OK, I'm not computer savvy, so please allow me to pick the brains of fellow gamers who are. What I'm looking for is something to read game-book PDFs and that's pretty much it. I have an iMac for a computer and would just want to get them from DTRPG or the like, put them on it and take it with me whenever I need it. I'd like it to be in color and as big as possible, without being too big, as well as easy to "flip" through. Is this possible?

I would recommend a good tablet or an iPad. I don't know if those things constitute as cheap...but they'd got the job done well, how you want it...

I am looking hard at the ZT-180.  It's got a 10 in screen, which should mean you don't have to squint too much to read a normal size pdf, and the price is low (as low as $150 on Amazon, regular price is around $200 I think) compared to other tablets.  

The only bad thing I have heard about it is that the touch screen is resistive rather than capacitive, which I think is a fancy way of saying you have to push a little harder.

The color tablet market is still shaking out. To day the iPad is the best, the one table to measure all other buy. From using a kindle for the past three years I would say that a 10" tablet is the minimum need for full color gaming pdfs. Any smaller is a compromise of some sort.

For this year, if you want to use gaming PDF as is, you are looking at $300 to $500 for a 10" tablet.

If you are willing to do some work on your computer to format stuff (and have the interest and technical ability), then a color nook ($250 or so) or a kindle ($135) will do.  I used my kindle to easily read a couple of OSR/Retro-clone material that I bought or downloaded. But I had to spend a 1/2 hour formatting them. I manage to read GURPS PDF supplements but I rather print those out as a booklet and read them that way.

Given that the Kindle is pretty much my regular reading device, I want my color tablet to do more than just be a full color reader. So I look at iPads this gem from ASUS

http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-TF101-A1-10-1-Inch-Tablet-Computer/dp/B004U78J1G/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I309LKFCL4CAEL&colid=2TOIALGDGCYKM

which means $300 to $500. Part of the problem there are times when I go up to a MONTH on a single charge on the kindle. Full color tablets just don't have the legs of the kindle.

For a first time buyer, I would say try a color nook. You won't have the battery life of a kindle for regular reading, but it price won't make you feel like a heel if you find out that you use it differently than for what you first bought it for. I bought the first Kindle at $400 and while I used the hell of it, it didn't work well for gaming. So I felt kinda of ripped off but not too bad because my regular reading skyrocketed due to the kindle.  For regular reading the current kindle at $139 is near perfect.

Full color however things are unsettled at the moment. Get something cheap (full color wise), experience using the device, then in a year or two, research the alternatives and get something bigger and better. By then you should find good 10" alternatives in the $200 to $300 range. And you would have spent as much getting if you would have gotten an iPad (which works great for gaming).

Sounds like an iPad is the way to go. Thank you.

The ebooks have the e-paper, which makes for easier viewing - try one and see if it makes a difference to you.  The problem with pdfs is they don't work well for reparsing a page and showing only part of it - especially with tables.  So it's whole page at once which is why people above where saying 10" screen needed.
 
If e-paper doesn't matter to you, a laptop might be better than an ipad, you can do so much more

for me, it's the page orientation.  a tablet would keep things viewable w/o constant scrolling, as opposed to the landscape view of a laptop.  

just means i gotta wait a bit longer for iPads (or another color tablet) to drop in price before i can get any regular use out of my pdf's

For gaming pdf's you need a 10" screen and for some books (as I've got some gaming pdf's that are 50mb+) some serious horse power to view them.  Which means most bargain tab's can't read them.  My Ipad works awesome and there are a few pdf's I have that it still struggles with.  But to be fair my computers have a hard time also with those.

I have a player at my table who uses her Kindle.  It's not in color, but she's able to have all her books in one little package.

Edit: Nevermind, I missed where you said you wanted color.

I'm saving up for an I-Pad myself. They are pretty awesome.

I have an iPad 2. It rocks for PDF reading. GoodReader is the best PDF viewer I have ever used on any platform. The iPad is simply the best tablet out there right now, on every metric.

Beware of any Android tablets whose brand-name you don't recognize. They are universally cheap Hong Kong knockoffs with weak, slow hardware and poor to non existent software support. You won't have access to the Google apps, especially Market, and their obscurity will mean little support even from hacking communities like xda.

A cheap alternative to consider though, is the HP Touchpad. HP is dumping these on the market as a firesale, you could get a 16GB Touchpad for only $99, and while the initial stock is sold out, there's a new batch coming soon.  Or, if you don't want to fight the rush, hit up eBay, where you can find them for around $200.  

The Touchpad is a full size tablet, and webOS, whil rubbish on phones, is actually pretty good on a tablet. It hasn't the best app market, but it's got built in Adobe Reader, and there's  lot of third-party hacks and an independent market with some good stuff on it.

Quote from: J Arcane;479321A cheap alternative to consider though, is the HP Touchpad. HP is dumping these on the market as a firesale, you could get a 16GB Touchpad for only $99, and while the initial stock is sold out, there's a new batch coming soon.  Or, if you don't want to fight the rush, hit up eBay, where you can find them for around $200.  

The Touchpad is a full size tablet, and webOS, whil rubbish on phones, is actually pretty good on a tablet. It hasn't the best app market, but it's got built in Adobe Reader, and there's  lot of third-party hacks and an independent market with some good stuff on it.

I tried (and failed) to get one of these, but I have been reading on TBP since the big fire sale that the pdf is a bit blurry when you zoom in to read small text. Can anyone verify? Did anyone here actually get one?

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;479521I tried (and failed) to get one of these, but I have been reading on TBP since the big fire sale that the pdf is a bit blurry when you zoom in to read small text. Can anyone verify? Did anyone here actually get one?

My own order failed as well (I got in too late on on the OnSale/Amazon deal and the cancelled it), but I haven't heard anything like this from my CoG friends who've got theirs.  They seemed quite happy with PDF performance.

I did a great deal of research before first, buying my HP Tablet PC (in feb) and now, getting an ACER A500 Android 10" tablet.

I looked at:
iPad (iOS)
HP Tablets (WebOS/Palm)
Samsung (Android)
Acer (Android)
a few others (Android)

*HP*
HP was out because they didn't make 10"... a good choice since right after that HP announced they closed their tablet division and discounted everything out the door at like $100.

*iPad*
iPad I really wanted but, the storage is limited to what's inside the device. If you pay for the "Camera Adapter" you can put SD Cards (not sure about SDHC format) into it, and attach some USB devices besides the camera. Problem is you now have this thing hanging off the bottom without even adding like a Jump Drive (USB) or an SD Card (full size).  Not my idea of convenient OR safe.

*ANDROID*
Android tablets have some advantages in how they are configured for storage/access. They also vary in what storage you can add/use varying from nothing to MicroSD, USB, etc.

I went with the ACER because it gave me the most. 32 GB internal storage (called "Internal SD" by the system), and 32 Micro SDHC slot ("External SD"), a full USB port, a MicroUSB connector (to PC), Micro-HDMI out, Power adapter separate from the PC connector, software programmable volume control (usable for other functions), Orientation Lock (keeps tablet from changing between landscape/portrait), and a port for their docking station/stand.  Mine came with the case that ACER is charging $40 separately for older/lower storage models.

The only problem is that Android 3 doesn't have support for mice yet. But it does take USB keyboards and I'm currently using my orignal iMac keyboard with it (no keypad/cursor keys - we replaced that with a Microsoft full keyboard when we bought the iMac).

Response is nice, everything works as advertised, battery life is good, controls are simple enough to get to, the Android Market is easy enough to use. I've put a bunch of my gaming stuff on the micro SDHC card, popped it in the slot, closed the cover, forget about where it's at.  No taking up internal storage, or having a USB hanging off the end (although I sometimes look at things a friend has on their jump drive through the USB port). The keyboard works great and the case doubles as a stand so life is easy. It even comes with a program allowing you to view MS Office .doc/.docx files - pay to upgrade to editing.

One problem I have found in software is whether or not they bothered to allow for storage other than the main "internal SD". Since not all Android tablets have external SD slots (and fewer have USB ports), some PDF viewers won't let you look for files outside the main storage. Adobe's own PDF reader is the worst of all I've tried.  A few I bought (cheap) have upgraded adding this in. I've had this tablet about a month and a half and I've been loving it, reading books and gaming stuff in bed-the car-restaurants-etc. no problem.

Two things... about 'eReaders using eInk' and why I bought the Tablet PC.

eInk, is particles suspended in like an oil, moved by changing charges behind the little cell/bubble.  It's slow, it flashes the negative image before the proper view of the page and doesn't give you as good "black/white" contrast as real print does (or a color screen). Also, it doesn't do color you need an LCD display for that.

HP Tablet PC. When I bought this I had seen a friend's (mine is a generation later) and was considering an iPad vs this device. When I put together a 64 GB iPad with camera kit, external HD etc the cost was more than this machine. And I got 6 GB of ram (not 512 MB), a 500 gb HDD, full color 12 inch touchscreen, full compliment of USB, HDMI etc ports. finger print reader for security etc.

This is also a laptop. So full standard keyboard (no cursor or number pad) kind of a 'netbook put through the Capt America Super Soldier program').  The screen rotates and closes making it a tablet, a touch screen tablet. Virtual keyboard too. There is a button that pressing rotates the screen 90 degrees so in tablet mode you can use it in any orientation you want (hinge on left right top bottom).

This is a full Windows 7 computer so every program for Windows works on it just as well as it does on a standard desktop or laptop.  I do love it but it is heavy, with most the weight at the hinge (even after the battery is removed).  HP Stopped making these the moment they rolled out their iPad like tablets.

Enjoy.