pdf files and mobile phones

pog it

Just a simple question I hope! There are a couple of large PDF files I use regularly and I'd love to be able to access them on my phone. I am upgrading at any rate and so was wondering what kind of choice do I have when it comes to accessing pdfs?
Am trying to avoid touchscreens in general.
Also would there be one that also has a good camera/video recorder?

Thanks a mil.

mobius42

The Palm Pre is pretty good at handling pdfs. You just copy them to the phone using the USB cable or save them from emails and you can read and attach them. You can also download pdfs through the browser and save them to the phone. However, it has a touchscreen but also a physical keyboard. Camera is pretty good but no video.

smackyB

I wasn't that impressed with the pre tbh, it was quite sluggish and not intuitive to use. Also the original poster wanted to avoid touchscreen phone. The problem is that if you want to view PDFs on a decent sized screen they invariably tend to be touchscreens. Iphone and Android-based phones handle PDFs well.

pog it

Thanks folks. I was hoping to avoid iphone and touchscreen, and if the Pre has a reputation for sluggishness, I'm impatient at best of times, so that wouldn't work for me.

Are there any other android phones out there that would be good for this?

Possible touchscreen and keypad so I don't have to use the touchscreen.

jamesd

A Nokia E72 would be ideal for you. I have an e71 and use it for pdf's and with the e72 you get a 5megapixel camera.

billbond4

The SE Satio has Abobe Acrobat on it so you can view pdf files.
Its on O2 and Vodafone.
12 Mega Pixel camera with Xenon Flash

GigaByte

HTC Touch Pro 2
http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/htc-touch-pro-2-fact-sheet/

nmesisca

pog it wrote: »

Just a simple question I hope! There are a couple of large PDF files I use regularly and I'd love to be able to access them on my phone. I am upgrading at any rate and so was wondering what kind of choice do I have when it comes to accessing pdfs?
Am trying to avoid touchscreens in general.
Also would there be one that also has a good camera/video recorder?

Thanks a mil.

Any Android phone will do, to be honest.
Most of them come with a PDF reader (the HTC branded like Hero/any with SenseUI ones have a reaaly good one!).
They will not limit the size of the PDF you can open.
They render very well and the scrolling is fluid as it could.
You can also find 3-4 very popular PDF readers on the Android Market.
If PDFs are your thing, I would suggest a nice HTC Passion/Dragon with its 3.7" screen multitouch etc.

Camera on the Passion/Dragon should be a good one too with 2 led flash. Hero has a 5mpx that doesnt shine due to lack of flash.

nmesisca

billbond4 wrote: »

The SE Satio has Abobe Acrobat on it so you can view pdf files.
Its on O2 and Vodafone.
12 Mega Pixel camera with Xenon Flash

and hopefully they solved all the problems it had at launch!

Carphone Warehouse stopped its distribution for a while cause it wasnt deemed fit for sale.. :S

pog it

Fantastic Cheers everyone. I was looking at the Satio a while back and had been waiting for it to come out actually as I like Sony Ericcson, but has anyone got experience of the Satio since it was released here? I heard the rumours alright about it not working well when it first launched?

Anyone any experience of it maybe?

Will do some research on the HTC phones ye suggested and the Nokia e72.

pog it

Which would ye go for between HTC Touch Pro2 and Nokia n900?

(From what I can see Satio is just touchscreen so I'm not considering it now).

It looks like Nokia n900 runs on Maemo as opposed to symbian and android... is this right? Would I have any trouble viewing pdfs and word etc. compared with the HTC Pro2?

nmesisca

pog it wrote: »

Which would ye go for between HTC Touch Pro2 and Nokia n900?

(From what I can see Satio is just touchscreen so I'm not considering it now).

It looks like Nokia n900 runs on Maemo as opposed to symbian and android... is this right? Would I have any trouble viewing pdfs and word etc. compared with the HTC Pro2?

Pro2 is a WinMo phone while n900 is Meamo... for media handling i think you should not consider WinMo (unless you have pretty specific corporate requirements eg full encryption etc..). Maemo is at its 'first' release and is having some success but its a young platform and you may have to go through some periods of 'adjustment'. it definitely IS more fun to play with tho.
Android would offer a relatively more stable platform thought you need a Passion/Dragon to have that same size screen of the n900..

billbond4

you should also consider the sony ericsson xperia it is a touch screen phone but does have a slide out keyboard. Also you can get a pdf reader if the phone supports java like a sony ericsson c905 or c510

smartblaa

I would say that all PDF-Files should be locked up.
..they shouldn't be allowed have mobile phones either

nmesisca

smartblaa wrote: »

I would say that all PDF-Files should be locked up.
..they shouldn't be allowed have mobile phones either

pdfs are bad.. mkay..
:rolleyes:

pog it

Thanks again folks, nearly there

okay so, i can't seem to find HTC Passion/Dragon (that nmesisca recommends) on the Vodafone shop. Anyone know if this is out yet or is it just due for release?

Also what other android phones would you recommend for pdfs apart from iphone as I need both touchscreen and keypad?

at the mo I am looking at nokia e72, htc passion/dragon if I can!!, and possibly HTC Touch pro (is this one WinMo as opposed to android??)

sorry any help anyone? Am definitely making my decision this week!!

pog it

jamesd wrote: »

A Nokia E72 would be ideal for you. I have an e71 and use it for pdf's and with the e72 you get a 5megapixel camera.

The N72 looks like it would be my best option but it is symbian os and everyone seems to be recommending google android os based phones..

what would make an android phone better than symbian for pdf reading?

Thanks for any help folks

nmesisca

pog it wrote: »

Thanks again folks, nearly there

okay so, i can't seem to find HTC Passion/Dragon (that nmesisca recommends) on the Vodafone shop. Anyone know if this is out yet or is it just due for release?

Also what other android phones would you recommend for pdfs apart from iphone as I need both touchscreen and keypad?

at the mo I am looking at nokia e72, htc passion/dragon if I can!!, and possibly HTC Touch pro (is this one WinMo as opposed to android??)

sorry any help anyone? Am definitely making my decision this week!!

its basically the HD2, but thats winMo.

nmesisca

pog it wrote: »

The N72 looks like it would be my best option but it is symbian os and everyone seems to be recommending google android os based phones..

what would make an android phone better than symbian for pdf reading?

Thanks for any help folks

if you're only concerned about reading pdfs, the only thing that can make it better on android could be eventually multi touch.
if i was you, if the price of a symbian is very much lower then go for it, but if the difference is not much there is no comparison, any android will give you more bang for your buck.

GigaByte

nmesisca wrote: »

its basically the HD2, but thats winMo.

The HTC HD2 is the best phone of the lot by a mile! As its a WinMo phone there's an app to do everything you want. You can even use it's camera to take picture's of documents and store them as pdf files. Just to show you how good it is here's a video clip of a demo of its document viewer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms8yOrBkF8o

Jip

I can't see there being a whole lot of options out there if you exclude touch screens, anything running on windows mobile should be able to handle them straight out of the box, Samsungs Omnia do which come to think of it has a non touch screen version.

nmesisca

GigaByte wrote: »

The HTC HD2 is the best phone of the lot by a mile! As its a WinMo phone there's an app to do everything you want. You can even use it's camera to take picture's of documents and store them as pdf files. Just to show you how good it is here's a video clip of a demo of its document viewer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms8yOrBkF8o

same as on Android. its called Scan2PDF.

GigaByte

nmesisca wrote: »

same as on Android. its called Scan2PDF.

I'm sure there's lots of programs that you can get for the iPhone, Android or WimMo that can take a picture and save it as a PDF but the post is really about the viewing of PDF files or other documents shown in the video. Also the size of the HD2 screen makes it much easier to read than any other phone mention and with a 1ghz processor it is fast.

pog it

okay... thanks everyone but I'm still finding it so difficult to decide.

With the htc Touch pro2 or the HTC HD2 can you zoom into the pdf page, and can you search it for a word you need to look up?

GigaByte

pog it wrote: »

With the htc Touch pro2 or the HTC HD2 can you zoom into the pdf page, and can you search it for a word you need to look up?

You can on the HTC HD2 and you should be able to zoom in on the Touch Pro2 but another thing the HTC HD2 does that none of the other phones mention can do is "pinch zooming" as its a multitouch touch screen. It does have a search option to find words in pdf's or any documents. I've take a few screenshots for you in landscape mode. These are actual picture's so you can see how easy it is to read.


Zoomed out




Page width





Zoomed In





Full screen mode

maxwell smart

I use my blackberry pearl to view .pdf files all the time, and its not a touchscreen. Great zoom function too and you can copy and paste etc no problem.

GigaByte

maxwell smart wrote: »

I use my blackberry pearl to view .pdf files all the time, and its not a touchscreen. Great zoom function too and you can copy and paste etc no problem.

The blackberry screen is tiny compared to the HTC HD2!! It's like comparing a 21" to a 70" TV


BB Pearl 260 x 240
HTC HD2 800 x 480

Just so you can visualise the difference' here's a screen comparision. Purple = HTC HD2 and Red = BB Pearl

pog it

Really appreciate that GigaByte, you went to a lot of effort posting that link and info and I am definitely considering the HD2 now.. if it had a physical qwerty keyboard it would be perfect *sigh*

maxwell smart wrote: »

I use my blackberry pearl to view .pdf files all the time, and its not a touchscreen. Great zoom function too and you can copy and paste etc no problem.

By any chance would you know how it handles pdf files that are say 8mb ? I checked through what I have and that is the largest but most frequent one I'll be using... so it's not a massive sized pdf.

would blackberry handle 8mb pdf okay or would you say its better for smaller files than that?

I just need to know this before I decide between this and the HD2!

Thanks so much.