Dead Tree™ - It's foldable, portable, you can take notes on it, you can burn it to start a fire, or recycle it. It's cheap, available virtually everywhere. Doesn't take batteries and generally isn't as prone to causing eyestrain.

Some notes on using Dead Tree™. Depending on the font size, I print 2-4 pages per side. Be choosy on what to print, for lots of publications you can skip irrelevant chapters.

Finally, the A series of Dead Tree™ is much superior to the standard US letter size.

I imagine you have a parallel system for retaining notes? Or a truly old school system (personal library?) for filing Dead Trees?

What are the advantages of the A series of paper?

When printing 2(4,8,etc)-up, everything Just Fits, because of the 1:sqrt(2) edge length ratio. Similarly, A3 is suitable for making A4 size booklets, and many big photocopiers can do this automatically.

Also, because an A0 sheet is defined as having an area of 1 square metre, and paper weight is in grams per square meter, you can easily calculate the weight of any number of any A-size sheet.

You've sold me. Now I just have to source the stuff in the US.

Lenovo Duet: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/student-chromebo...

This became my primary tablet after my Nexus 7 died. It's $300 1080p 10.1" tablet/convertible ChromeOS device. For reading books & comics, detaching the cover & keyboard gives me a lightweight e-reader. A 1440p screen would be nicer, but the 222 dpi screen is good enough for me. Depending on the density of text in your docs & your eyesight, you may need zoom in at this resolution.

Since it's a Chromebook with a keyboard & Linux, I can use it as my only travel device instead of bringing a laptop with me. It also has Android app & stylus (+$40) support so it's my primary video & sketching device.

I use the iPad. I mean the competition is basically iPad vs ePaper like Remarkable or Sony DPaper. IMO iPad best because you can do so much on it than just reading or writing and the price is similar, but some people really like EInk.

Same thoughts here. The iPad is versatile and hard to beat. I'm curious what app people use to read PDFs? Goodreader seems really dated, so I just use the Apple Books app currently. My only complaint is that it doesn't allow you to have more than one paper/book open at once.

Also, I know the OP said they don't like printing papers out, but if you do, get a Brother laser printer. Text and graphics are much clearer on a laser printer vs. an inkjet.

I bought a higher-end (Epson EcoTank ET-2750) inkjet to replace a 10 year old Brother laser printer (OfficeDepot display model to boot) I got on sale. The laser printer was better in every way – I should have just replaced some parts and kept it going.

On my iPad, I just use the Apple Books app as well. I don't find it to be great, but it is sufficient.

Since I am the OP, I'll note that while I don't like to print a lot of papers, I do inevitably print important ones. I fully agree on the Brother laser printer (only kind I have used, so not knocking other brands). Even printing in draft mode (saving on ink) is generally more readable than inkjet printing, in my experience.

I'll probably end up getting another iPad, but it has been interesting to see what other people use.

What size iPad are people using for technical books and documents?

My son has a 6th gen (9.7"), and it seems like it might be a little smaller than I'd like. But, a full-size iPad looks giant after being around his device. I'd love to know what the adults are using for reading.

This is the same model of iPad that I have. I have used it to read several psychology and CS textbooks and hundreds of papers in those fields and philosophy and neuroscience. For size, this has been satisfactory for me as a middle-aged person with good uncorrected eyesight.

My wife has an old iPad mini (no idea what year/gen), which I have read some technical documents on. That was sufficient as well, though not quite as good as the larger iPad.

I've never used the larger sized iPad models, so I can't really compare.

The iPad is one of the few things I wish were lighter. It is presently too heavy to work as an e-reader.

Ugh I bring this up too often, but I really wish someone made a (sizeable) e-ink monitor. I can’t stand reading on backlit screens, and most e-readers are designed for smaller proprietary format than large PDF’s. I get why it’s impractical to build such a display. I’d try to make one myself if the company making the panels were assholes about who they sell to.

The Lenovo Yogabook C930: a dual screen laptop with no keyboard but a eink display instead. It is light, very thin, and USB-C. Both screen are tactile and wacom pen enabled. The laptop folds at 360 so you can use either screen.

But the best is when you hold it in portrait mode like a book to display the paper on the color screen on one side, and take notes on the eink on the other side with a pen.

Even better: with the 2020 update, set the eink display to "clone" and select the option to turn the screen off, and you have a eink laptop to read technical paper in the browser, BUT in eink so it goes easy on your eyes.

It only serves one purpose, but it serves it perfectly.

It's replacing my Sony 13' DPT RP1 eink reader, thanks to its better integration with OneNote, and also the "side uses" (you can use it as a eink laptop or screen by hooking a USB keyboard. vi on eink display is a pleasure to code with)

I would suggest the 256G version to have lots of room for content as it's the ideal device to consume media on (mostly book) ; a few resellers still have it new-in-box. If you can afford it, get the Korean model on ebay, with LTE enabled - it's a Fibocom L850-GL CAT9 WWAN Module II which is has an Intel xmm 7360 insde, so it's multiband and will work everywhere.

Don't get it used or open-box returned due to a bug on the charging side: if you try to use the yogabook at 0% battery but with the AC plugged, REGARDLESS of which AC adapter you use, it won't draw enough power.

This means it will turn itself off in a few seconds, but right after damaging the battery - 10% loss of capacity is easy to do in just one day when trying to do the "first boot" if you are not patient ...

I just bought a Boox Nova 3 https://www.boox.com/nova3/ after having a Boox Note Air which arrived with a cracked screen. I LOVE my kindle, but wanted to be able to take notes as well, and I don't want the glare from an iPad screen.

Honestly, if somebody made an e-ink cover for an iPad that would turn off the main LCD screen, I'd have probably gone for that. I was considering making one myself, but I've got too many projects on the go already.

If I could take notes on a kindle (which I'm sure is coming soon), I'd do that in a second!

Does this one handle PDFs well? My only experience with an e-ink device is the very old first gen Nook, which did not handle PDFs the greatest. I am pretty interested in a dedicated e-ink device just for reading mostly PDFs and some epubs.

According to the reviews, they're very good at handling PDFs, but I haven't tried.

I use remarkable tablet

Here’s my experience, I have been using it to read pdfs and it has been great and everything renders fine

The only thing i hate is that it lacks search feature through the pdfs otherwise its has been great and it allows me to stay focused

I've heard that technical books and pdfs don't always render well on e-ink devices. Is that just for kindles which do their own conversion on pdfs, or is that true of most e-ink devices?

PDFs render just fine on a remarkable. Everything is grayscale, but I haven't noticed any rendering oddities.

Hmm, this is something I would like to know as well. I have been interested in e-ink ever since my first gen Nook (my only ever e-ink device, which was poor for reading PDFs).

The no-glare aspect is appealing. It gets tiring reading in dimly-lit rooms.

I have been leaning this way, even before my iPad got broken. I will definitely take a closer look now.

I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e. Large high resolution AMOLED screen, a reasonably fast processor, thin and light design good for long reading sessions. Sometimes I use an iPad 2017 when the Samsung's on the charger but the older screen on it just isn't as nice in my opinion.

Macbook because I have a + space key bound to google selected text and I do that a lot.

I like reading in general on my Macbook, as long as it is short enough. I think my problem with reading a 10 or 20 page paper on the Macbook is that I cannot get into a comfortable position to do it, like I can with paper or a tablet. On my desktop, even if I zoom in or increase the font, when I am reading something intense I tend to end up terribly slouched or with my face too close to the screen.

I can write fine. I can sit upright and ergonomically type. But my reading on a computer/laptop is a mess.

Maybe my chair is insufficient, or whatever I don't know. I just can't do it.

I use Epiphany Workflow on a MacBook Pro. It's easy to extract notes and review both the notes and the source paper later.

Do you sit at a desk or table? My main problem with reading on my Macbook is ergonomics, I think. I am getting old though ... or middle aged at least.

I sit on a narrow couch with a firm seat and back. I place the laptop in my lap. I'm 74, and it works for me.

Incidentally Epiphany Workflow works with web sites as well as files.

I used to use an old Surface Pro 2, with Bodhi Linux and Xournal. The idea was that I could read papers and write notes on the screen. Last year I gave in and read on my Android tablet (Tab S6 lite). It's been great. It doesn't run Linux, it isn't as flexible - but I also don't distract myself. I'm much happier.

I considered trying a PineTab, since they run Linux-based OSes (my main daily usage) and they are relatively inexpensive.

I bought the Surface on eBay for about $200 a while back. After using it for 2-3 years I resold it for the same amount. It was cost neutral.

A4 paper - A screen is fine for a quick scan of papers and to filter out the dross, but actually reading a paper takes paper.

Paper, I find papers a pain to read on a computer or tablet at a decent text size as they're often multi column.

I always loved reading on my Kindle DX (which had a larger version of their standard e-ink screen -- though it's since been discontinued).

You can still send PDFs to a Kindle and display them on the screen. The formatting isn't always perfect, but it's an option.

iPad Pro 11” with MarginNote 3 (majority of the time) or GoodNotes 5(?)

It does the job. Probably have more than 300 ebooks on the think and 100+ technical papers.

I have the new Logitech keyboard with touchpad. It’s a bit annoying on MarginNote, but still like it.

My printer.

iPad mini is probably my most used device and it's excellent for reading papers and note taking.

desktop monitor, 2 pages side-by-side