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by shell0x 61 days ago
I’m thinking to get a device for reading technical books. Do you think an iPad mini would be the better option? I had a kindle before but it was slow to change pages and I heard even new versions are still not great for PDFs, but would like to get some opinions.

I have a friend at Apple so wouldn’t pay the full price for an iPad.

2 comments

If you want an e-ink type screen, the Supernotes (or Remarkables, or Viwoods) are all very good at this. Personally I hate trying to read things on iPads.
I'd go with an iPad instead of the mini just to be on the safe side. I have a 12" tablet and it's night and day compared to my 6" Kindle (2020 model). Kindles suck if you try to read pdfs, they don't scale naturally so you can't see shit. Anything with a screen at 10" or more would work fine for pdfs.
Even 10" feels far too large to casually read in bed with.
I doubt anyone reads technical books at bed though.
I read pdfs in bed all the time, but it's not much hassle to zoom and pan on a tablet
i guess that would be an iPaid air as it just got refreshed?
Probably just the iPad, unless you are not at all price sensitive. $350 ($299 refurbished) vs $600 is a big uplift; you can almost buy two iPads for the price of an iPad Air. For just PDF viewing, any Apple CPU is performant enough.