Onyx Boox M92 sample has arrived. First imression - I love it!

[lunohod]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Onyx have shown disregard for the community and the open-source world so many times already, I wouldn't use their stuff if I got it for free...

Well, Onyx developers accepted my patches. This is what I've been told when I first asked them:

We are welcome customers to contribute to the open source
projects used by Onyx Boox. We accept the patches if the patches is
bug free and fit in with the UI of the target reader applications.

[log-in]

Hi,

thanks for your answer Booxtor.

there is one more thing...

I read that onyx only gives 1 year of warranty for their products. And their product is a chinese one.... I still had some problemes with chinese products...

Why do you guys think they only give one year of warranty when other companys give two? And what about the durability of onyx products in general?

If one watches all the videos of this thread it really seems that the onxy is the better deal compared to the pocketbook....

but is this really the case?

at least there is a strong comunity behind pocketbook I miss in onyx and there is really fast support with pocketbook I doubt onxy is able to give?!

[Backi]

Originally Posted by log-in

And their product is a chinese one.... I still had some problemes with chinese products...

On the box of PB912 stands: "Assembled in China" Whatever this means ...
(Not forgetting software development outsourcing)

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Backi

On the box of PB912 stands: "Assembled in China" Whatever this means ...
(Not forgetting software development outsourcing)

Now that is a big difference! What isn't "Made in China" or "Assembled in China" these days (even though that is getting expensive lately)? The things I try to stay away from until proven "worthy" by lots and lots of users are "Designed in China by a local manufacturer". It doesn't mean that it is all bad, but it takes a lot more to convince me before I will jump.

Because the emphasis is on "it is good enough" rather than "we will do the best job we possibly can". 25 years of China experience speaking.

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by log-in

Hi,

thanks for your answer Booxtor.


Why do you guys think they only give one year of warranty when other companys give two? And what about the durability of onyx products in general?

If one watches all the videos of this thread it really seems that the onxy is the better deal compared to the pocketbook....

but is this really the case?

at least there is a strong comunity behind pocketbook I miss in onyx and there is really fast support with pocketbook I doubt onxy is able to give?!

Well, I can compare and in my opinion the M92 is much better(display, PDFs,
annotations, scribbles - and SPEED). PB is better in multitasking, TTC, a couple of minor things).The PB seems somewhat better built.
In the field of this kind of readers you have to be aware that you are part of an experiment, because these a niche products from companies with limited ressources as far as software development goes. So there will be always something missing. Knowing tablet devices I am pretty surprised about the huge difference in application quality.
Should Sony or Kobo decide to enter this market segment(nothing to expect here from Amazon for obvious reasons) - these companies will disappar from the surface within a couple of weeks.
Community support: looks to me that they mostly explain why things don't work and when you could expect a remedy for you problems ...

[HansTWN]

Looks like the big guys will not re-enter this market until Mirasol and/or color e-ink are good enough, also for general tablet uses.

[peterx]

Originally Posted by FDD

This is a bit off-topic, but...
The firmware update for M92 is similar to the one for previous devices (e.g. M90) but since it has an internal SD card instead of a plain flash, there are differences

Ah great, thank you. Until now I managed to compile an application using qemu (image from http://donkey.vernier.se/~yann/pocketbook/armeabi/) and to compile the SDK.

Is there a place where I can document my findings? For now, the wiki of this site seems to be the best place for me... Will booxusers.com be online again soon, or is it ultimately closed? What about onyxcommunity.com?

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Looks like the big guys will not re-enter this market until Mirasol and/or color e-ink are good enough, also for general tablet uses.

Well, Ectaco starts with pushing color-ink big time in the US, and have been fairly successful apparently in Russia - if you can believe their YouTube videos.
And they could be actually making money because they target the education sector/market, which is huge. Amazon seems to aim in that direction too.

Whereas PB and Onyx have no link between hardware and media - most people buy these devices for reading PDFs. Nothing to earn here. Amazon and the rest are making their profits with ebooks, not with hardware.
From that perspective it is kind of a miracle that PB and Onyx have survived so far ...

[PF4Mobile]

WOW! I had no idea that this exists!

http://www.ectaco.ca/products/jetBook_Color/

Beryll my friend good karma is coming to you! :-)

Did you buy this? Are you in Canada?

Specifications:
Triton Color E Ink screen
9.7" Display
1600x1200 resolution
Load Your Own Content
Support for: Adobe DRM 9.1, ePub, Mobi, PRC, RTF, TXT, PDF, FB2, djvu, JPG, Gif, PNG, BMP (more to come)
Wi-Fi enabled with browser
Fluent Text-to-Speech can read you any book
10,000 page turns on a single charge
Support via microSD for up to 32GB
Sleek protective carrying case included
Underline and highlight text
50-state reading list
Fully interactive SAT course
"Overdrive" library access
Wireless access to online textbooks, www.ck12.org and other resources
Speed Reading course
Talking Oxford Dictionaries
Course of English and foreign language grammar
Speech recognition and speech analysis Language Teacher and U-Learn courses that teach you a language step by step
Pictured dictionaries for 38 languages
Cross translator for 180 languages
Vocabulary Builder
Linguistic Crosswords
Reference materials for Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography and Earth Science
Interactive Periodic Table of Elements
Graphing and scientific calculators
And much more!
Expected ship date is January 15, 2012
Price: CAD519.95

More here http://www.jetbookk12.com/jetbookcolor/?refid=29532

[ignacio ferrer]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

WOW! I had no idea that this exists!

http://www.ectaco.ca/products/jetBook_Color/


And much more!
Expected ship date is January 15, 2012
Price: CAD519.95

More here http://www.jetbookk12.com/jetbookcolor/?refid=29532

Not to forget: superior software ...

[initx]

Originally Posted by ignacio ferrer

Not to forget: superior software ...

How superior ectaco's software is? Is it completely bug-free, including pen calibration etc.?

[PF4Mobile]

Let's not deviate this thread. I am going to move over to the jetBook forum and ask there the questions... I had no idea that this exists, the manufacturer looks more solid than Onyx and ..color eInk?!! that is a deal breaker. I now need to know more about OS, PDF reading and exporting the annotations. From what I am reading the specs are amazing although not sure if the color resolution is ok (800x600 apparently although they say 1600x1200)

[Backi]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

Let's not deviate this thread. I am going to move over to the jetBook forum and ask there the questions... I had no idea that this exists, the manufacturer looks more solid than Onyx and ..color eInk?!! that is a deal breaker. I now need to know more about OS, PDF reading and exporting the annotations. From what I am reading the specs are amazing although not sure if the color resolution is ok (800x600 apparently although they say 1600x1200)

I think, the color filter is a 2x2 matrix (r, g, b, w), so 1600/2 x 1200/2 = 800x600. Would be interesting, if one can deactivate color at all and have the full 1600x1200.

I wonder, whether PocketBook hesitates to bring out a better (in terms of CPU, display, ...) 9.7" device, because they are working on a reader with a color display?
It would explain, why they have no interest in the E-ink Pearl display.

[PF4Mobile]

Yeah it is my feeling too that something new must erupt in this area.
These 9.7-10" ereaders would be really good for reading newspapers and magazine format.
If I would be a newspaper owner I would really push for this. The days of paper newspaper seem to be numbered. They have to migrate to digital for many many reasons. Either web or on ereder ... having DRM and ereader distribution could be a solution. And the color si a must for most of the magazines!

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

I am not sure that I understand your frustration (if any) or comments. I do agree that Onyx could have been more open to the community but on the other side if the SDK and the sources are there you do not need their blessing to hack the device. As long as is it open to hacking you can not seriously ask for more. In the end being the only source of software might be a good tactic for increasing profits.
You are right in one respect, they are a small company and I guess hardware production itself might be a problem. Scaling up might be a problem for such a company on both fronts software and hardware. Having to deal with community requests might also be a challenge when you are short of staff.
At this monent other that PB903 this is the only decent reader for PDF reading and annotating...
I see that you own a kindle, I don't think that your kindle is better in any of the above mentioned respects. I would dare to say, on the contrary....

They only released the sources after they were threatened with legal action because of GNU violation.
but this is not what concerns me. They were told for three or four years that annotations and hightlights should either be exportable or better, written in the file. What they have been doing for all this years is keep on using the Adobe engine, ignoring the first option and blaming the lack of the second option on the engine. They are just cheap.
And yeah, they managed to brick the update engine with an update once and only offered a solution after a user wrote one for them. Pathetic...