Hello everyone,

There have been some questions around the battery and some speculations weither it was replaceable or not.

The battery is buit-in and replaceable. You have to unscrew one screw and open a small compartment which contains the Li-Polymer battery cell. This cell is connected to the device through a 2 wires connector.
You just need to unplug the connector to distach the battery from the device in order to replace it.

In first step, we will not propose spare battery for sale but we will certainly do it in the future.

Concerning the formats, Bookeen's philosophy is


to support as much formats as possible (both encrypted and unencrypted) in a native way (no conversion)
to keep the device simple.


The Cybook will support one encrypted format and other open formats.

Concerning the navigation button, we have tried to keep a very simple and intuitive interface with an accessible control (on the front and not on the side as with the last Cybook). Our main concern is speed, our average speed is clearly above other devices and we try our best to make the interface even more reactive (Vizplex helps a lot).

Concerning images, we have implemented a very good dithering algorithm which renders an astonishing image quality.

When connected to a host machine through a standard mini-USB cable, the Cybook is seen as an external mass storage device. You just need to drag and drop your files in the device memory and you can start reading.

Mor info are to come concerning especially the format support, the release date and final price.

Best regards to all of you,

Michael Dahan
Bookeen

Hello Michael,

I am new to this forum but I am a passive observer for some time now. A few weeks ago I signed in for being informed on the development of the NAEB reader. As far as I know this was to be developed by Bookeen. What we experience now is that a new Cybook is about to take off. At the same time, information on how the NAEB reader is making headway is sparse. Am I right to assume that eventually the NAEB reader will be the new Cybook? I wouldn't mind that at all!

Michael

From what I read on the Baen forum, the NAEDB is going ahead in addition to the Cybook. The NAEB won't have DRM. That will be the main difference. So if you want to purchase a book you can only get with DRM, you can't. So unless the NAEB does something different enough to warrant being 100% DRMless, I'd go with the Cybook.

From what I read on the Baen forum, the NAEDB is going ahead in addition to the Cybook. The NAEB won't have DRM. That will be the main difference. So if you want to purchase a book you can only get with DRM, you can't. So unless the NAEB does something different enough to warrant being 100% DRMless, I'd go with the Cybook.

Jon,

Derek from NEAB clarified this a couple of days ago. The NAEB device will have support for whatever DRM formats the standard CyBook does (probably Mobipocket). The "no DRM" stuff on the NAEB web site simply means that it won't add any new DRM format to the world.

From what I read on the Baen forum, the NAEDB is going ahead in addition to the Cybook. The NAEB won't have DRM. That will be the main difference. So if you want to purchase a book you can only get with DRM, you can't. So unless the NAEB does something different enough to warrant being 100% DRMless, I'd go with the Cybook.

Yeah, you and 199 of your friends. Bookeen doesn't sell devices retail, they sell them wholesale. Otherwise NAEB would just send people there instead of being a middle-man.

Bookeen may start selling this device retail. If they do, I'll buy direct.

Hello Jon and Harry,

thanks for this clarification. Nevertheless, I would be curious to get a statement from the NAEB people about what's the point in pursuing a parallel development of a reader with (presumably) very similar - if not identical - specs and about the same price? Of course, they most likely did not know in advance that a new Cybook was on the home stretch.

Michael

Yeah, you and 199 of your friends. Bookeen doesn't sell devices retail, they sell them wholesale.

I don't believe that you're correct in saying that.

Bookeen certainly sold the older CyBook retail - I have one myself. In fact the only way to buy an older CyBook was directly from Bookeen - they had no "resellers".

Their newsletter says that subscribers will be informed when the new device is available to order.

I would love to hear an official statement from the NAEB camp on what is actually going to be different between their version of the Cybook.

It's a different colour - white, as opposed to the standard black.

Concerning the navigation button, we have tried to keep a very simple and intuitive interface with an accessible control (on the front and not on the side as with the last Cybook). Our main concern is speed, our average speed is clearly above other devices and we try our best to make the interface even more reactive (Vizplex helps a lot).

Concerning images, we have implemented a very good dithering algorithm which renders an astonishing image quality.

Michael, would you mind leaking a short video clip to us to show the Cybook in action? :knuddel:

Better yet, would you mind leaking a production unit to me and I'll review it?

Tsk, leak the unit to me of course ;-)

Concerning images, we have implemented a very good dithering algorithm which renders an astonishing image quality.


Best regards to all of you,

Michael Dahan
Bookeen

Hello from Spain.This is my first post here and I hope you understand to me because my English is poor.:(
I have a question for you Michael.Cybook will read RAR files for comics?.I tell you this because that is the "STANDARD" on PC with programs to read those how CDISPLAY.

Thanks and sorry by my bad english

Hello from Spain.This is my first post here and I hope you understand to me because my English is poor.:(
I have a question for you Michael.Cybook will read RAR files for comics?.I tell you this because that is the "STANDARD" on PC with programs to read those how CDISPLAY.

Thanks and sorry by my bad english

RAR is just like ZIP: compressed files. Uncompress those before using them...

Forgive me if this information has already been given and I just missed it, but when is the Cybook going on sale?

I want one!

Forgive me if this information has already been given and I just missed it, but when is the Cybook going on sale?

I want one!

Take a look at the final sentence of Michael's initial post in this thread :grin:.

Take a look at the final sentence of Michael's initial post in this thread :grin:.

Duh! :smack:

Thanks! :grin2:

Nate,

While our immediate goal at NAEB is to do a 'club' purchase of Bookeen readers, we will be working towards being a solid e-retail outlet for Bookeen devices. You have to understand that we're building NAEB from the resources of five, that's right *FIVE*, average people who have average lives and average incomes. We've generated buzz to the point where we have over five hundred people interested in buying one of the Bookeen readers and we hope to place a first order for one thousand units.

Clearly, as we don't have the financial resources of Sony, Hanlin, or iRex/Phillips, we must take it slow. But we will get there. And I believe that the Bookeen Cybook is going to be a quality device, of value to our customers.

Derek

Yeah, you and 199 of your friends. Bookeen doesn't sell devices retail, they sell them wholesale. Otherwise NAEB would just send people there instead of being a middle-man.

Bookeen may start selling this device retail. If they do, I'll buy direct.

Hello from Spain.This is my first post here and I hope you understand to me because my English is poor.:(
I have a question for you Michael.Cybook will read RAR files for comics?.I tell you this because that is the "STANDARD" on PC with programs to read those how CDISPLAY.

Thanks and sorry by my bad english
I highly doubt the Cybook will read from ZIP or RAR files. You'd have to decompress to the native JPG and upload those to the reader in order to display them. And as for ZIP format CBR, that's most likely a no as well.

Hello everyone,

The relationship between Bookeen and BAEN/NAEB corresponds exactly to Derek's description. One important point, the people from NAEB will be among the firsts to test and evaluate the device.

Concerning compressed files, the Cybook device will support compressed formats. The supported formats will be released with software specifications soon.

Best regards,

Michael

So the only way to get a Cybook will be to go through NAEB and, what, get on a list or something indicating you want to be part of a group purchase?

Is this correct?

P.S. Total newbie here...I don't even know what NAEB is.....

Nah, it just sounds like they might be first. :nice:

NAEB stands for "Not Another E-Book" -- you can find their site here (http://naebllc.com/).

I wonder if the software program will be ubook (which I love) because that used to be included in the Cybook reader.

I wonder if the software program will be ubook (which I love) because that used to be included in the Cybook reader.

Highly unlikely. The new CyBook runs the Linux operating system; uBook is a Windows application.

My all-time-fave book reading app too, by the way!

Highly unlikely. The new CyBook runs the Linux operating system; uBook is a Windows application.

My all-time-fave book reading app too, by the way!

Yep, most of these e-ink devices are based on Linux.
I hope that Michaël and Laurent will let developers create third party app for the reader, we could have some pretty neat applications like on the iLiad in this case.

snip/
You have to understand that we're building NAEB from the resources of five, that's right *FIVE*, average people who have average lives and average incomes.
/snip

While that's technically true, it doesn't tell the whole story. The original idea was to form a co-op to do a group purchase (well, the ORIGINAL original idea grew out of a baen-bar forum discussion on e-book readers and was for a co-op to develop an independent ebook device - but it turned out later that the cybook pretty much fulfilled all the requirements for the first generation version for less money than we could possibly hope for and it was therefore a better idea to just buy them). The five people Derek mentions formed the governing board of the co-op. The hitch with that was once the board was formed, the next step of member buy-in never materialized. NOT because no one was interested (plenty of people asked about it and offered to buy in) but apparently because of issues with money management prior to creation of the corporate entity (who receives the funds, how do we pay for the commercial bank accounts for a company that may or may not get off the ground, what happens to the money if it turns out that the cybook isn't the greatest thing since sliced e-ink, etc). Plenty of people like yours truly would love to buy into the NAEB co-op to support this project.

All that aside, and to reiterate, the NAEB reader really is a cybook - NAEB is acting as a retail outlet through a buying-group rather than as a competitor since individual retail sales directly from bookeen aren't in the works yet.

Aaah! An other Hyperion fan. Welcome by! I always liked the Yggdrasil name. It's the type of word that dances through your head for days.

Aaah! An other Hyperion fan. Welcome by! I always liked the Yggdrasil name. It's the type of word that dances through your head for days.

Yggdrasil is the tree of life in Norse mythology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil

Not necessarily linked to Dan Simmons' work.

Well, except that Simmons drew on that ... root, of course. :wink:

Thanks for the info Hadrien. I guess yggdrasil himself will share with us where he chose that name. It stll has a certain musicality to it.

Well, except that Simmons drew on that ... root, of course. :wink:

Hadrien has it right - I bypassed Simmons and drew straight from the mythology (hadn't even read Simmons when I first started using the name). And it used to be Yggdrasilsroot, so I'm tickled by NatCh's comment :)

I love it when I pun without meaning to! :grin:

Actually the name should be Yggdrasill (or Askur Yggdrasill) if you want to quote the source which is not Old Norse but plain old Icelandic as we speak it now and have been speaking for the last 1100 years here in the land of fire, ice and sagas :)
But Yggdrasil is good enough..

When connected to a host machine through a standard mini-USB cable, the Cybook is seen as an external mass storage device. You just need to drag and drop your files in the device memory and you can start reading.

That is a great plus.
I can't tell you the problems in the past with all kinds of interconnection software that "works fine on all machines we tested it on" except yours.
Who can remember Hisync on the Hiebook?
Or the "sorry, not for Vista" software that comes with the Iliad.. :rolleyes:
Sometimes it was easyer to get an honest answer out of a politician than a connect from that software.

A big cheer for the good ole' USB connection as far as I am concerned. :2thumbsup

Or the "sorry, not for Vista" software that comes with the Iliad.. :rolleyes:

Hmm, unfair comment, since the iLiad connects as an external mass storage device aswell. Companion Software is just a "plus" (ok, here we can start arguing :D ) on top of that.

Hmm, unfair comment, since the iLiad connects as an external mass storage device aswell. Companion Software is just a "plus" (ok, here we can start arguing :D ) on top of that.

Nah, no argument from me. :)
Thank heaven for that connection as an external drive from the Iliad.
There is no other way for me to get inside my Iliad.

The positive thing about a 'simple' usb connection is that Cybook probably won't get into all kinds of complicated extra software with all sorts of nice goodies attached that won't be accessable any other way.
Hopefully the Cybook Ge3 will be what it should be, an ebook reader.
Not a device stranded somewhere between an ebook reader and a badly executed tablet pc, a mistake made with the first Cybook and with the Iliad.