Boox Max 2 vs Note (use case decision)

[AmCom]

Hi folks,

I read through the whole of the original thread on the two new Onyx devices and am currently torn between them. I opened a new thread in this forum (instead of the "which ereader to buy" forum) because there are some users of the Max 2 active here as well as some experienced users of older Onyx devices from the same market segment. I didn't just reply to the original thread for visibility reasons. If this is a problem, please refile my thread accordingly.

I wanted to get an ereader of this type for research in the humanities and social sciences since about 2 years but didn't find a device I liked yet (you can't really get the Sony reader in Europe). I'm very excited about these new Onyx devices because (a) they have decent hardware, so working with pdfs, especially scans will be fast(er) and (b) they feature Android 6.0 and (c) they offer more of a complete experience for reading and annotating in general (my guess is the market segment is small, so iteration is slow and prieces are high -- but I feel were finally getting somewhere).

Now, what I'm looking to do is getting a device to read, as mentioned, papers, text books and OCRed scans of book chapters in mainly humanities and social sciences (some computer science). I have my literature set up in a Google Drive folder, so I'm looking to set up Google Backup & Sync (their Drive tool) and put the Lit folder on my Onyx (as well as a Bibtex based Reference Manager). I want to read and annotate my literature in this folder and then work through annotations in a subsequent step to file relevant information into a note taking system (which currently lives in a git, consisting of text files with academic markdown). My reading volume per day is somewhere between 4 and 10 hours (okay thats a bit high of a range, I'd say 6-7 hours on most days).

The Max 2 seems like a nice device but I feel (a) 800€ is a bit steep (550€ seems subjectively much more palatable to me) and (b) it's a bit heavy. ((c) I like the HDMI pro though, without knowing how much I'm gonna use it and (d) I'm a bit worried considering the reports on battery life). The Note has a more attractive price but I wonder how much the smaller screen will impact my work with PDFs.

Thus, main questions are: (a) How much do you think the screen size difference matters and (b) how much do you think the weight difference matters. More generally (c) do you think those are appropriate devices for the use case I described.

I'm thankful for any input, comments and experiences.

(Also sorry for the wall of text )

[franzli]

One set of potential use cases of mine would be very similar to yours (plus I'd love to be able to use such a device in teaching, ideally with miracast, but that seems currently unsupported by onyx, see my thread on the issue).

I don't have a large ereader yet, but I'm pretty much set on the Note if the price drops a bit and/or they include sd-card + hdmi.

In terms of size, I'm quite happily using my 8 inch Venue 8 Pro for reading academic pdfs (but then I don't annotate that much and have relatively good eyes). On my 10 inch tablet, there's plenty of space, so for me personally 13 inch would be overkill and I'd much prefer the reduced weight of the Note. But of course that's a matter of personal preference and there definitely seem to be people who find using the 13 inch device much more comfortable.

If you have a chance to try a 10 inch tablet around somewhere, I'd suggest you have a look at some pdfs on that to decide if you're fine with the size.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by AmCom

Thus, main questions are: (a) How much do you think the screen size difference matters and (b) how much do you think the weight difference matters. More generally (c) do you think those are appropriate devices for the use case I described.

(a)
Have you printed and considered the PDF I posted at
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...6&postcount=17
in the 9.7"/10.3" too small for PDFs? thread?

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by AmCom

Now, what I'm looking to do is getting a device to read, as mentioned, papers, text books and OCRed scans of book chapters in mainly humanities and social sciences (some computer science). I have my literature set up in a Google Drive folder, so I'm looking to set up Google Backup & Sync (their Drive tool) and put the Lit folder on my Onyx (as well as a Bibtex based Reference Manager). I want to read and annotate my literature in this folder and then work through annotations in a subsequent step to file relevant information into a note taking system (which currently lives in a git, consisting of text files with academic markdown). My reading volume per day is somewhere between 4 and 10 hours (okay thats a bit high of a range, I'd say 6-7 hours on most days).

My use cases are similar, but with less heavy reading and annotating - my plan is to transfer a lot of scientific documents (research articles and books, mostly natively PDFs but with a fair amount of scanned older documents) and read them, occasionally annotate them. I got the Max 2 primarily for this.

For reading, a smaller screen size would typically be enough; most are not originally full A4, so a smaller screen would still be close to the original size. But the larger screen of the Max 2 means it is possible to use it in half screen mode: one document page is on the left, one notes page on the right (being left-handed, I am eagerly awaiting for them to let me exchange sides). This is supported by the software that ships with the device; but on a smaller screen, it would not be as comfortable.

[quote]
The Max 2 seems like a nice device but I feel (a) 800€ is a bit steep (550€ seems subjectively much more palatable to me) and (b) it's a bit heavy. ((c) I like the HDMI pro though, without knowing how much I'm gonna use it and (d) I'm a bit worried considering the reports on battery life). The Note has a more attractive price but I wonder how much the smaller screen will impact my work with PDFs.

I can't argue with the price - I paid for my device from my own pocket, even though I'll use largely for work purposes (and now I don't have to feel guilty if I use it for other things as well). The weight is really not that much; comparable, or even less than a single textbook, so it's really a fair trade.

Another thing that makes the device highly usable is that you can set it to not turn off completely, just go to sleep; the battery won't drain noticably, and it will wake up almost instantly when you press the power button.

One thing you may want to be careful is the possibility to quickly go from one page to another, or from one document to another. The default software only keeps 4 documents open simultaneously (and lets you switch from one to another fairly quickly); browsing through the document looking for another page is possible, but not quite as efficient as you'd do with a paper book.

Being able to use it to send to a projector, via the HDMI interface, would be a real plus to me (instead of taking my laptop to lectures, I could to with the much lighter Max 2), but I'm not sure if this is even possible; at the moment it's not supported at least.

Thus, main questions are: (a) How much do you think the screen size difference matters and (b) how much do you think the weight difference matters. More generally (c) do you think those are appropriate devices for the use case I described.

I can't speak for the Note, but to me, the Max 2 is quite adequate for what you are describing - provided you can live with the higher price (and larger device size).