Onyx Boox 60 - first impressions

[charlie72]

Hi Nate The Great:
I have a question for you, contrast and definition of the screen is like the Kindle 2? or like the Hanlin V3?, believes the 16 shades of gray affect the contrast of the screen, as happens to kindle 2?.
Thank you very much.
Charlie

[fugazied]

It looks decent, but honestly I am prone to losing small objects so having a stylus rules it out for me.

I find it curious that with all of the innovation going on in related electronic devices (eg.Phones and Netbooks), that some of these ebook devices seem so archaic. You could say this was designed in 2000 and I would believe you.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by charlie72

Hi Nate The Great:
I have a question for you, contrast and definition of the screen is like the Kindle 2? or like the Hanlin V3?, believes the 16 shades of gray affect the contrast of the screen, as happens to kindle 2?.
Thank you very much.
Charlie

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your question.

[ahi]

Wow... the few videos I watched left me with the impression that this is the first eBook reading device (that I am aware of) made by people who know what they are doing.

- Ahi

[Nate the great]

Tonight I've been comparing the image abilities of the Opus and the Boox. I picked the Opus over my original Kindle because I had thought the Opus had 8 level gray scale. I'm wrong; it's actually four. The Boox has 8 level, so the fact that the images look better on it was a foregone conclusion. But what is worth noting is that when both devices are viewing images, the Boox is noticeably faster at refreshing the screen. It's at a disadvantage because of the more gray scale levels and yet it's still faster.

The Boox has surprisingly good sketching ability. I can draw on an image in 5 line thicknesses in black and _white_. (I wonder if the Iliad or the Sony Reader can do that?) I can also erase a sketch by simply touching part of it with the stylus while in the eraser mode.

The lag between movement and the image changing looks to be that of a screen refresh. It doesn't refresh the image after the sketch is done; instead it changes a few pixels at a time as I draw. Very nice.

Alas, the changes to an image are not permanent. A sketch added to an image is stored in a separate file.

The zoom features is impressive. Besides the expected zoom options (page size, fit to height, fit to width, and the fractional zoom from 75% to 400%), I can also use the stylus to select part of the image to zoom in on.

I have to say that I'm impressed by the general quality of the image viewer. I think it's good enough that I can use it as a notepad. The only feature it needs is the ability to export a new image.

[Chiron]

Nate, are you free to post your images/video of your review unit? I would love to see it in action as you say

[Nate the great]

I avoided trying a PDF yesterday because I've never liked how any of the dedicated readers handled them. I didn't want a bad experience to negatively impact my opinion. I can sum up the PDF ability in one word:
WANT

If I leave the PDF at the lowest font level I have all the same abilities (zoom, sketch, etc) as the image viewer. This alone would makes the Boox worthwhile. But, it gets better.

The Boox can reflow text at 4 different font sizes. It's very good, so good that I'm going to dig out some of my more complicated PDFs and give it a stress test. The reflow isn't perfect, but it's so good that I'm going to have to do a side by side comparison with a Sony Reader to see which ones better.

Internal links work, and it accepts the external TOC that you sometimes see with PDFs. (Are you drooling yet?)

As I use the PDF viewer more I finally understood what I thought was a bug was in fact a design decision. User defined settings (font size, screen flash, etc) are not set on the device level. They're set for each ebook. Given the diverse range of formats (PDF, Epub, Mobipocket) this was the right choice. Even setting it by format would be bad because PDFs alone vary too much.

to be continued...

[Jiang]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Thanks, but I already had a link to that review.


This is a good find, though.

I checked again, if I didnot get it wrong, your link(a one-page article) is not the same link as mine(a nine-page review), but it doesnot matter, as long as it could be shared

And your first-hand experiences is very useful and informative, look forward to reading more of your comments.

[bjrnfrdnnd]

Hi Nate,
I am very much looking forward to your full review!
I have been interested in this device since its presentation on Cebit.
I am especially interested in its pdf features.
As I am working in science, the pdfs I usually read are two-column, small font, mixed up with graphs
and images, probably the most complicated ones that you can get.
I would like to know whether reflow works on these complicated pdfs, whether annotation works in zoom mode, whether the zoom mode is kept up when turning a page (on the prs-600, zoom is reset after every page turn), whether search functions work in a zoomed in page and so on...
I would be happy to direct you towards a typical pdf, if you would like to have a look at one of these.
And do you have any idea when we might expect the larger devices (8 or 10 inch) to be available?
That is, I understand that the 6 inch device will be available in China in october, is that correct?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by bjrnfrdnnd

Hi Nate,
I am very much looking forward to your full review!
I have been interested in this device since its presentation on Cebit.
I am especially interested in its pdf features.
As I am working in science, the pdfs I usually read are two-column, small font, mixed up with graphs and images, probably the most complicated ones that you can get.
I would like to know whether reflow works on these complicated pdfs, whether annotation works in zoom mode, whether the zoom mode is kept up when turning a page (on the prs-600, zoom is reset after every page turn), whether search functions work in a zoomed in page and so on...

It won't reflow a page with a graph. I tried this PDF. It also dropped the equations, unfortunately.

The zoom settings do persist when you change the page. If you are zoomed in on for example the lower right quadrant of one page, when you turn to the next page you will see the lower right quadrant. Reflow is also persistent. If you have the font set to a particular size, the text will be that size on every page.

Search should work while zoomed because it appears to check the whole document. At least, when they get it working I expect it to behave this way. Search doesn't work yet.

[jotas]

Mmmm... interesting

How EPUB is working? Have the same problems and limits than mobile ADE over Sony and other readers? How many font sizes and options? Does justification, links, footnotes... and so on work correctly?

Thanks!

[bjrnfrdnnd]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

It won't reflow a page with a graph. I tried this PDF. It also dropped the equations, unfortunately.

The zoom settings do persist when you change the page. If you are zoomed in on for example the lower right quadrant of one page, when you turn to the next page you will see the lower right quadrant. Reflow is also persistent. If you have the font set to a particular size, the text will be that size on every page.

Search should work while zoomed because it appears to check the whole document. At least, when they get it working I expect it to behave this way. Search doesn't work yet.

Hi Nate,
thanks for the fast reply.
What exactly do you mean by "dropped the equations"? Did it drop the equations in reflow mode, or was it entirely impossible to read the equations? A device that does not display the equations correctly is
useless for me. The pdf is a good example, it is exactly the kind of pdf I would like to be able to read comfortably with this device.
Can you annotate comfortably on this pdf? Also in zoomed in mode? Can you read it comfortably in landscape mode without zoom?

[Nate the great]

I spent a while at my local Borders Books today because they had the new Sony Readers on display. I think the Boox is better than the Touch edition in almost every way: response time is faster, it has more sketch options, the screen is sharper, and the quality of the sketched lines is higher. And last but not least, the Boox has folder support. The PRS-600 does have one ability that the Boox does not; I could underline and draw on a reflowed PDF.

[brecklundin]

Neat info Nate....the obvious comparision will be the PocketBook 302 however (wish the 360 had a touch interface...the Boox 60 looks like "that" device I am hoping for this fall/winter...smallish with a nice touch interface if I want it.

I like the layout of the Boox except for the need to use a Wacom pen. The issue for me with the pens is they are too thin for me to hold in my hands for any length of time w/o a fair amount of pain...the kinda pain even an extra dose of pain meds won't help. So, likely I will end up with a passive touch device so I can use my Avery Triple Click pen as it's fat enough to hold onto. One day Wacom will realize there are a lot of folks like me who would have no problem buying an extra fatter pen.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by bjrnfrdnnd

Hi Nate,
thanks for the fast reply.
What exactly do you mean by "dropped the equations"? Did it drop the equations in reflow mode, or was it entirely impossible to read the equations? A device that does not display the equations correctly is
useless for me. The pdf is a good example, it is exactly the kind of pdf I would like to be able to read comfortably with this device.
Can you annotate comfortably on this pdf? Also in zoomed in mode? Can you read it comfortably in landscape mode without zoom?

The equations were dropped only in the reflow mode. I can see them when I zoom in. I can also annotate comfortably when zoomed. I can read it in landscape mode, but not very easily. This is an 8.5 by 11 PDF, after all. There is an inherent limitation that is caused by the difference between the screen size and the size of the page. There's no way around it (other than reflow).

One thing I forgot to mention before was that when I am zoomed in on a page, I can drag and drop with the stylus to scroll around the page. The ouch Edition works the same way.