Boox Max2 - limits of PDF page turn performance?

[Corpsious]

Hi all! New to the forum - you all seem like a lovely bunch

I am gazing at the Max2 quite lustily. One bit of information I haven't been able to glean from videos is what its limits are as far as fast PDF page turning, or otherwise using a better navigational paradigm. One of my major use cases (RPG rulebooks) demands the ability to skim 5-20 pages quickly to find a specific bit of information.

1. I can't find any video of someone just paging through a PDF as fast as they can in A2 mode. Can anyone comment on their experiences with this? Does A2 help (not worried about battery life)? Is the CPU's PDF render the limiting factor here? If so, do any PDF readers have render options which sacrifice quality for speed? My thought is that if it (on A2) can handle 8+ FPS video, surely paging through 3-5 PDF pages in a second isn't unthinkable.

2. Is there currently any way (via Android app or otherwise) to have a Table of Contents permanently on-screen (and clickable)? Even if it takes up half the screen and only a single PDF page is showing, this would be much better for my use case (click through to section, page through to specific passage desired) than a 3-5 tap modal switch to get to a ToC.

3. If I can't get to my desired behaviour of quick skimming via either of the above, could alternative formats help? Does paging happen much faster in an ePub, for example?

Much love, and here's to impossibly tiny niche markets

Corps

[plusz]

The device is very fast but the speed depends on the pdf document structure, some are much faster others are slower to page turn.

The built-in pdf reader "Neo reader 2" has some non obvious features, worth to check the user guide For example there is a nice workflow I was not aware for a long time:
- tap in the middle of the screen to show up the function bar on top and bottom
- tap table of content icon
- jump to chapter from the table of content link
- jump again if you wish
- then observe that the [<] and [>] buttons on the top bar lets you jump back and froth between the jump points

Do you have any particular freely available document in mind? Perhaps I could try to record a test at some free minute.

And by the way, of corse the <> buttons works also when you jump by clicking embedded links in the text. Using embedded links was quite frustrating for me without knowing it, i.e. I made a jump by the link to see some reference etc. and then I was clueless how to get back to where I was reading, obviously page by page turn to find your previous place was frustrating.

You can also jump to page number. I use it with some docs. Sometimes in technical docs you have very important tables or drawings to refer to, so I quickly remember the page numbers for them and most often I don't even use the go to page (as you have to type in the number) but just the <> buttons to jump from where I was reading to the last jump (last go to) and back to where I was reading, so you can efficiently jump pages even in docs which does not have proper table of contests

[Corpsious]

Thanks so much for your thoughts, plusz!

The news about jump points is indeed welcome. If I am understanding correctly, the <> buttons only remember jump points, so you can browse pages with a normal edge tap freely and still use <> to get to jumped-to points? That is really cool! And the page number jumping technique sounds clever, too.

I would really really appreciate it if you could record an example, but I understand if you'd rather not because it is quite a time commitment.

A smaller example would be if you Googled "imperial assault manual pdf" and downloaded the second link (titled Rules Reference Guide - this file is made freely available, and indeed hosted, by its publisher).

The real acid test would be a D&D core rulebook, and I can't really think of anything similar. It's ~300 pages of full-page images with many complex sub-images, tables and complex flowed text. The fifth edition Player's Handbook is 95mb. A "dnd 5e pdf" Google would find it but I understand if you'd rather not.

In any case, thanks very much for the feedback, I really appreciate it!

[plusz]

The only problem is that I don't have a recording studio (even amateur setup) so I'll have to mount my phone somehow to make the video

Scanned books works really fine. I have 400+ book and it works flawless. The D&D book is more than images, if I remember correctly I have tried it some time ago as it was presented as a most demanding reader test by GoodReader (btw, maybe they already did a video with Max 2).

Ok, stay tuned.

[Corpsious]

Hey, one-handed shakycam is absolutely fine with me

Cool, I'll dig through their archive and see if they have anything. The problem though is that no-one seems to push page turn rate to its limit or try it with A2. It's a bit of a weird request.

I shall remain extremely tuned! Thanks so much!

[plusz]

Hi, I couldn't find the "dnd 5e pdf", there are so many search results that I don't know which doc you meant.

However I have downloaded the "Imperial Assault Legends of the Alliance Rulebook". That's a difficult pdf. Page turn is very slow, 1 to 2 seconds, no point to bother with making video of that.

[Corpsious]

Damn, that's kinda what I feared. Thanks for getting back to me

[cqman]

I tried "imperial_assault_rules_reference_guide.pdf", no problem with or without A2 mode. Not that fast as general PDF files page turning but still fast.

1.9.1 with default Neo reader.

[plusz]

Well, I've tried the Libera app. It's very useful for such difficult pdfs. I can page turn the "imperial assault manual" with full speed. The app just displays the page numbers in the center of a white screen and render the page once I stop page turns.

That being said, I can't really complain about the speed. I even have scanned books in 300dpi of size 200MB and more, the page turn is very fast.