e reader or tablet for MSc course?

[newfashionedmum]

I've just started an MSc course with LOADS of reading - most of the essential texts are available as pdfs and include diagrams and big pages with smallish font.

I would like to be able to load them onto an electronic device, an e reader or a tablet, mainly for reading but also to be able to highlight (definately) and annotate (possibly but not essential)

What's my best value option - what WON'T i be able to do on an e reader that i would on a tablet - and if a tablet needed should i get an ipad or something less flashy? I already have a smartphone and a laptop.

ooh i also want the screen to be fairly big so where pages have two columns of text i'm not having to keep to-ing and fro-ing around the page.

hello, any fellow students out there who can advise?

DS found an iPad very useful for his MSc (economics so lots of graphs/diagrams as well as text). A Kindle would be nowhere near as good for reading that type of material (and you'd have to convert the pdfs to the Kindle format). I expect another tablet would be fine ... but DS is an Apple fan.