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I have a couple of PDF files I want to read and probably more of those in the future on my computer.
What is the best (simplest) way of transferring them to my Android 2.3 phone (Motorola Motoluxe). And how can I read them?
I am thinking of Dropbox, perhaps, or are there any better ways of accomplishing this?
You can use an app like Adobe Reader or Office suite pro to view the .pdf files in your device. There is a free version as well for the office suite.
You can simply transfer the files to your device via usb.
If you need an app to read ebooks, I would suggest Tap2Speak Reader. It doesn't have as many features as those popular ones, but is sufficient for your situation. In addition, it can use Google Translate to speak more than 50 languages. It saves you much time from finding a "usable" text-to-speech engine.
Easiest way I use is installing a good eBook reader which simply accesses files you place in its directory (in my case, Moon+ Reader in its payed version, currently 50% off its price). Then I can easily transfer my reading material (Moon+ supports a bunch of formats, including PDF, ePub, Mobi, FB2 and many more) either...
You even can highlight and annotate (with PDFs, this goes directly into the PDF file; for other formats it's stored separately), integrate dictionaries like ColorDict, and much more.
I use ES File Explorer to put my pdfs on my google drive (works well with SkyDrive and Dropbox and several other cloud platforms OR you can sync over a network) and just open them with Polaris Office or Kindle on my tablet.
I downloaded the ePub reader freebie from the Play Store. I connected my phone to my computer via USB and then dragged my epub book to my Motoluxe. Then I opened the ePub reader and clicked on the small green + sign on the top of the page. That allowed me to add the book that I had stored in my ebooks folder (I think that particular folder "appeared" when I installed the ePub reader. Then I read it using that reader. I am just learning to use this phone so am not sure whether that folder (directory?) existed before I downloaded the freebie reader.
(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.graphilos.epub)
Yes. Dropbox (or Box or any other Cloud Storage service) would be one feasible solution.
Another way would be to use Airdroid.
It allows you to copy content to your phone via your laptop browser.
The added advantages are:
I would recommend using Pushbullet for easy and convenient file sharing across devices (among many other interesting features) and then Google's own Quickoffice does the job for PDF files.
As for ebooks, I would recommend uploading your files straight into Google Play Books (easily accessible from the Google Play Store site) and using the official Android app to read them. It's not the most feature rich, but it does the job well and few others can beat the ease of use and ability to access your books across devices.
Use USB cable and set your Android Phone as USB mass storage device, also you can send PDF as e-mail attachment, or use Google Drive, DropBox, SkyDrive cloud services etc. Other detailed information I found at http://www.file-extensions.org/pdf-file-extension
Use Google drive to share your files between devices
