Sony prs-600 or Onyx boox 60 (pretty long post)?

[Brandobras]

Hello,
I'm a Spanish reader...
I have a library of more than 4000 ebooks (managed with Calibre), in these formats : prc (the biggest part of them), pdf, lit and djvu. Until now i've read my books in my ppc (htc diamond 2) with mobipocket and msreader;but, obviously, i can read the pdf and djvu files only in my cumputer..
that's why i'm looking for a better reading experience and i've started to look for a good e-reader.
at the moment, my choice is between the Sony prs-600 and the Onyx Boox 60
i like the Sony, because of the touch screen and because I know that Sony is a top quality brand. but the problem of the "glare" because of the touchscreen makes me doubtfull about this reader... moreover, here in Spain I should buy through the internet, so i don't have the possibility to see it before buying...
on the other hand, the onyx boox 60 seems a good choice too: touchscreen (without glare), wifi (is it useful?), pretty frequent firmware updates (as far as i know) and i can buy it in a store near home .. but the negative points of the boox are the price (399 € vs 309 € for Sony) and its aspect: this reader is more ugly than the prs600 and seems more fragile (plastic vs aluminium)...

another doubt: is it the right moment to buy an ebook reader? this year there should be a lot of new readers , so maybe the best thing is to wait some months more and see what will happen.. or not??

which is your advice?

thank you in advance

best regards

Brandobras

[Sweetpea]

First, to answer your last question: is it ever a good time to buy something that's still very much under development? There will always be better devices on the horizon.

Second, personally, I'd go for the Boox. But that's personal feeling, I am more a person for the smaller brands, I've always distrusted the big hardware brands...

If I were you, I'd go to that nearby store first and actually look at the Boox.

[tommik]

Originally Posted by Brandobras

but the negative points of the boox are the price (399 € vs 309 € for Sony)

I don't fully agree with that. I think that you could need a charger and a cover. Onyx has them in its box, but Sony hasn't. If you buy them for your Sony, price will be comparable to Onyx...

[LenzGr]

Originally Posted by Brandobras

that's why i'm looking for a better reading experience and i've started to look for a good e-reader.

Welcome to the club I went through a similar research cycle some weeks ago. My collection consists mostly of PDFs, so I was looking for a reader that would shine in that area. I don't really require good integration with an online book store or direct purchasing and downloading of files, as I do that when I'm on the PC.

at the moment, my choice is between the Sony prs-600 and the Onyx Boox 60
i like the Sony, because of the touch screen and because I know that Sony is a top quality brand. but the problem of the "glare" because of the touchscreen makes me doubtfull about this reader... moreover, here in Spain I should buy through the internet, so i don't have the possibility to see it before buying...

Yes, it's problematic to get your hands on the recent devices. Product reviews and photos can only tell you so much. I was able to test prs-600 and was quite surprised how much the touchscreen affects the contrast and readability of the display. Following this Forum really helped me a lot to make my decision

on the other hand, the onyx boox 60 seems a good choice too: touchscreen (without glare), wifi (is it useful?), pretty frequent firmware updates (as far as i know) and i can buy it in a store near home .. but the negative points of the boox are the price (399 € vs 309 € for Sony) and its aspect: this reader is more ugly than the prs600 and seems more fragile (plastic vs aluminium)...

Actually, the Boox is partly made of aluminum, too. The device's back cover is made of metal, the rest is made of plastic. I personally think it looks and feels quite nice, almost elegant - better than the Sony. And the display quality is definitely better, as the Wacom touchscreen does not require an additional layer above the eInk display.

I actually paid 299€ (plus 9€ shipping from Netherlands to Germany) for mine, I ordered it via elektronischlesen.de. Their service was very good, they answered all my questions via email promptly. Delivery was fast, no problems at all.

Actually, Luke Klein Nijenhuis is very active on this Forum, too, as is Mike Hu, Onyx's US sales representative.

The Boox convinced me because of this personal touch and its technical capabilities. It's a very open platform (there even is an SDK), it provides a good feature set and they have a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline (e.g. handwriting recognition, RSS reader). I also like the fact that is simply connects to my Linux desktop as a USB mass storage device (two, actually - one for the internal memory and one for the SD card).

I've been using it for about a week now and love it! I haven't been reading that much for quite some time. I am really impressed by the PDF zooming and reflowing features and the possibility of taking notes with the stylus. For most tasks and reading, you don't actually need the stylus, you can just use the navigation buttons.

The WLAN functionality is nice, but needs further improvement before I would consider it "useful". Surfing the web using an eInk display and a stylus is a bit cumbersome. But it's available and helpful, e.g. to do some research on Wikipedia. The browser is based on the WebKit rendering engine, so it displays most web pages just fine.

another doubt: is it the right moment to buy an ebook reader? this year there should be a lot of new readers , so maybe the best thing is to wait some months more and see what will happen.. or not??

which is your advice?

There will never be the best time to buy gadgets like these. As soon as you have yours, a new generation will come out...

I personally am very fond of the Boox and am happy to have made the purchase. Next is installing calibre and getting some order in my random collection of PDFs and ePubs

Feel free to ask for more details about the Boox. There are also a number of very useful Threads on this Forum about it that are worth a read.

Bye,
LenZ

[SilverBear]

I have not used both in a side-by-side comparison, but like you, I see these as being two of the strongest candidates for good quality at a moderate price.

In addition to the wacom touchscreen and wifi, I like the ability to organize books into folders and navigate between folders. The Onyx Boox has that, while the Sony 600 uses "collections." Maybe I would get used to "collections" if I had to, but it seems to be a less useful way to organize & navigate --for my own taste.

Last point: the Wifi connection means being able to look up things online while reading. Who wants just a built-in dictionary when you can use Wikipedia, too?! Of course, you need a Wifi access point, but my home network already has one. Mike Hu says that Onyx is working on the software to allow email on the Boox, too. No word on when that will be --at least I don't think the company has announced a date for sure.

Mike? Heard anything about that yet this week?

[MikeOnyx]

Originally Posted by SilverBear

I have not used both in a side-by-side comparison, but like you, I see these as being two of the strongest candidates for good quality at a moderate price.

In addition to the wacom touchscreen and wifi, I like the ability to organize books into folders and navigate between folders. The Onyx Boox has that, while the Sony 600 uses "collections." Maybe I would get used to "collections" if I had to, but it seems to be a less useful way to organize & navigate --for my own taste.

Last point: the Wifi connection means being able to look up things online while reading. Who wants just a built-in dictionary when you can use Wikipedia, too?! Of course, you need a Wifi access point, but my home network already has one. Mike Hu says that Onyx is working on the software to allow email on the Boox, too. No word on when that will be --at least I don't think the company has announced a date for sure.

Mike? Heard anything about that yet this week?

Hi, no official date as of yet. Let's just say the corporate team is being swamped with things to do. HAHA.

We're are also maxed out on production for the Month of January and February.

[Brandobras]

Originally Posted by LenzGr

I actually paid 299€ (plus 9€ shipping from Netherlands to Germany) for mine, I ordered it via elektronischlesen.de. Their service was very good, they answered all my questions via email promptly. Delivery was fast, no problems at all.

LenZ

Wow! that's the price!
ok you conveinced me and i've ordered to "elektronichlesen.de" i don't understand "deutsch" so i had some problems to order it, but it's done. I hope it's all correct.. let's see :-)

thank you all for your advices, they have been really useful to me and i'll tell you my experience when i'll receive the onyx!

regards
Brandobras

[Sweetpea]

I hope you have fun with your device once it arrives! I think you've made a good choice. I wish I had the nerve to order one and *** the husband!

[HarryT]

If the Onyx currently can't annotate ePub files, that's a "show stopper" for me, unfortunately.

[pikoman]

I live in Madrid and I bought the boox from elektronischlezen.nl. Good service.
Boox manages PDF files much better than Sony. It loads my PDF files (manga, 60-80MB each) very fast and turning pages with no delay. I'm very happy with it.

[DrZoidberg]

I've had no problems with reading pdf's on my prs-600. I was worrying over nothing when I bought it. Big pictures become wonky... but then, why would you want to look at big pictures on your reader? I don't know anything about the Onyx so I won't compare them.

[Brandobras]

Hello,
the last question: the onyx can open djvu files or they must be converted in pdf?

thank you!

Brandobras

[LenzGr]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the Onyx currently can't annotate ePub files, that's a "show stopper" for me, unfortunately.

Last time I tried, annotations worked for both PDFs and ePub files just fine.

LenZ

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the Onyx currently can't annotate ePub files, that's a "show stopper" for me, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by LenzGr

Last time I tried, annotations worked for both PDFs and ePub files just fine.

LenZ

I just saw a video from CES, in which they said the annotations only worked in zoomed out epubs.


Is there a in-depth review of this device, somewhere? (and not one by a non-interrested person that will only complain about the speed of e-ink).

[LenzGr]

Originally Posted by Brandobras

Hello,
the last question: the onyx can open djvu files or they must be converted in pdf?

According to the E-Book Reader Matrix, it can, but that info might not be accurate. Judging from this thread on the Onyx discussion forums, it looks like it is planned for an upcoming firmware release.

Actually, I just tried to open a .djvu file for testing (downloaded a sample from the djvu.org site) - it could not open it. It started opening the file, then the screen flashed and it just returned to the file browser. There was no error. I guess I will report this as a bug.

For now, you might be better off by converting to PDF or wait for the next firmware release.

Bye,
LenZ