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fragile · 02-08-2011, 01:44 PM

Its very disappointing to see that the 302 has been discontinued:
http://www.pocketbook-usa.com/products/pocketbook-302/

But I must confess unlike this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119429 I wasn't mislead by PocketBook, for I didn't purchase based on promises. The main purpose for me was pdf support. (I often read annual reports of companies and financials) I was aware that there is no 6 incher that is good at pdfs, so I just wanted to have the best among what is available. Reading through the forums here and in general through the net, It finally came down to 302 vs Onyx Boox.

What I wanted in the pdf side was:
* Persistent and good zoom
* Highlighting and annotation.

Reading through the forums here and especially this thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77534
swung my decision to 302. I didn't go with the boox because its annotation capabilities was only for PDFs and the fact that 302 didn't require a stylus was more appealing.

Apparently I was wrong:
My problems now with this reader are primarily as an e-reader itself (leaving aside all the other apps such as browser etc..). For PDFs based on my reading for the past 3 weeks or so I find it very unsuitable for my purposes (reading financials and annual reports):

* Persistent and good Zoom : Yes the zoom persists, but what I didn't know was the zoom is in fixed steps and one can't specify an arbitary zoom level. For instance, from 200% the next level is only 300%. This makes it difficult to get the correct zoom level. What makes it worse is that when you a get a zoom say which makes the doc greater than 20% of the screen, its not possible to pan over the document (must be some bug). Now I think I understand what the initial poster in that thread meant by box-and-zoom. On hindsight perhaps this alone will make me select the boox if I were again presented with the choice.
<EDIT>
Since writing the above initially I've discovered that it is possible to box and zoom with PB302 as well. See the post below for details.
</EDIT>

* The search: Usability here as well is extremely frustrating. The longer the doc, the more the time it takes. Whats worse is that it looses zoom during the search. The initial search is always forward and the search doesn't warparound. This means that if you wanted search for something that was in the last few pages you read and it doesn't occur thereafter, when you launch the search, it will take a lot of time until it hits the end of the document and then give up without a hit. The only way to accomplish this is you have to goto a page before the word and then launch the search. Once it hits the word though, then you have the capability to search backwards or forwards from the find Icon.

* Highlighting and annotation: I went completely wrong here as well. I thought the onyx doesn't support it for documents other than pdfs and gave it up, but in 302 It doesn't support it the way one would expect it for pdfs itself! There is no way to highlight. You can annotate, but that gets into the notes application (which is seperate from the reading software.) The result is if you made a note and where re-reading the book there is really nothing to notify you that a note has been made there (a highlight would have been great). What you need to do is when you are reading the book, also open the notes application and see if there were any notes you made.

* Paning in the document: If you do succeed in getting an approximate zoom level, I've noticed that the panning isn't fine grained enough. What I mean is, you might have a situation where you've some space infront of the first left words and a portion of the right word clipped. When you try to pan, so that the space is off to make way for the right last words, you'll find that its very hard to make small adjustments to the horizontal pan.

All these coupled together makes it very difficult to read pdfs on it. I'm hoping that someone will correct me on these points, If anyone has soultions to these would appreciate if you could respond. If not too atleast this will help others who are in search for pdf reading understand better where the 302 stands on this regard. I still don't understand what the posters mean in that thread by Column zoom and underlining feature.

What would be nice is for Pocketbook to openup the source for the 302 readers so that they could possible be community maintained (now that they've discontinued it). But that clearly will not happen because with many e-readers on the market having the same harware architecture, its the software that is the differentiator.

02-08-2011, 01:44 PM	#1
fragile Connoisseur Posts: 53 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2010 Device: PRS-900	302 not for pdfs?? Its very disappointing to see that the 302 has been discontinued: http://www.pocketbook-usa.com/products/pocketbook-302/ But I must confess unlike this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=119429 I wasn't mislead by PocketBook, for I didn't purchase based on promises. The main purpose for me was pdf support. (I often read annual reports of companies and financials) I was aware that there is no 6 incher that is good at pdfs, so I just wanted to have the best among what is available. Reading through the forums here and in general through the net, It finally came down to 302 vs Onyx Boox. What I wanted in the pdf side was: * Persistent and good zoom * Highlighting and annotation. Reading through the forums here and especially this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77534 swung my decision to 302. I didn't go with the boox because its annotation capabilities was only for PDFs and the fact that 302 didn't require a stylus was more appealing. Apparently I was wrong: My problems now with this reader are primarily as an e-reader itself (leaving aside all the other apps such as browser etc..). For PDFs based on my reading for the past 3 weeks or so I find it very unsuitable for my purposes (reading financials and annual reports): * Persistent and good Zoom : Yes the zoom persists, but what I didn't know was the zoom is in fixed steps and one can't specify an arbitary zoom level. For instance, from 200% the next level is only 300%. This makes it difficult to get the correct zoom level. What makes it worse is that when you a get a zoom say which makes the doc greater than 20% of the screen, its not possible to pan over the document (must be some bug). Now I think I understand what the initial poster in that thread meant by box-and-zoom. On hindsight perhaps this alone will make me select the boox if I were again presented with the choice. <EDIT> Since writing the above initially I've discovered that it is possible to box and zoom with PB302 as well. See the post below for details. </EDIT> * The search: Usability here as well is extremely frustrating. The longer the doc, the more the time it takes. Whats worse is that it looses zoom during the search. The initial search is always forward and the search doesn't warparound. This means that if you wanted search for something that was in the last few pages you read and it doesn't occur thereafter, when you launch the search, it will take a lot of time until it hits the end of the document and then give up without a hit. The only way to accomplish this is you have to goto a page before the word and then launch the search. Once it hits the word though, then you have the capability to search backwards or forwards from the find Icon. * Highlighting and annotation: I went completely wrong here as well. I thought the onyx doesn't support it for documents other than pdfs and gave it up, but in 302 It doesn't support it the way one would expect it for pdfs itself! There is no way to highlight. You can annotate, but that gets into the notes application (which is seperate from the reading software.) The result is if you made a note and where re-reading the book there is really nothing to notify you that a note has been made there (a highlight would have been great). What you need to do is when you are reading the book, also open the notes application and see if there were any notes you made. * Paning in the document: If you do succeed in getting an approximate zoom level, I've noticed that the panning isn't fine grained enough. What I mean is, you might have a situation where you've some space infront of the first left words and a portion of the right word clipped. When you try to pan, so that the space is off to make way for the right last words, you'll find that its very hard to make small adjustments to the horizontal pan. All these coupled together makes it very difficult to read pdfs on it. I'm hoping that someone will correct me on these points, If anyone has soultions to these would appreciate if you could respond. If not too atleast this will help others who are in search for pdf reading understand better where the 302 stands on this regard. I still don't understand what the posters mean in that thread by Column zoom and underlining feature. What would be nice is for Pocketbook to openup the source for the 302 readers so that they could possible be community maintained (now that they've discontinued it). But that clearly will not happen because with many e-readers on the market having the same harware architecture, its the software that is the differentiator. Last edited by fragile; 02-17-2011 at 08:09 AM.