiting for lunch would be a particularly nice convenience.

Anybody have experiences with expanding the limits of their PDF library beyond their computers? iPods? Kindle? I'm open to ideas, hope all the other gadget freaks are too ( :

-Andrew

I'm also interested in this as well. I have found that an iPod touch will choke on a file the size of even just the 4e Player's Handbook. And I've heard that Kindles don't do .pdf with heavy graphics and/or charts (like most RPG books have) very well.

If I could find a better option than my laptop for .pdfs, I'd be much more pro-pdf.

 

[face_p0lluti0n]

I'm disappointed to hear that the iPod and Kindle aren't up to the task. I expected more processing power from the new wave of gadgets. Thus far, the best I've actually managed is a netbook - my Dell Mini 9 can read PDFs like a pro, but with 1GB of RAM and a 1.6ghz processor, that's still well into the realm of actual factual computers.

What makes me wonder is that Paizo, in promoting their "response to WotC" pdf sale (http://paizo.com/paizo/news/v5748eaic9m3z, second line) referenced PDAs and Cell Phones as being frontrunners of what makes PDF so wonderfully convenient, and after my failed experiments with reading them on my Palm, I had to stop and wonder if I was missing out on something here. Has anybody actually managed this?

 

[Jraynack]

I'm also interested in this as well. I have found that an iPod touch will choke on a file the size of even just the 4e Player's Handbook. And I've heard that Kindles don't do .pdf with heavy graphics and/or charts (like most RPG books have) very well.

If I could find a better option than my laptop for .pdfs, I'd be much more pro-pdf.

So far, I used the FilesLite App for the iPod touch and found it not too bad. Now, I have only small 16 - 20 page pdfs on it and haven't tackled the big boys yet, but I found it useful. Plus, technology, advancing as fast as it does, I think future apps/ipod touchs will only get better (unless the e-book readers get their heads out their you-know-what and stop trying to push their file formats - .pdf is the way to go). As for anything else, I have to say a no go from my other experiences (the palm centro took forever).

If anybody else has a comment, I am also interested.

 

[Jraynack]

Now that I think about - the Asus "EEE PC" is a good, tiny laptop (you could almost classify it as a pda), awesome for .pdfs.

I initially planned on buying one while a few years ago when researching for a laptop. However, their initial asking price went from 250 to 399. I decided to cough up an extra 100 bucks and pick up a "real" laptop.

But recently, I did see that at my local Best Buy they were selling a 250 dollar version. So check google it and see what you think - it also has wi-fi capability, and much more.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

So far, I used the FilesLite App for the iPod touch and found it not too bad. Now, I have only small 16 - 20 page pdfs on it and haven't tackled the big boys yet, but I found it useful. Plus, technology, advancing as fast as it does, I think future apps/ipod touchs will only get better (unless the e-book readers get their heads out their you-know-what and stop trying to push their file formats - .pdf is the way to go). As for anything else, I have to say a no go from my other experiences (the palm centro took forever).

If anybody else has a comment, I am also interested.

Absolutely agree. I can pull up smaller .pdfs, but once they start getting meaty, the iPod chokes and I'm hoping it won't be long before we get something workable (also, an ipod app to access the DDI Compendium would be great, hint to WotC).

One that is promising is the iRex Iliad (iRex Technologies). I'd like to hear from people how well it works specifically for RPG products before dropping that many bones on a product though.

 

[face_p0lluti0n]

Another idea I toyed with for a while was trying to find a good PDF-to-other format converter, hoping that, at least for my searchable-text PDFs, I could simply do without the images while on the go and reference the important data in HTML on my Palm, but thus far I haven't found a converter that reads tables, charts, or the two-colums-per-page format of most d20 books right...yet.

 

[face_p0lluti0n]

Now that I think about - the Asus "EEE PC" is a good, tiny laptop (you could almost classify it as a pda), awesome for .pdfs.

I initially planned on buying one while a few years ago when researching for a laptop. However, their initial asking price went from 250 to 399. I decided to cough up an extra 100 bucks and pick up a "real" laptop.

But recently, I did see that at my local Best Buy they were selling a 250 dollar version. So check google it and see what you think - it also has wi-fi capability, and much more.

I got my Inspiron Mini for $250 (comparable stats to the 900 series EEE), and it's great for PDF reading, it's just not quite at the level of pocket-sized, and the battery it ships with is still subject to the short and long term life expectancy of the typical laptop battery. Ubuntu Linux's PDF reader handles most 3.5 and 4e PDFs relatively gracefully (sane load times, handles charts, tables, and MOST images properly). I used to use my 2GB RAM Core 2 Duo lappy to run games, but I started using the netbook because I found I couldn't even look my players in the face over the screen of my "real" laptop.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

This is an example of PDF not actually being portable. Since it was created for standardized pagination, which is actually antithetical to portability of display, that's not a knock on PDF. (It's a knock on people who insist that PDF is great format for reference, I guess.)

If PDFs don't work on iPhone -- which was gonna be my suggestion for your best best -- then it's pretty hopeless. Wait until a portable format optimized for display gains widespread acceptance.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I purchased a netbook as well. I like it. Its a fully functional laptop, but is damn small. Not as small as a pda, but I can do higher end graphics programs on it.