Quote:
Originally Posted by mdp
Yes, of course you can connect a USB cable and transfer files! Linux, Windows (surely, though I don't know by experience), others - natively, no strange additions needed.
It mounts two external drives (two, if you have an SD-card). Of course, you can also use `adb push|pull` (etc.).
I find it scary and creepy that on other systems, you write, it would not work that way...
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I have some first hand experience with the way the reMarkable handles file transfers, and I've read a little on how the Sony RP1 works.
On the reMarkable, the files as presented on the UI (either PDF documents, or epub documents, or "notebook" documents that are created from writing on blank pages through the device's software) are not directly the same as on the filesystem - there's a single directory on the filesystem, with several files per document that describe both the contents and the abstract filesystem that the UI shows. It's transparent enough, but it also means just copying your PDF files by mounting the device as an external drive wouldn't work. The default file transfer utility goes through a specific cloud service, which is accessed by proprietary aplications; fortunately, there's also an alternative way to do it, via a Web interface: in practice, it works pretty well to just connect the device to a USB port and use the Web interface in a browser. Not as simple as it might be, but I can work with it, and more importantly, I can work with it on any of my computers (they happen to all have USB ports available).
On the Sony, from what I understand (and I admit I haven't any first hand experience with the device), you have to use the proprietary application to transfer files, and no alternative is provided. If you don't want to, or cannot, use this application (it doesn't exist for a Linux machine, for example), then you're out of luck, unless you "jailbreak" the device.
On the more classical e-reader that I have access (from Kobo), ebook transfer can be done through the dedicated application, or by downloading them directly from the Kobo store when you buy there, but Calibre also works with it pretty fine, so I never had to look any further. I understand that this is share by most "standard" e-readers - but then, these large-screen devices are not "standard" to me.
So, my question was asked to understand where the Boox devices stand on this. The answer is very reassuring to me, but I wouldn't want to buy one and then discover that I couldn't use it the way I need it to work. If I decide to buy one, it's with professional use in mind, and at work I only use Linux machines (Windows is at home only, and mostly dedicated to games). I could live with transfering ebooks only through my Windows machine when it's just books I read for pleasure; I don't want to have to go through the same kind of hassle for everyday work.