Quote:
Originally Posted by LDBoblo
It'd be interesting to see just how students would use these things realistically. I would have killed for even the 7" first-gen eeePC netbook with crappy battery life when I was in university, but an ebook reader? Definitely not.
Perhaps the Boox is completely different, but every attempt I've seen or tried with stylus input with an ebook reader has been horribly slow and low-res, and the most complex "notes" have been vague circles and underlines, or the word "hello" in huge letters. That's such a joke for anything approaching academic needs.
Edit: Just watched some videos of the Boox with the stylus input. Nope, it's not completely different.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by fugazied
Anything above $500 is a bit much for most students probably! After all these devices would be accessories for students, after their primary machine, probably a laptop. The Onyx Boox is a pretty great device imo.
Hackcollege looks like an interesting website too.
|
Completely agree. I do not in anyway see these 6" device as of any use to other than lit or english majors. As I triple major in Pharmacy/Math & Computer Science, I can tell you a 6" device would have been totally useless compared to lugging around the needed texbooks for each course as needed. Now, take the feature set of a Boox 60 and put it in a 10" or even 11.5" form factor and we can talk... But there is zero chance these small devices can display content in a a way that makes following the material easy or in a way which promote learning. The content of the texts simply is too graphical in nature to the point where coercing the device to show the content, examples, along with the associated texts would make the device an impediment to learning. There is a reason textbooks are not printed in even something as small as a trade paperback edition, though there are some in math but even those leave a significant portion of the examples "as an exercise for the student"...
I mean try reading a o-chem, biochem, biophysical principles of drugs or even a basic calculus text on a 6" reader....
that is a FAIL in the making, for both the device and the student.
If Boox wants to make a note taking device...super, do THAT and add the ability to read some mmpb's as well, but even a prof's PDF content would be completely useless on such a small display.
If I am missing the point of the device for students, please let me know, because I do applaud your effort. I simply do not feel it fill the need. I will also add that a $500 device while expensive, would not be a huge outlay for a student. In fact schools could include a selection of devices as part of tuition and fees. But it danged well better be a device that works across all majors...
Last, I would have loved a reader like device to keep my chem lab journals as well as course notes and of course working through complex math proofs or other problems. I know even back then I would have paid $500 for a math specific device with MathCad or Mathematica embedded in the firmware.
The ONLY option I see for students which has any merit would be a slate PC with Wacom and a PixelQi panel along with the needed hardware to support the type of work science majors would need as well as art, lit and other majors...but being partial to hard science majors, I see them as those who would truly benefit from such a device as they are the onces with 100lbs of textbooks some semesters, think of it, a CRC right there in your slate device...wow!! Art History majors as well get astonishingly heave books, the rest, lucky if they have 30lbs of books to deal with each YEAR.
Another commonality for such majors is they MUST have color...greyscale is completely pointless. Even for taking notes in an advance math course where solving complex systems is greatly enhanced using a different color pencil to represent changes on each level while manipulating a single or system of equations. Can't be done with greyscale unless one rewrites the equation after each and every change...
A nice try from Boox, but were I a student, I would pass on the Boox 60 as vastly over rated. Just my opinion...hope I am wrong.