Ok I will get to the questions in just a moment but I have to talk about my experience with the Boox 60 this past weekend.
I had explored it before of course and read from it frequently. I tried all the functions before I decided to add it to my store. However, this weekend I decided that I would see how much use I could get out of it for CES.
In order to make the most of my limited time at CES I decided to make use of a feature that CES provides on its website called MYCES. It is like a trip planner- you can search through the companies who are attending and add them to your schedule. It includes the name of the company and where they are located etc. I did this Wednesday night and transferred a pdf version to the Boox.
Thursday I realized there were some things I hadn’t added that I wanted to see. Instead of redo-ing the PDF, I simply used the stylus to write them in. I found the best way to do this is to zoom in first then make the notes then zoom back out. Now the notes are the same size as the text in the pdf
Thursday night I also put the html of my flight info on the Boox. I used that to check in and get my boarding pass Friday with no problems. I also put in 4 issues of Ray Gun Revival for reading in route.
I read most of the flight except for the beginning and end when electronic devices have to be off.
I was staying with a relative so had easy access to wifi. Friday night after reading for a bit I decided to do some web surfing using the Webkit browser to see if I could find some things I wanted to do if I had time Saturday night. I spent 2 hours surfing the net using the Boox in landscape mode. Not only did I read up on things to do in Vegas but I also read MobileRead to see what Nate had been up to, rx8club.com to see what the vegas RX-8 crowd was up to(I’m senior admin at that forum) and checked my Gmail.
I could sign in to all of these places but because the browser doesn’t do JavaScript, I couldn’t make any replies. Navigating was pretty easy on the sites. You can click links to go to next pages etc and use a swipe motion of the stylus to scroll up and down. I was surprised how well scrolling actually works. I was shocked to see that animated objects on the various pages I looked at worked very well. Advertising banners and other animated gifs seemed to work just as normal and quite fast. I’ll be trying to get some video to show what I mean later.
There is a feature of the browser in the menu where you can select “home” but what it actually does it take you to a screen where it shows the last 4 pages you’ve been to. I used that to get back to Google when I was done at one site and wanted to go somewhere else. Some pages were really small but you can zoom just as with PDFs and you can even change fonts if you want. Zooming made it easier to click links.
Saturday I made some more notes on my plan for the day and headed out for CES. I took only the Boox, my PocketBook 360(which was in my front pocket) and my empty laptop bag for carrying anything I picked up during the day. Oh, my phone of course. I had business cards tucked in the pocket of the Boox cover to handout.
The rest of the day was spent checking the My CES plan, heading to a booth, making notes using the note ap of the Boox, checking off that booth in my plan and then heading to the next one. Many times I had people ask me about it and comment that I was the only person they had seen actually USING an ereader at the show.
Having it and the PB360 with me made it very easy to talk with the various manufacturers about their devices and to compare/contrast design and functionality. At the Samsung booth, I had a nice chat with a professor from Stanford. He was looking for devices that he might be able to use in the classroom for PDF annotating etc. I ended up spending time showing him how I was using it and talking about Wacom vs. resistive vs. capacitive while the Samsung folks replaced their 9.7 inch device that had failed for some reason.
At the Que booth, I spoke with them for a while and showed how I was using the Boox for the show. I hope I impressed them enough with the stylus “journal writing” that they quickly add that function to the Que. I also hope I impressed them enough to allow me to sell it in a B2B capacity here in the Portland area. I can see many potential customers that will not be reached by simply sticking it in B&N.
One thing I would like to see with the Boox is the ability to bring up the key board more often. It pops up mainly when starting the wifi and in the browser so you can do things like sign it. It would be nice to be able to use it for notes when you want to or in lieu of the stylus if you happen to lose it.
So, Saturday evening after spending some time at the Bellagio it was back to the house. I spent about 20 minutes on line reading some posts about CES then called it a night. Used my itinerary again on Sunday to check in and read all the way home. I hadn’t charged the Boox since THURSDAY and still had 1 bar on the battery scale. I used the wifi for about 2 ½ hours all told plus used it for reading, note taking most of the weekend and quite a bit of time showing others how it worked.
I think the device got a good workout and proved to me how useful it really can be to have so many features. Battery life was above my expectations using the wifi so much and I’m very happy I decided not to lug the laptop around. Of course, many people could do everything I did with some kind of smart phone but I really liked using the (comparatively) big screen more so than I ever did when I had a blackberry.
All in all a very successful outing with the Boox and it didn't let me down once.
-Charlie