In November 214 the best tablet overall is probably the iPad Air 2 ( The iPad Air 2 is the Best Tablet (so far) ) particularly since you're already using Apple products having more improves your experience amongst all of them (though I'm suspect of your having issues interacting with Word on any modern laptop and having needed a MacBook Pro to resolve that). You can find rmendation for PDF annotation apps in iOS here . This one ( The New PDF Expert 5 s ) looks particuarlly nice though I have no experience with it. If you don't want an Apple product the Samsung Note series (1. and 12.x sizes) reviews report choppy performance sometimes so you'll likely get upset with them if your above details above are any indication. Instead consider one of the Google Nexus tablets which have the least volume of extra stuff (less likely to get hung up).