Best reader for PDF files - DXG vs. PB 902/903 vs. Onyx M90

[kovan]

Hello everyone!

I've read pretty much about 9,7" devices. I'm searching for the one, which would deal in the best way with technical and academic pdf files.

Certainly, other things are important too, such as battery life, the Pearl screen etc.

I came to the point, I simply cannot decide, which one should I choose.

As I read this board I came across to a lot similar topics. I hope this one would help anyone hesitating on which-one-should-I-choose issue

So, what's your opinion and why?

[Billi]

Hi kovan, welcome to mobileread!

I want to duck out of giving a clear answer to your question because I only know the Pocketbook 902 from experience. But maybe I can help with a few remarks.

- I'm satisfied with my PB902. It opened every file I ever gave it. You can search inside the pdf-files and you can use the dictionary there. The zooming options work allright for me but I've read others had some problems with them. You can decide between two pdf readers, the one from Adobe and pdfviewer.
Problems? Sometimes the letters are not black or dark grey but simply grey which leads to a low contrast and the letters are a little bit difficult to read. Of course this depends on the files but you can't change anything there.

- How important is note taking for you? This would reduce your choices to the PB903 and Onyx M90 who come with a wacom touch screen and a pen (I don't know how this functions with the Kindle DXG and its keyboard.) But it does function far from perfectly.

- If note taking is not important for you, there is another Onyx reader, the Onyx M91. He doesn't have the wacom screen and pen but a better processor than the M90 and a pearl screen (and is not so expensive).

- How important is other reading stuff or the shop behind for you? With the Kindle DXG you have all the Amazon books and free mobi stuff, with the other readers you have the whole ePub world. And both the Onyx and the Pocketbook devices read the most number of file formats among all eink devices.

[ssdb]

I got the Onyx M90 and so far I've no real problems with it, so for PDFs I'd say go with that.

I'm not sure on the battery life issue, I'd need to measure it properly - it seems to last longer now that I'm not playing with it but it doesn't seem to last very long. It is quick to recharge, though (takes around 3 hours or so).

Screen is very good, nice contrast and easy to read. It seems fast even with big files, maybe taking <1 second to turn a page and I don't really notice any delay. Navigation within books is painless and the annotations seem to work (although I haven't transferred anything back to the PC yet).

There are little things that I've noticed with the software that could definitely be improved (screen rotation for example) but there are no big problems and certainly nothing that makes me regret buying it.

[charmian]

I chose other: assuming unlimited funds, iPad. I've heard mixed reviews of the notetaking software for PDFs on e-ink readers. On the other hand, I've heard a lot of positive things about iPad's PDF handling.

Also, the refurbished iPad 1 is $299, so it's cheaper than any of these readers... heck, actually the refurbished iPad 2 is $399, which makes it similar in price.

[kovan]

Hi again

Originally Posted by Billi

- How important is note taking for you? This would reduce your choices to the PB903 and Onyx M90 who come with a wacom touch screen and a pen (I don't know how this functions with the Kindle DXG and its keyboard.) But it does function far from perfectly.

I believe it would be useful, but I totally can live without that

Originally Posted by Billi

- If note taking is not important for you, there is another Onyx reader, the Onyx M91. He doesn't have the wacom screen and pen but a better processor than the M90 and a pearl screen (and is not so expensive).

I would seriously take this one into consideration, but there's one problem: it's not available in my country

Originally Posted by Billi

- How important is other reading stuff or the shop behind for you? With the Kindle DXG you have all the Amazon books and free mobi stuff, with the other readers you have the whole ePub world. And both the Onyx and the Pocketbook devices read the most number of file formats among all eink devices.

Onyx have got one huge advantage in this field: most publishers, here in Poland, sell and use drm-protected .pdf files and M90 can open them.
I also heard, that M90 has got option to read files (I mean using voice synthesizer, not just recognizing and opening them ). Or at least the polish distributor says so

I'm not sure on the battery life issue, I'd need to measure it properly - it seems to last longer now that I'm not playing with it but it doesn't seem to last very long. It is quick to recharge, though (takes around 3 hours or so).

I'd be extremely grateful, if you could check how many hours does the battery 'lives' with single charge. And what about PB 902?

How long does the battery work on single charge?

Oh, and sorry for mistakes, my English is not as good, as I'd like it to be

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kovan

Oh, and sorry for mistakes, my English is not as good, as I'd like it to be

Your English is very good indeed - you have nothing to apologise for.

[ssdb]

Originally Posted by kovan

I'd be extremely grateful, if you could check how many hours does the battery 'lives' with single charge. And what about PB 902?

How long does the battery work on single charge?

Oh, and sorry for mistakes, my English is not as good, as I'd like it to be

I'll try to keep a record of it, starting from when I next charge it up which will probably be tomorrow.

[Billi]

If the Onyx Boox M91 would be the winner, you could order him here, for instance:
http://www.onyx-boox.com/
They deliver worldwide, but I don't know if you feel comfortable ordering outside of Poland.

I wouldn't care about the battery time. I have my doubts that there will be remarkable differences between the devices. With the Pocketbooks you can increase the battery time by putting off the wifi and the accelerometer.

Yes, Pocketbook can read books, too, they call it "text to speach". On this site you can see in which languages they offer this feature: http://www.pocketbook.de/support/pocketbook-902/ - Polish is amongst it.

Pocketbook uses the same DRM scheme as Onyx so you should be able to read protected pdf-files with the Pocketbook, too.

[kovan]

Originally Posted by Billi

If the Onyx Boox M91 would be the winner, you could order him here, for instance:
http://www.onyx-boox.com/
They deliver worldwide, but I don't know if you feel comfortable ordering outside of Poland.

It's not matter of sheer ordering it from abroad. The thing I am not comfortable with is guarantee (and post-guarantee) service outside my country. If anything goes wrong, I simply go to the store where I bought the device, and they take care of everything. Otherwise it might become complicated, and I wouldn't like this

Anyway, I'm glad that both 902 and M90 are available here. Such things are really not so obvious in this country

[jago25_98]

interesting. there isnt a big screen androi based reader is there?
im selling the ipad2 and keeping this kpbo i wrte to you now from. but a rooted nook would be nice,i love eink screens now

[forcheville]

I use an Onyx M90 a lot. It is excellent on vector PDFs but too slow page-turning on raster PDFs. (The latter are ones where the pages are pictorial scanned images of the book pages, eg, the sort of PDF of an old book you might get from the Internet Archive). For the latter I use/convert to DjVu format, which the M90 handles very well.

[ProfCrash]

If you want to take notes, highlight, and use the dictionary do not get a DXG unless you are willing to hack it and add a different program for PDFs. I cannot remember the programs name, Dokan I Think, but it is discussed in the Kindle forums.

The DXG out of the box does not allow for note taking, highlighting, and using the dictionary.

I have the DXG and love it but I have only read 7 PDF's on it and they were pleasure reading.

[thebestjeter]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

If you want to take notes, highlight, and use the dictionary do not get a DXG unless you are willing to hack it and add a different program for PDFs. I cannot remember the programs name, Dokan I Think, but it is discussed in the Kindle forums.

The DXG out of the box does not allow for note taking, highlighting, and using the dictionary.

I have the DXG and love it but I have only read 7 PDF's on it and they were pleasure reading.

You can also install the 3.1 firmware of the Kindle 3 on the Kindle DX, which allows you to take notes, highlights and use the dictionary in PDF files. Just ask for an image in this thread or PM me.

[eLiNK]

Originally Posted by thebestjeter

You can also install the 3.1 firmware of the Kindle 3 on the Kindle DX, which allows you to take notes, highlights and use the dictionary in PDF files. Just ask for an image in this thread or PM me.

I'd propose this option only if you're hacking eager.
this method has some limitations, like no active content (probably no active content anyway in your country), slow wake-up (there's a workaround suggested), no official support.

Other than that, Kindle DX has become quite an interesting alternative. Thanks to the efforts of the community.

You can install additionally Duokan or fbReader / CoolReader.

[Anthony.h80]

Originally Posted by kovan

It's not matter of sheer ordering it from abroad. The thing I am not comfortable with is guarantee (and post-guarantee) service outside my country. If anything goes wrong, I simply go to the store where I bought the device, and they take care of everything. Otherwise it might become complicated, and I wouldn't like this

Hi Kovan, welcome to the forum!

I understand what u meant when it comes to choosing the ideal device for reading academic PDFs because I went through the same situation as you did.

Out of these 9.7" choices (Kindle DXG/PB 902/M90), I purchased Pocketbook 902 because of its strong PDF support abilities, long battery life, 9.7" screen resolution, simplified user interface design, pre-installed dictionaries and other handy features such as file folder management. Most importantly, one can expect regular software fixes and firmware support from PB developer, as compared to the overpriced Kindle DXG.

However, in terms of contrast display between Vizplex VS Pearl e-ink, there is a considerable difference. You may want to read up more from here: http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/201...ens-overrated/.

I didn't choose M90 because of numerous news on unstable software bugs and regular crashes from the experience of other forum users. Things may have changed and current M90 users might wish to input their comments or share their experiences.