Kindle is the undisputed King of EReader. Amazon, with the biggest physical and ebook selection on earth, is the first place you should look for if you want to find a book, new or old, bestseller or obscure. And Amazon’s reader product, the Kindle series— now with the latest addition waterproof Kindle Paperwhite 4— is the favorite choice of many, because it is seamlessly integrated with the Kindle store that allows you to access up to 5 million ebooks in under less than 60 seconds ( with 1 million free ebooks if you subscribe to the Kindle Unlimited membership).
As the founders of kindlemalaysia.com, we ask ourselves now and then, is there a need for another ebook reader? Why bring in Onyx Boox? Does it fill a niche at all?
In our opinion, there are several shortcomings with current Amazon’s kindle lineups:
Kindle only comes with one size, 6 inch.
6 inch ebook reader is great for reading novels, non fictions and all the light readings. But a lot of heavy readings, such as academic papers, medical references or even magazines are better done on a device with a bigger screen. There used to be a big size Kindle, Kindle DX which Amazon aimed to fill this niche. However Amazon has since discontinued this line of model for reasons unknown.
So yes, there is a space to fill, and the Boox Note+ that booxmalaysia.com offers nicely fill this niche.
Kindle only supports Kindle store, and nothing else.
Sure, Kindle store is great with 5 million ebooks at your fingertips. But what if you want to read ebooks from other stores, say, Barnes and Nobles, Google Play Books or Safari Queue ( for those IT or engineering oriented)? Kindle will not support them. iPad is a poor substitute due to the glaring screen. One needs an independent e-ink ebook reader to do the job properly.
One of my favorite bookstores is a Taiwanese bookstore, readmoo. Amazon Kindle can support Amazon China, but there is no Amazon Taiwan– and most likely there never will be, because of political intrigue. Kindle is simply missing out on a large part of Chinese publishing.
Boox, on the other hand, doesn’t have this limitation. On Boox, you can read books from Amazon China in Simplified Chinese and readmoo in traditional Chinese, something which is undoable on Kindle.
Here’s a video clip on reading readmoo books on Boox Note.
Kindle only supports one kindle store, but Boox supports two
With the latest versions of Kindle, regardless of model, you can only access one Kindle store at a time. Which means that when you sign into your Amazon US, you have to sign out of Amazon China, and all of the books from Amazon China store will disappear from your device until you sign in again. You will not be able to mix ebooks from different region of Kindle stores. Which is quite an inconvenient for a bilingual reader like me, who needs to switch between Amazon China and Amazon US store from time to time.
But, with Boox, you can install two Kindle apps– one Amazon Kindle app, another Kindle lite app, one for Amazon US, another for Amazon China. I no longer have to sign out and in of different kindle accounts. I can keep books in both accounts on the device at the same time.
Boox actually supports Kindle store better than Kindle itself does. Surprise, surprise surprise!
Boox is format agnostic.
Amazon Kindle doesn’t support epub, Kobo doesn’t support Amazon’s native format AWZ3. The only device that supports all of the known ebook format is Boox.
Boox is neutral. When all of the ebook devices have their own preferred format, Boox is fair to all. Who doesn’t like neutral guy?
Boox handles PDF especially well
A lot of ebook readers cough and crank and cry when you have to open a big PDF files, bigger than 1GB, for instance. But not Boox. In our testing, Boox can easily open big PDF files with no performance issue. This is especially important because a lot of academic references come in weighty PDF files.
If you want to do serious academic or business reference reading in PDF, Boox is your choice.
You can draw and write notes with Boox pen.
This only comes with Boox Note +. Boox Note + comes with a pen, that allows you to sketch, write and draw like the good old days before your life was ruined by ubiquitous presence of tablets and smartphones.
Have an idea and you want to jot it down, and you don’t feel like typing out?
Need to write down notes while you are going through your reading material?
Want to sketch your latest fanciful architectural design for the next tallest tower in Dubai on a pad?
Try Boox note+.
Why must I get Boox from you? Why I can’t get it from elsehwere?
Here are whys:
- We have ready demo units that you can touch and feel. And we are the product experts. Anything you don’t know, just come to our office and ask us.
- We are the sole authorized distributor in Malaysia, which means that you get all the standard 1 year warranty and servicing. In the case where the device is faulty, you just send the device to us, and we will handle the rest. We are pretty sure that no other third party seller that does this as well as we do.
- Most importantly, We offer you a free Amazon account, and 1 million kindle ebooks to read for free! You don’t get this perk from random sellers
Conclusion:
If you ask me whether is there a gap that Boox series can fill, yes, there is. Ebook reader definitely needs a shake-up from the dominance of Kindle. And Boox is a worthy challenger.
Hence we are here, booxmalaysia.com
