Onyx Boox M96 - What ALL e-Ink ereaders should aspire to

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GypsyJon

I have to disagree. I am most disappointed in the M96. I had hoped that the sdreen would be much whiter. It is the same grayish green shade that my 5 year old Pocket Book Pro 902 has. I am returning mine.

The contrast improvement in modern eInk screens is mainly in the form of much blacker text, rather than whiter backgrounds. That's one reason for the popularity of frontlit devices: the light makes the screen look a lot whiter.

[dnastase]

Originally Posted by GypsyJon

I have to disagree. I am most disappointed in the M96. I had hoped that the sdreen would be much whiter. It is the same grayish green shade that my 5 year old Pocket Book Pro 902 has. I am returning mine.

I guess it's a matter of personal preference as well. I like the Pearl type screens more than Carta just because they are not so white. For me it's easier on the eyes when you read a lot.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by dnastase

I guess it's a matter of personal preference as well. I like the Pearl type screens more than Carta just because they are not so white. For me it's easier on the eyes when you read a lot.

Comparing my Carta Kindle PW2 with my Pearl PW1, side by side, the screen background is an identical shade of grey. The contrast improvement comes in the form of blacker text, not a whiter background.

[Dr. Drib]

I agree with Harry.

When I owned both the PW1 and PW2, I was able to compare the two side-by-side.

The contrast on the Carta screen had better contrast and it was noticeable to me.

(Although I do not yet own a Kobo Aura H2O, I would imagine the same results would apply to these two Kobo units as well - the Aura HD and Aura H2O - as they did to the two Paperwhites.)

What I am waiting for in the next generation Onyx T68 is one that has a Carta screen. Too, I would imagine the bootloops issue will be fixed by then.

It would be nice to see a Carta screen (if it's even available) on a M96 unit.

[GypsyJon]

What is carta screen?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by GypsyJon

What is carta screen?

The Carta screen - now on the Kobo H2O, and on the Kindle Paperwhite2 for the past year - offers higher contrast. In other words, the blacks are darker.

[theodric]

It takes twice as long to flip PDF pages as my Kindle DX and the Android underpinnings are overstated from a compatibility standpoint. Just sayin' it's not all rainbows and unicorn farts.

[esfandiyar2002]

Originally Posted by dpayment

Definitely two thumbs up to Onyx Boox, they're the first e-ink ebook maker to actually understand what we need/want. I received my M96 two days ago (replacement for an M90 that died (my fault.)) Since then I have fallen in love with it.

Bravo Zulu to Onyx Boox.

Where did you get that in Canada?Any dealer?

[pocket]

Originally Posted by dpayment

Definitely two thumbs up to Onyx Boox, they're the first e-ink ebook maker to actually understand what we need/want.

I cannot agree with this either - maybe it has what you need/want, but to me, it is a very incomplete product.

I previously had a PocketBook 912 (cracked the screen), now bought the Boox M96. While the screen looks the same to me, there have definitely been improvements in speed between those two. However the design of the hardware interface (buttons, pen) is a complete disaster!

The PB912 had buttons which really worked, one could really use the device with the buttons, and the inductive pen was housed inside of the machine body, so it was always at hand for highlights and scribbles.

The M96 is pretty much useless without the inductive pen, all you have to rely on is ONE tiny wobbly joystick-like button, accompanied with four useless buttons on the other side which are small, hard to press and work only occasionally. The worst part - the inductive pen, which is the only way to navigate the device properly is NOT HOUSED in the device. This means when you loose that little plastic stick, you are doomed.

I really can't get my head around the designers thinking: (1) to design a device which only works with an inductive pen, but does not house the pen in the device body. (2) to design a device for reading, where one can assume that the "next page" (or previous page) buttons will be the most used, and make these two buttons small and of hard-to-press rubber. (3) put all of this in a cheap-feeling, squeaking plastic body.

Overall I acknowledge the speed (processor, memory) improvements, but that's just not enough. The current result feels like a disabled android tablet and not like a purpose-built e-reader.

To me, the "advantages" which dpayment praises, are just geek-advantages, and not user advantages. Honestly, the PB912 speed was slow but was enough for me. (how fast can you read books anyway?), and I didn't care about opening any format, opening major formats was completely sufficient. Same goes for web browser, I have other devices for that. Editing ebooks? Do you ever have to edit the paper books you read? No. And yes, now I can waste a couple of months trying to find out which of the many erader softwares compatible with android will work best for me, but I preferred one pre-installed ereader software which was exactly tailored to the PB912 hardware.

I expect something I buy to work out of the box, deliver an optimal hardware-interface-software combination, and provide a pleasant user experience, which wasn't the case here. I will still try to live with this device, but these were my first impressions after a month of use: definitely not a dream product, more like a factory prototype.

[EldRick]

The other thing that an ideal ereader would have would be occasional software updates.
It is becoming apparent that the US importer of the device probably won't be bothering to update it, so if you see a bug on the M96 you can't live with, you are probably going to be stuck with it.
I wish I had known enough to order from Germany instead of Amazon...

[eb00ker]

Originally Posted by EldRick

The other thing that an ideal ereader would have would be occasional software updates.
It is becoming apparent that the US importer of the device probably won't be bothering to update it, so if you see a bug on the M96 you can't live with, you are probably going to be stuck with it.
I wish I had known enough to order from Germany instead of Amazon...

But cannot you just simply flash the firmware from the booxtor edition into your US bought device ?

i guess this is possible. but to be honest, in the booxtor edition the updates are coming out quite slowish as well... and a lot of the apps are in need of major improvements. e.g. the oreader (onyx reader) app cannot open DJVU's, even though it says it should... and the ability to add handwritten annotations in your PDF's is in general still very buggy and not fully developed.

so that's why i am basically sticking to third party apps.

[Ivan Grozny]

How do you add dictionaries to the device ? But compatible with neo reader, so that I don't need to leave the reader and enter a separate android dictionary app.

The dictionaries aren't big, it is a pity that the reader doesn't come with a few of the big languages dictionaries preinstalled (spanish,german, french..)

[machinogodzilla]

Originally Posted by eb00ker

...to be honest, in the booxtor edition the updates are coming out quite slowish as well...

Really? Let's see:

23/10/2014
26/09/2014
 2/09/2014
21/08/2014
 8/08/2014
21/07/2014

The newest one is available here. So how much more often would you like them to be released?

My PocketBook arrived already outdated and was updated exactly zero times during the time of my ownership. My Motorola phone was going to be updated but then the maker changed its mind. From my personal experience Booxtor has had pretty good track record when it comes to communication and updates so far.