New 13.3" Onyx Boox. Rumours, prototype specs, first pictures

[salamon]

Great advice. I've felt the same way, just wanted to see if there's some reason I wasn't considering.

Thanks

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by salamon

Great advice. I've felt the same way, just wanted to see if there's some reason I wasn't considering.

I am in much the same situation as yourself. I received my Max just two weeks ago. Before I made the purchase, I had read that the Max Carta would soon be released and the Max 2 later in the year. Although it was very tempting to wait, I decided against it.

Although it would have been nice to have a Carta screen, from the videos of the current Max posted online, it looked like it would be sufficient. And as HarryT pointed out, stated release dates are not usually set in stone. So a release date of 4 to 6 weeks might actually turn into 10 to 12 weeks... and then one might as well just wait for the second generation model to arrive... but that release date might also get delayed and another year or so might go by...

So, I decided to bite the bullet and get a working model that I could use now. And, so far, I am well pleased with that decision.

I doubt that I will upgrade for a Carta screen since I am happy enough with the current one.

However, the great thing about having the current Max is that I won't feel the need to rush in and buy the Max2 when it first gets released. I will be able to take my time and read the reviews and see what is on offer from other companies. And after having some experience using this sized ereader, I'll have a better idea of what features would be truly useful to me.

[royconejo]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's perhaps overly optimistic. We'll see such devices, yes, but I'll personally be surprised if it's in the summer. End of the year's more likely, I think. I have some doubts that Sony will continue in the market; their 13" device doesn't seem to have been hugely successful, and they've already abandoned the eInk fiction reader market.

I had a Pocket PC back in the 2000's. The device was for the most part useless. It was slow, suffered from horrible software bugs and battery life but it was, in a way, a new device targeting a huge potential market that, if addressed well, will be revolutionary. Its clear now that HP and Microsoft failed to gain a huge portion of that market simply because their devices were technological immature and failed to fulfill expectations.

Well, 17 years later we replaced our camera, music player, portable gaming device, address book, video player, and even our desktop for casual internet browsing and terrestrial phone line with a device that has addressed all of its shortcomings and -then- became extremely useful. Even our grandma has an smartphone and facebook account now.

In the future, will a portable device replace paper for everything? I really think so. Will it be this or the next year? Very unlikely. Will it be eInk and ONYX? I have my doubts.

But they'll keep trying. And an extremely small percentage of consumers will keep supporting their expensive trials and errors buying an immature device that improves a little on each iteration just because they really have the need for "digital paper" now.

[salamon]

Ironically, I still don't find those tablets useful. Everything you can do on them can be performed much more smoothly on a laptop or desktop. E-ink serves a unique purpose in that it's not really a recreational device but rather one suited for reading, and in my case reading textbooks and academic papers for long hours, without distractions, battery drains, or a weight that strains my lithe figure.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by salamon

Ironically, I still don't find those tablets useful. Everything you can do on them can be performed much more smoothly on a laptop or desktop. E-ink serves a unique purpose in that it's not really a recreational device but rather one suited for reading, and in my case reading textbooks and academic papers for long hours, without distractions, battery drains, or a weight that strains my lithe figure.

Fair enough - everyone's needs are different. My iPad Pro suits my needs, but that certainly doesn't mean it would meet yours. I must, though, (politely) disagree with the statement that everything that can be done on a tablet could be better done on a laptop! Laptops have landscape-orientation screens which are not ideal for reading portrait-orientation material without constant scrolling. My main use of my iPad Pro is reading page-scanned PDFs and academic journal articles, and that's really not something that's best done on a laptop.

[salamon]

Yes but all that power, light, heat, for a 90 degree turn! Are we not, like Icarus, flying a bit too close to the sun?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by salamon

Yes but all that power, light, heat, for a 90 degree turn! Are we not, like Icarus, flying a bit too close to the sun?

It's a device that I find useful, and I'm happy to have it. Which is not to say, of course, that someone else would find it so. Choice is good - there's room in the market for both eInk and LCD devices . I read fiction on eInk (Kindle Voyage) and academic stuff on my iPad.

[royconejo]

Originally Posted by salamon

Ironically, I still don't find those tablets useful. Everything you can do on them can be performed much more smoothly on a laptop or desktop. E-ink serves a unique purpose in that it's not really a recreational device but rather one suited for reading, and in my case reading textbooks and academic papers for long hours, without distractions, battery drains, or a weight that strains my lithe figure.

I think we all use our ebooks mainly for that because it is what best allow us to do: reading a single page of a single document at once. Single threading. Things get complicated when we want to switch back and forth from taking notes to bookmarks in several books at the same time, something very common when studying in college. Simply the workflow is not faster or convenient enough to say goodbye to paper altogether.. yet.

I meant that we are far from replacing physical paper. Maybe not because of the current eInk technology, but because of the limited processing resources found in the systems built around the display AND a software not meant to imitate a real workflow.

It took decades for a personal computer to be powerful, simple and productive enough to be widely adopted. The same happened with generic portable devices and I think here we have a long way to go.

So can you just read a book? Yes. But so I did with the first Kindle ten years ago.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I must, though, (politely) disagree with the statement that everything that can be done on a tablet could be better done on a laptop! Laptops have landscape-orientation screens which are not ideal for reading portrait-orientation material without constant scrolling. My main use of my iPad Pro is reading page-scanned PDFs and academic journal articles, and that's really not something that's best done on a laptop.

I must say that I am far less productive with a tablet computer (and a mobile phone as well).

Of course one can connect a bluetooth keyboard and improve the experience a little. There are always notebooks which can turn their screen around and can be used as tablets, too.

That said, there might be cases where a tablet works more flawless than a notebook. For scientific papers perhaps.

Personally I would probably use an iPad Pro only to read color comic books but for that specific use case it might be a little bit too expensive.

[fun2sail14]

I am in the same boat! Keep flip-flopping back and forth between just buying a Max now or waiting for a Max Carta.

I *could* wait another 4-5 weeks (assuming launch dates hold true) if need be, so probably should just do more research on the benefits of the Carta screen vs. the current model's...

Originally Posted by HarryT

There will always been something better coming down the road; if you play the waiting game for the perfect device, you'll be waiting forever. You presumably bought the Max because it meets your requirements. That will still be the case regardless of what any other device may or may not do in the future. I'd keep it unless you have some strong reason for disliking it.

One thing I've learnt over the years is NEVER to trust estimated release dates. Small companies like Onyx NEVER release things when they say they will.

[Calculon]

Well I have to report that using my newly purchased Max the past couple of days while on a military exercise was awesome. Technical reference manuals were so easy to read (much better than on my iPad or iPad Mini). I was tempted to read some novels but just couldn't picture myself using it for that. My Kobo Glo HD is great and provides a more intimate experience. The Max, for me, is definitely a work tool. I have to admit that my Mini was great for catching up on emails and YouTube.

Since there is no Holy Grail device out there (for now) bringing along several devices that excel at what they do is the only option for satisfactory experience and am very happy I purchased the Max.

Cheers!

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by fun2sail14

I am in the same boat! Keep flip-flopping back and forth between just buying a Max now or waiting for a Max Carta.

I *could* wait another 4-5 weeks (assuming launch dates hold true) if need be, so probably should just do more research on the benefits of the Carta screen vs. the current model's...

Waiting 4-5 weeks might not be a so bad. The problem arises when there is that inevitable delay. After waiting 4-5 weeks, what's another 2-3 weeks? But should that extra 2-3 weeks turn into another 2-3 months, especially when you know that there is a second generation model on the way...

If only somebody would invent a reliable crystal ball...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by royconejo

I think we all use our ebooks mainly for that because it is what best allow us to do: reading a single page of a single document at once. Single threading. Things get complicated when we want to switch back and forth from taking notes to bookmarks in several books at the same time, something very common when studying in college. Simply the workflow is not faster or convenient enough to say goodbye to paper altogether.. yet.

That's precisely the scenario that I find my iPad invaluable for. My field is Egyptology, and when I'm working on an Egyptian text, I have four or five PDFs open at once (one containing the hieroglyphic text, and the others dictionaries and other reference materials) and am constantly flipping from one document to another. There's an iOS PDF reader app called "GoodReader" which has a tabbed user interface which makes this easy to do. Is there something similar available for the Max?

[machinogodzilla]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There's an iOS PDF reader app called "GoodReader" which has a tabbed user interface which makes this easy to do. Is there something similar available for the Max?

If it's available for Android then it should, theoretically, be available for the Max. I was looking for apps like this a while back and it proved surprisingly difficult to find one with tabbed interface or tabs-like functionality.

The best I found at the time, as far as I remember, were Xodo and WPS Office. The standard Adobe Acrobat reader wasn't too bad for switching between documents but the experience was far from effortless.

I can't remember if they managed to run on my Onyx reader at the time but they run fine on my old Android 4.3.1 phone.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by fun2sail14

I am in the same boat! Keep flip-flopping back and forth between just buying a Max now or waiting for a Max Carta.

I *could* wait another 4-5 weeks (assuming launch dates hold true) if need be, so probably should just do more research on the benefits of the Carta screen vs. the current model's...

I don't think that there will be a release in exactly 4 to 5 weeks. And there is almost always another better device on the corner.

I you wait you'll never buy one. I had no television for years and I have always said to myself "well now there will be this feature x and that feature y".

After years I just bought a decent device.

Don't worry about the better device. There will be always a better device eventually.

The real value of the Onyx Boox Max is the time you can use it by reading stuff *now* that you couldn't read well before.