Quote:
Originally Posted by ProDigit
I'm not too happy about this,
Yes it's good they do that, but:
1- The JBC is far too expensive for children's hands,
2- The programs inside are aimed for children ranging 7 to 18, or the occasional learner that wants to learn another language
3- The money they will be getting also comes from end users, who may not find any need for the school software.
I only quickly had taken a look at the school software, there's a bunch of stuff in there, 90% I would never use(except to see what it is), 95% I might never use, 98% of the school software I don't use on a day/week or even monthly basis.
The way I see it, I only use 5-10% of the potential of the JBC, mainly reading PDF files,and epub.
And since Ectaco and my own priorities differ, it looks like this device will not aim much towards improving the issues at hand for people like me who use this only to read PDF and epub books.
Looks like they still got their hands full with optimizing the school's programs (they could do a lot about the user interface, improving menu's and looks of the programs).
The problem is that they need to hurry up, because other manufacturers are jumping on the color e-ink boat. There are already devices in prototypes with a flexible e-ink screen, overlayed with an RGBW filter they would be somewhere between a regular e-ink device and the JBC's resolution, also with color!
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Priorities change over time. But you could have known what you were
buying, it was all there if you looked at all the descriptions of it at their
site. At least in terms of it being a device designed for the education
market.
One of the main features of this device, from my point of view, is its
potential, with modification of the firmware, outside its current educational
specialization. (Now that you are on the Ectaco Forum you might checkout
the posts in the jetBook section.) I also started a thread here on adapting
the JBC to other uses.
Luck;
Ken