Thread: PocketBook 360 Questions
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Old 03-19-2010, 04:09 AM   #3
kacir
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Join Date: May 2006
Device: PocketBook 360, before it was Sony Reader, cassiopeia A-20
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitchcockfan View Post
It's a very appealing e-reader despite having a 5-inch screen. However, I keep coming back to the fact that for the same price (or about the same), I can get a 6-inch e-reader with probably more functionality.
If you want all the great features that PocketBook 360 firmware has, plus 6 inch screen plus audio player, you can get PocketBook 301.
The only difference between
PB360 vs. PB301 is
  • Lid vs. "classic book-like" cover (*)
  • 5 inch vs. 6 inch screen
  • no audio vs. mp3 player
  • accelerometer vs. no accelerometer
(*) there are some great looking, high quality handmade leather covers available from PocketBook for PB301

Tell me, what reader has more functionality than PB360? Apart from the ability to listen to mp3.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitchcockfan View Post
1. How did you justify the purchase of the PocketBook 360 over other models with larger screens and more functions?
  • PB360 has THE most functions that I will need for reading books. Things like folders, on-screen-keyboard, ability to copy or move files ...
  • Hardware looks and feels cool.
  • You can rotate the screen any way you wish - hence the name 360°, so the control elements (buttons) can be on left or right or bottom or even top. When I saw that, I knew that one day I will buy the device.
  • The device has lid that protects the screen without adding bulk to the device
  • The firmware is built on Free software and we can tinker with it
  • The firmware is very, *very*, VERY configurable. You can, for example, change overall look of the GUI, you can remap all keys to your liking.
  • you can view books in any language, even in Arabic, Hebrew, or far east languages. ANY language that can use UTF8 and has font available.
  • PocketBook company actively fosters developement of third party software.
  • THEY EVEN SUPPLY LINUX TERMINAL EMULATOR THAT CAN BE RUN ON DEVICE! So you can tinker with insides of the system disk, you can pull out any configuration file you wish, you can, for example, extract any language translation file from inside the machine, so users here on Mobileread can supply new translations or improve existing ones. It took me some 5 minutes to get the language files and post them to the thread about firmware. Next day there were several new or improved translations supplied by my fellow mobilereaders.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitchcockfan View Post
2. Does anyone find the 5-inch screen to be too small? When I've seen comparisons between the 360 and an e-reader with a 6-inch screen, there doesn't appear to be a major difference in the amount of text on the page.
the 5 inch screen has the same number of pixels as 6 inch one. The pixels are just 5/6ths smaller.
I have had 6 inch reader - Sony PRS500 - before and I do not perceive PocketBook 360 as small.
The fact that you can fine tune the appearance of the text on page and that you can use just any font at any size (with a very small step) contribute greatly to the readability.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitchcockfan View Post
3. What are your thoughts on the software? I like that the 360 supports RSS Feeds, but does this function work well on the reader?
In my opinion PocketBook has one of finest firmwares out there. Hardware is not THAT different - apart from the lid that nobody else has. I have never tried to use RSS reader and I have heard that some Czech guy had problem generating RSS feeds in win 1250 codepage.
The software on PocketBook is very, VERY stable, configurable to great extent and, most importantly, is built in such a way that it is easily extend-able, tinker-able and hack-friendly.
To install a third party replacement for internal application, all you need is to drag and drop a file into a directory when you connect the reader to PC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitchcockfan View Post
4. Is there a development community for the 360 (additional Linux applications)?
Yes there is.
http://pbook.s3.amazonaws.com/fbreader_180e_src.zip
http://code.google.com/p/fbreader-po...downloads/list
http://bookfast.org/category/pocketbook/themes <- you can view that one with translate.google.com
http://pocketbook-free.sourceforge.net/
PocketBook company supplies working Software Developement Kit, organizes programming competitions for development of third-party applications and even supplies prizes for winners.

There is one more address
http://www.the-ebook.org/?page_id=545
This is the Russian forum where the PocketBook company crowd sourced the specification of PocketBook 360° hardware and software. This is the reason it is so well designed. The company listens to the customers.

Oh ...
One more thing ...
if you want all features mentioned above, plus touch screen, plus USB host (to connect a keyboard or USB key), plus WiFi have a look at PocketBook 302 ;-)
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