Ask HN: Do you read papers / pdfs on your Kindle?

2 points by sigil ↗ HN
I'm thinking of getting a Kindle 2 for reading academic papers and books in pdf form. Most of the things I want to read are equation and/or diagram heavy, so I'm curious how well the Kindle works for this type of thing.

Is the 6" version good enough, or do you really need the 9" DX?

How about page refresh speed, navigation, and search?

How easy is it to get pdfs onto the Kindle?

2 comments

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I have a Kindle 3, and it's possible to read papers, but it's still pretty small. I'm looking at picking up something a bit bigger, probably in tablet form (or preferably with a PixelQi screen) in the next 6-8 months that would work a bit better. I haven't used the 9" DX, but I assume it would do the job better than the Kindle 3, just on basis of size.

PDFs are easy to get onto the Kindle (3, anyway): just move them onto the onboard memory, and they show up like a .azw or .mobi file would.

I have the 9" DX and I use it regularly to read technical papers. It's just about the right size for that; I wouldn't want something smaller since there are already occasions when things get a little too small. I find it works reasonably well for reading and navigating PDF's (no detrimental delays).

Putting PDF's on a Kindle is easy -- just plug it in to your computer over USB and it acts like a flash drive.