Onyx Boox 60 - Eighteen Months Down the Track

[niggle]

Well, I've had my Onyx Box 60 for about a year-and-a-half now, and thought it might be worth posting some observations.

I use an ereader because I travel around the Asia-Pacific region a good deal for business and stave off the boredom of long flights/wet Sundays in Taipei etc etc by reading. I found that I was carting large numbers of books around with me and buying an ereader seemed a logical solution.

Before buying the Boox I used a Hanlin V3 reader, which worked reasonably well for about a year before I started to notice that some of the buttons were failing. I also found with the Hanlin that the best format was PDFs which I produced myself from books rendered as word documents which I would then edit for style (chapter Headings, chapters on a new page etc) in a page size of 9cm x 12cm. This worked well but was quite time consuming!

I bought the Boox because I liked the way it looked, and because it handled a reasonable choice of formats. I also liked the idea of the scribble app, and being able to use a stylus to navigate.

The Boox was supplied by Dulins Books. I found them a pleasure to deal with, and the reader arrived in Australia fairly quickly. They supplied the Boox with a good quality protective cover which is a very useful (I'd say essential) extra.

I have a 4gb Sd card in the reader which is getting fairly full (mostly with classics downloaded from this site and Project Gutenburg). I've gradually moved from using PDFs to using epub as the main format for ebooks, and epubs work very well on this reader. What I particularly like is the ability to resize text by pressing the top of the inner crome ring (to enlarge) and the bottom (to reduce) the size of text. I also like the fact that the OK button glows blue when the Boox is charging.

I've found that I organise my books in folders by genre and within that by author. This gives me the issue that if I can't remember the author of a book that I recently downloaded and now want to read, I have trouble finding it! The workround that I use for this is to dip into each new book that I add so that it comes up in the recent documents folder and can be more easily found.

I back up my SD card to a hard-drive. This is a pain because the Boox seems to create files which my computer reads as corrupt and everytime one of these comes up the system stops copying.

I'm using the latest Bebook firmware - which seems fine to me.

I've also found that I hardly ever use the stylus for anything - the circular navigation button is very intuitive and works really well for me. I suspect this is a matter of taste. I generally have 2 or 3 books on the go at any one time and it's very easy to go from one to another via the recent documents folder.

When reading I go straight through using the next button for page turns - this has meant that I've already worn the text off this button. It was the page turn button that gave up the ghost on the Hanlin, so I'm hoping the same won't happen here too soon.

However, the page turn issue is the least of my worries currently. I am starting to have problems with the screen. For the first 9-12 months it was fine, and then I started to notice that I was having problems reading in sunlight. Put succinctly, the letters on the page grow more indistinct with each successive page turn to the point where they are unreadable. This is more noticeable when the machine is not fully charged, but is a problem most of the time when outdoors or reading close to a window. Reading at night in bed is not a problem. In sunlight, if I close the cover and slide a finger in to press the back and then forward button to refresh the page it becomes readable again. I don't know what to do about this - I use the reader constantly, so I don't want to send it away for repair, particularly as this would involve (I guess) sending it back to Dulin's Books, which would be pricey. I guess I'll soldier on and buy a new reader when this becomes unusable.

At any rate, I've learnt what I want from an ereader...

Must read epub, mobi, HTML, Txt, PDF and Word docs.
Must be able to use a folder system
Must take SD cards
6 inch screen is fine. Touch screen not necessary, Wi-Fi not necessary
Charge via USB and mains power.

I think the Kindles are good ereaders, and I'd consider one for my next reader except that they don't read epub and a lot of my library is in that format.

So if anyone has been roadtesting an ereader that fits the criteria above please let me know. I have a feeling I'm going to be in the market for a new erader sometime this year...sadly - because I really like the Boox.

[Dulin's Books]

Hi and thanks for the nice words.

That sunlight issue is a problem with production of the display by Eink themselves. It would have been covered under warranty but now that you are 18 months into ownership you would more than likely have to pay for the swap. You could send it directly to Onyx in China which would be cheaper and faster for you. Let me know if you want to go that route and I can send you the info. reach me at dulinbooks at gmail dot com.

Sorry to say that I am in the process of shutting down my retail business. In fact for all intents and purposes I am in fact closed now. The site is still up for people that need to reach us for anything but i will be removing the items from display shortly.

Having said that I do have a couple readers that I am selling at clearance. a PocketBook 602 , a 302 and one Boox 60. Im actually reluctant to let go of the Boox because it has the newer display and im torn about keeping it for myself

But if you are interested drop me an email and we'll talk about pricing and shipping.

[niggle]

Hi Dulins Books

Thanks for the speedy reply

Sorry that you're closing your retail operation...I've replied to your message via email. Look forward to hearing from you.