Does anyone use their Ipad for textbooks? I plan on getting one but I don't know if its a good idea. It does save money but I'm worried a lot about the eye strain. Will it be harder to read off the screen or focus on it?

The problem is getting the PDF's first.

I have a whole slew of bookies on my PC...is hard to read...and easy to get distracted...but you do save $$, so....:.)))

Tried this for my tablet, never actually did it. It's one thing to say you'll do it, but to carry through....

I'm curious though, why do you think you need an iPad? There are many cheaper alternatives.

I'm not a fan boy I really prefer apple products as tablets not so much the phones. Since my family all has iPhones and live in the states face time will save me tons. And my parents have had good luck with Apple tablets so I feel their very reliable for me at least. It's more of a piece of mind thing.

As far as finding ebooks, isohunt is your best bet. Start by searching using author's last name, and if you get any hits, also throw in the title and see which editions you can find.

There are also legit ebook sellors such as CourseSmart but the only drawback is that you're paying 50% of the price of textbooks and yet you can't sell them again. So watch out.

As for reading off the iPad, it really depends on your reading habits in the past. Do you rely on textbooks to supplement lecture content? If you've actually read your past textbooks, then you will most likely put in the effort and read from your iPad too (and bonus of not having to carry them to Mac everyday). Even though I don't have a tablet, I've used ebook versions over textbooks (even if I have them) since it's just easier to open a PDF file and hit search and find a keyword to aid in my understanding.

Its not really that hard to find pdfs. You really gotta looks hard enough and will eventually come accross it.

Originally Posted by lifesciman1

Its not really that hard to find pdfs. You really gotta looks hard enough and will eventually come accross it.

For textbooks that a lot of people use, yes. For unknown random textbooks, it isn't.

I like to highlight and make notes in my textbooks so I really only use my tablet for textbooks where there's little reading and a lot of practice questions... Way easier to do math homework on breaks without having to lug that huge textbook around.

use the nexus 7

Also a thing to note. Not all people like reading from a screen. The worst is flipping around pages (example when I used that for a stats textbook flipping back and forth to the tables)