Ipad

Posted by Dr Andus
Feb 2, 2011 at 09:58 PM

I have now trialled Zoostorm SL8 (http://amzn.to/fyyOzE) with Windows 7 as a possible e-reader for reading and annotating PDF articles and books. The hardware itself is very impressive and in theory it should be able to do everything that a desktop PC can. Unfortunately, I could not replicate my desktop workflow because it turned out that many of my key software were not specifically configured to work in the tablet mode and Windows 7 doesn’t offer workarounds.

E.g. I couldn’t view a PDF in full screen view in PDF XChange Viewer and then with a flick of the finger move to the next page (as you would do on an iPod Touch for instance). I had to call up the onscreen keyboard and use an arrow or the page down key to move, which of course covered up half of the screen and disrupted the reading experience. Similarly, copying, highlighting and adding notes turned out to be an ordeal. A whole lot of extra steps had to be taken to do what I can do in an instant on my desktop PC. Now, in Adobe PDF Reader I could turn the pages with the finger, however that doesn’t have the annotation features and I’m not willing to have to buy a whole lot of new software just so I can use a Windows tablet. The whole attraction of it was that I thought I’d be able to use my existing Windows-based software.

I would rather read and annotate a PDF on my iPod than on this 11.6” screen, and that says everything. I’ve returned it now to the shop. My next try is going to be the iPad. I love Windows 7 on my PC but I found it frustratingly inadequate as a tablet OS.