903 PDF annotations on Pocketbook 903

[paaThaka]

fjtorres makes a good point.

However, if a reader with a pen and a touch screen cannot save/export/transfer the notes anywhere, but stays as an island onto itself, one can then legitimately pose the question:

Why bother?

I don't live on my ebook reader. I can't print from it. I can't store it, backup it, etc.

If I make notes I assume to be able to access and play with them.

I hope PocketBook will allow a useful way of handling notes to pdf/djvu files.

If not, then in my case at least the search continues again.

P.S. I also agree that glossy low-res screen using, battery munching 4 hour tablets are not eBook readers. They are portable eye strains with a limited battery life

[bogdaniosif]

The 16 GB iPad costs 490 EUR in Bucharest and the Pocketbook 903 costs ~430 EUR (I included shipping because Pocketbook is not able to sell the 903 to their neighbors in the south, I have to order it from Germany and buy without touching. The iPad can be bought from a lot of local places though.).

So the lousy 60 EUR are the big savings gained by using a crappy CPU that is also present in my 3 year old Nokia N82? That will not fly. If we also add the price for a 16 GB SD card then it gets scary close.

Or maybe we should compare weight? 680g vs 584g. Again. Where are the big savings?

I perfectly agree that the 903 is very different from an iPad and that the eInk screen is incomparably better for reading. I'm judging these devices just by price, weight and capabilities as ereaders and I don't care much about any other features of the iPad. Also, the comparison was made to clarify that it is possible to have a custom, non-Adobe library based, PDF editor on an ARM device (In the Apple store there are at least two vendors selling apps with this capability, so it doesn't take a genius to write it.). I have seen both the iPad and some eInk screens and for all of the latter's virtues, it must be mentioned that there are some reading aspects where the eInk is crap. For example typing notes, searching and fast browsing through a book is much much better on the iPad, not to mention how cool the glossy color magazines look. Can you imagine the sadness of reading Top Gear on the 903?

Unfortunately for my eInk hungry eyes, I'm not religious about this technology and I will buy an iPad over the 903 if the latter doesn't have PDF annotation support because if the 903 can't be a better PDF reader than the 2$ GoodReader app for the iPad then all the other great features of the iPad outweigh eInk.

Annotating a book is a central part of the reading experience, especially for academic purposes. The 903 has, by design, hardware and software added precisely for annotation support. If one doesn't need this, one can get the 902. What I demand when I pull my wallet out is for that software to be able to annotate PDFs using the mechanism provided by the PDF specification. I do not care about economic or technical reasons why this would be difficult. Cry me a river but make it work.

There are many very good features in the 903 and I think it's close, if not the best, ereader ever made. I'm considering it very seriously over the iPad, which I've delayed for 2 months already just to get a handle on the 903. PDF annotation are, unfortunately, of critical importance to me and it's very frustrating to see this device come so close and yet failing to meet my minimum requirements.

[catharsis]

Bogdan, first of all, there has been no statement from PocketBook staff about annotation, so basically half of this thread is speculating and trolling (some try to demonstrate why annotating a pdf is not technically possible and some who try to demonstrate that it is). What I would like to see is someone from PocketBook explain what kind of annotation will the 903 have and why. Until that, I prefer to be silent.

Anyway, the e-reader market is not a mature market. If you want something that suits your needs NOW, get an iPad or a tablet. There is no perfect e-reader and it depends what you compromises do you want to make. The major producers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble) have devices aimed just at reading and minor producers are not that reliable (see iRex for example, I'm not familiar with other cases, I'm not saying something bad about PocketBook). Also, if you still want eInk you might consider Entourage Edge, but I have no clue on how the **** you would get it in Romania.

Comparing iPad with e-readers is a bit far-fetched because of different technologies and different purposes, I like eInk for reading even though big screen devices are expensive and sometimes I use it for academic work (basically reading articles, did not venture into annotation).

[Sil_liS]

Bogdan, you started this thread only two days ago, there is still some time before they start delivering the 903, so you can relax and take your time to make a decision.

I did mention this before, you just weren't paying attention (it is in reference to making annotations on the margins of a pdf, by one of the US vendors):

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Writing in the margins. I have-with other similar devices- zoomed in, written in my normal hand, then zoomed out so that i now have small writing in the margin or in between lines.

However I have not yet been able to test this on the new devices because i dont have any of them in hand yet.

You should also look at what is written on other threads.

[catharsis]

Writing in the margins is quite different from full annotation (you know, being able to highlight words, cross, handwrite comments etc.). What Dulin's Books said about annotation is pretty vague.

[Sil_liS]

Highlighting words might not be so great, since it means that the part of the text that you are interested in will have worst contrast.
Writing in the margins, especially when he mentions writing between lines, means that you can underline and handwrite, and unless there is some special reason that the stylus won't work on the areas with text, you would also be able to cross.

That question was answered a day before Bogdan started this thread, which shows that he didn't bother to look at other threads.

[LoneTech]

I haven't found a tool to do in-PDF annotation practically (pdfedit might be able to do it, but was never practical). Both Okular and Xournal can do annotation on top of PDFs, though. Okular includes text aware tools like yellow highlighter and black underlining, while Xournal is well adapted to pen use, with things like the shape recognizer. This of course doesn't mean the Pocketbook has similar features, but it means there are some source examples.

Both of those programs are built for full desktop environments which we don't have on the 903. They both use the same PDF engine as pdfviewer (poppler), and porting more is possible - but will take effort and time.

As pocketbook-free is a bit of a mixed bag, I haven't had the chance to test what's in pdfviewer there yet (didn't compile easily yet), and there may be in-house updates too, not to mention that Adobe viewer.

[catharsis]

Yes, Xournal can do annotation quite well (just tested that on my DR800) and can export to PDF and works on iRex DR800, so I suppose it can be ported in the future also to 903. I'm not familiar to PocketBook firmware, but I suppose it's some kind of Linux. Does it support applications (FBReader, StarDict, Xournal, Osmo) just like DR800/DR1000 can?

[LoneTech]

It does support addon applications, as well as replacing the built-in applications and associating file types. The default fbreader, for instance, has been extended with accelerometer based page turning. The UI used is called inkview, and I've started slightly on trying to understand and document it.
I'm not sure just how much of the device is free software, but inkview itself appears proprietary. It's possible to run other frameworks, and some source, SDK and examples are at pocketbook-free.sf.net.

[NextStep]

By this time the PB903's are being and been delivered to customers, in contrast to when the previous was posted. Can anybody clarify on what annotation functionality the real 903 actually has?

I found this a very usefull thread and am still doubtfull whether I should buy a 902 or 903. I fully agree with Bogdaniosif in post #17. If the 903 does not support annotation (in PDF anyway) the extra cost is not worthwhile for me. I do not need the 3G or even the plain note taking functions. Annotating a book for me too is an integral part of the reading experience. Even for non-academic purposes.
Very sad if this is not supplied. Then I must decide between buying a 902 just to get at least some e-reading experience, or wait still longer.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by NextStep

By this time the PB903's are being and been delivered to customers, in contrast to when the previous was posted. Can anybody clarify on what annotation functionality the real 903 actually has?

Welcome!

I don't have mine yet, and even those who do will first have to wait the 12 hours of the first charge before playing with their new toys. Hopefully we will have the first reviews soon.

[bogdaniosif]

The PocketBook people are purposefully dead silent on this PDF annotations issue. The 903 manuals on their site are only in Russian and Google Translate got me nowhere in understanding much more from them.

However, they would've been bragging to high heavens for sure if PDF annotations were on the table. So you can bet that all this silence and the hints from the demos posted in September on Youtube equals no PDF annotations on either 902 or 903.

Maybe a hacked PB 903 firmware will bring PDF annotations but that will take many months to appear out of the blue and only if a better device doesn't pop out in the mean time. Also, the 903 hardware may be underpowered to handle PDF annotations. After all, the CPU on the 903 is crap.

I recommend at this point to just ignore the 903 but also hold out of buying the 902 for a while. At least until we can see some good reviews on Youtube that cover its functions. It's rather strange that even though the 902 is supposed to have been shipping for about a month, nobody looking like an independent posted video reviews on Youtube that cover the device's functionality. All that you can find are some useless ad-style clips, most in Russian, most showing close to nothing about the system software running on the 902.

Also, keep in mind that there is a very good chance that the Hanlin V90 will be better than both these Pocketbook devices. It is now announced for next month and it will be heavily OEMed which raises the chance that maybe one manufacturer will create a firmware with a PDF reader capable of capturing PDF annotations.

So just wait and do not buy Pocketbook now if you can't afford to regret it in the spring.

[Krzych Ayanami]

My 903 arrived and I don't see something like notepad function.
I can select that from menu - but next steps are "cancel" and "save as image". Nothing more. I can't draw and I can't write by the keyboard.

Firmware version 2.0.4.

[LoneTech]

Just received my PocketBook 903, and can write down a few initial impressions. The note taking is, sorry to say, horrible in this release (2.0.4). It only does marking of strips of existing books, and saves those as bitmaps with links into the book. They also only appear in the table of contents. The scribbling program demonstrated earlier is available, but has no connection to the notes function.

As for possible improvements, I note that the addon webbrowser (also included) is Midori, apparently running Gtk+. That means everything needed to run Xournal is there, although we might want a closer look at pen sensitivity. I'll also note that the SDK I've been experimenting with allowed making standalone notes and drawing in them, which I haven't found in the device itself. Maybe it's coming.

[Zarathustra]

The annotation buisness is certainly missing. I just got the PB 903 and am playing around. Well, the first impression is in general positive - but the inability to annotate PDFs is a severe drawback. I hope PB is keeping the example of IREX in mind: A good hardware is a good starting point - but the software finally decides over the success. And annotations are an important aspect (as realized by IREX but the software was not sufficient).