[miki]

Ok, I have been using the EZ Reader for a couple of weeks now, and these are my new experiences.

Solution to the file directory sorting problem: I mentioned my frustration with trying to get ongoing serialized books in a folder to display in order; well, I found a good solution to the problem -- I downloaded a free program that does nothing but change the "file modified" date all the files in a directory. If I change the file modified date for all the HTML files in the folder ("book"), and then tell the reader to sort by date modified, it usually works! Although you may get it in ascending or descending order, not sure.

Screen refresh rate: The screen refresh rate slowed down as the battery life went down. It is still not bad, but yes, you do see the black flashes when the page redraws itself.

Battery life, chargers, and more:
For 1.5 weeks, I was happily reading and occasionally copying over files to the EZ Reader via the USB cable. The battery meter still indicated it was at full strength ... alas, it turned out to be a fantasy. I have read somewhere, though, that you should not trust the battery meter on the reader if you are using a brand new battery; you have to let the battery drain a couple of times before the meter will provide accurate readings.

The battery was actually pretty completely drained after 1.5 weeks, or about 20-25 hours of reading. I'm not sure how many page turns that is; while it's not 8000 pages, that's an still excellent life.

So anyway, I was happily reading, and then...the screen stopped responding, and the buttons stopped beeping. So I was stuck on page 10 of my current book. The little light at the top corner of the reader was a bright red. And the battery meter at the bottom right corner of the screen was still saying it was at full strength.

I tried pressing the power button, doing a soft reset, then a hard reset. No response.

So then I tried plugging in the EZ Reader to the AC charger it comes with (and it's a really weird charger), and left it plugged in overnight. There was no response from the reader (no changing to an orange flashing light, no beeping, etc) when I plugged in, but I was crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Come the morning (say 8-10 hours later), nothing had happened. The battery charge was still at zero. So I can say pretty conclusively, the AC charger that comes with the reader sucks -- CORRECTION: The AC Charger works - see my latest post (Post #12) --. You should go out and get a AC charger retail (say a Motorola phone charger, which is what I used to charge up the reader the first time).

I'm speculating here, but everytime I plug in the EZ Reader to my computer, it would ask me if I wanted to charge the battery or copy files over, and I'd have to click enter to confirm yes. Since the AC adapter is this weird looking thing you have to attach the USB cable to, maybe the EZ Reader needed me to confirm yes. However, since the OS had either gone to sleep or shut down or was frozen, my hitting the enter button was not registering with the reader. That's my guess (although I did not get asked whether I wanted to charge or copy when I plugged in teh reader to my phone's USB charger.

Other options:
I reviewed my options after the bundled adapter did not work:
- Wait another 3 hours to charge the reader with my Motorola phone's USB charger
- Try charging the reader by attaching it to my computer
- Swapping out the battery with another Nokia battery.

Confirmed that Nokia phone batteries can be swapped in

I'm lucky I happen to have a Nokia phone and a retail USB phone charger. Three cheers for the EZ Reader using standard phone batteries! That's one thing none of the other readers out there have, and a major reason why I got this reader in the first place.

I was too impatient to try the Motorola charger after waiting a whole night for the Astak's charger to charge the battery, so I swapped out the EZ Reader battery with my (fully charged) Nokia phone's battery, and voila! The EZ Reader restarted, and it worked again! The battery meter was even responsive and started to show the battery going down as the days went by.

(And for the curious, my phone charged and is also working fine with the EZ Reader's battery; When I swapped the EZ Reader battery in, the phone indicated the battery charge level was VERY low and needed to be charged right away, despite being plugged in to the EZ Reader charger overnight).

Final notes: I am very very very happy with the EZ Reader. I was not happy about the part where the battery ran down (while lying to me and saying it was still full), and the bundled AC charger didn't seem to charge. However, I think it is a case of it being a virgin battery; after it's been drained a couple of times, I think the battery meter will be more accurate (the battery meter certainly seems to be more accurate with my well used Nokia phone battery).