e-ink ebook reader for technical pdfs

[leaston]

Originally Posted by sean42

Just to put your post in perspective, what kind of screen sizes are you talking about. I have 9.7inch screens in mind. That should be large enough for standard books, and academic publications (typically A4 or Letter sized).

Ahh, sorry for the confusion on this point. I was mostly replying to DrPrince's post suggesting a Kindle for the job. I agree with you that the 9.7" screen is fine for most docs.

Originally Posted by sean42

I definitely would want to cover this use case. What difficulties have you faced with jumping to a page using a slider or page number.

Speed. I'm comparing three things: the speed with which I can flick through a real book, my experience with my own ereaders (Kindle and Kobo Glo) and my experience with my own Android tablets (ASUS TF101 and Nexus 7).
There's never going to be anything as convenient or quick as flicking through the pages of a book, but in terms of speed of navigation, Android tablets outperform ereaders by an order of magnitude. For me, there's no comparison.

To be fair, I haven't even seen the Onyx other than on YouTube vids.

This is where Internet purchases fail for me. Before I'd consider buying one of these, I'd want to try it with a textbook.

Originally Posted by sean42

Have you tried the 9.7" Onyx Boox. Users dont seem to be terribly upset with its pdf capabilities. However stability seems to be a problem.

They do look good on paper. But, it's too expensive a purchase to make without something a bit more concrete than mixed reviews. I know a dual or quad core Android tablet will perform well with pretty much any pdf I can throw at it. This isn't the case with eink readers yet because of the hardware spec and I simply can't afford to take such a gamble with new tech when there's something already out there far cheaper that's proven.

Originally Posted by sean42

I get bleary eyed soon enough when reading from LCD's so this is sort of non-negotiable. From a technical perspective a Linux system should be more efficient than an Android system. Android would need more memory. OTOH Android with its larger community would have more apps. In a way Onyx's latest Android based 9.7" Ereader, might be the best of both worlds.

What mystifies me is that if you have 256 MB of RAM and a processor with a clock speed north of 800Mhz, how is that not enough to parse, uncompress and render pdf. I get it that the display hardware is slow, but that should only add a sub second delay in rendering the page that I want rendered.

In any case thanks for your reply.

I take your point that for some people reading from an LCD or similar screen is hard on the eyes. In the case of textbooks, I rarely spend more than an hour at at time reading them, so it's not that much of a problem for me.

I still haven't seen an eink reader that compares to Android in speed of rendering, navigation and screen refresh rate. I could perhaps live with the refresh rate if the rest of the spec was higher.

I'll keep watching the new readers in the hope that someone makes something fast and reliable enough

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by leaston

I still haven't seen an eink reader that compares to Android in speed of rendering, navigation and screen refresh rate. I could perhaps live with the refresh rate if the rest of the spec was higher.

Android is the operating system - it has nothing to do with the speed of rendering, which is primarily down to the screen technology. There are numerous eInk devices which run the Android operating system.

[leaston]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Android is the operating system - it has nothing to do with the speed of rendering, which is primarily down to the screen technology. There are numerous eInk devices which run the Android operating system.

Hmmm, ok perhaps I could have worded that better, but you took that way out of context. I meant 'compared to a reasonable spec Android tablet', which I'd mentioned more than once throughout the post. I thought it was plainly obvious I wasn't talking about the OS in isolation. The OS and software in conjunction with the hardware has everything to do with performance.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by leaston

Hmmm, ok perhaps I could have worded that better, but you took that way out of context. I meant 'compared to a reasonable spec Android tablet', which I'd mentioned more than once throughout the post. I thought it was plainly obvious I wasn't talking about the OS in isolation. The OS and software in conjunction with the hardware has everything to do with performance.

I was thinking specifically of devices like the Onyx T68, which is a reasonable spec Android tablet, but one with an eInk screen.

[leaston]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I was thinking specifically of devices like the Onyx T68, which is a reasonable spec Android tablet, but one with an eInk screen.

I was thinking about standard Android tablets with an LCD or AMOLED screen. Unless they can do something with the eink technology to improve refresh rates, the rest of this debate is essentially moot for me.

[HarryT]

I totally understand what you're saying. Obviously for scrolling across the page of a complex PDF, a fast screen refresh speed is essential.

[Rizla]

To me, the new 9.7" Onyx sounds like the best bet for reading large amounts of pdf material. I personally cannot read much on an LCD screen, and I never will. I'd go back to paper.

The Onyx is open Android, so you can install a variety of pdf readers which may be substantially faster than the stock reader app. The new massive Sony device is designed for this type of work, but is an outrageous price and hard to get. I wonder what CPU it has compared to the Onyx?

Ultimately I agree that reading pdfs on a 6" screen is a pain at best.

[sean42]

Originally Posted by leaston

Ahh, sorry for the confusion on this point. I was mostly replying to DrPrince's post suggesting a Kindle for the job. I agree with you that the 9.7" screen is fine for most docs.

Speed. I'm comparing three things: the speed with which I can flick through a real book, my experience with my own ereaders (Kindle and Kobo Glo) and my experience with my own Android tablets (ASUS TF101 and Nexus 7).
There's never going to be anything as convenient or quick as flicking through the pages of a book, but in terms of speed of navigation, Android tablets outperform ereaders by an order of magnitude. For me, there's no comparison.

To be fair, I haven't even seen the Onyx other than on YouTube vids.

This is where Internet purchases fail for me. Before I'd consider buying one of these, I'd want to try it with a textbook.


They do look good on paper. But, it's too expensive a purchase to make without something a bit more concrete than mixed reviews. I know a dual or quad core Android tablet will perform well with pretty much any pdf I can throw at it. This isn't the case with eink readers yet because of the hardware spec and I simply can't afford to take such a gamble with new tech when there's something already out there far cheaper that's proven.


I take your point that for some people reading from an LCD or similar screen is hard on the eyes. In the case of textbooks, I rarely spend more than an hour at at time reading them, so it's not that much of a problem for me.

I still haven't seen an eink reader that compares to Android in speed of rendering, navigation and screen refresh rate. I could perhaps live with the refresh rate if the rest of the spec was higher.

I'll keep watching the new readers in the hope that someone makes something fast and reliable enough

Thanks again for your reply. I certainly agree with most of what you say, and yes indeed it would be much better if one could try out the device. Online return policies are not quite pain free.

That said the onyx boox does tempt me, I would still call it expensive. I like what I hear abut it except stories of bricking and permanent freezes on the device. What I find reassuring is that the entire software stack is open.

[HarryT]

I bought my Onyx T68 online from onyx-boox.com and they offer a 14-day return window on all their devices. You obviously have to pay the return postage if you return it simply because you don't like it, though, but that's true of all retailers, I believe.

[GypsyJon]

I guess they do not make them anymore, but this is the reason I bought my PocketBook Pro 902 mayber 5 or so years back? It is a perfect size to read scientific journal articles on and it is eInk so the batter lasts forever and you can read it on the beach. I love that old thing and it just keeps chugging alone.

I hook it to my PC and I just drag and drop my articles ! Could not be simpler.