Color Alturatek Color - anyone tried it?

[mitchwah]

B&H Photo is selling Aluratek Color for $79.99. It seems like a good reader and a great deal. I'm assuming it could handle comics and manga. It also got decent reviews. I'm very much tempted but want to ask if someone here have it?

TIA

[Catlady]

I have it, I bought it from B&H this past spring for $100. Though I purchased it for my handful of comics and cookbooks, and for the ability to watch videos, I actually use it more for simple reading than I do my JBL. I really like the backlit screen--I keep the brightness at the lowest setting, but it's still bright enough to read in a dark room. It's a little heavy, but not onerous.

If you have a lot of files (thousands!) on an SD card, it is extremely slow to load them--as opposed to the JBL, which has no problem with them. I couldn't just pop my nearly full 8gb SD card from the JBL into the Libre Color--took forever to load, forever to scroll through pages. So what I do is just use a separate SD card in the Libre Color, and add current reading to it.

As a second reader, it's great. The colors are vibrant; the size of the screen is just about adequate for a comic book page. I've only tried a few videos; the sound is low so you really need to use earbuds. I'm happy with it and think it was well worth the $100. At $80, it's a real bargain.

[mitchwah]

Dear Catlady,

Thank you! I really appreciate your very detailed description of the Aluratek Color. My JBL died on me couple of months ago and am using my phone as my primary reader. I've been waiting for great deals on JBLs but unfortunately, I haven't seen one lately.

The Aluratek is the top on my shopping list for Black Friday, unless there are JBL offerings - I love the battery grip on the JBL and the convenience of changing batteries when it's drained. I'm looking at other readers as well. I saw that Big Lots is offering the Aluratek Libre Pro for $47 on Thanksgiving and Shopko is offering Slick eReader for $49.99.

Thanks for the tip about having a separate card for the Aluratek. I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. Is the Aluratek Color heavier than the JBL even with the 4 AA batteries on? And how many reading hours does it give you?

Thank you!

Michelle

[Catlady]

The Libre Color is definitely heavier than the JBL and less comfortable to hold--but not so much so that it's cumbersome. But I don't need to use a clip-on light with it, as I did with the JBL, so that's the trade-off.

I think the battery life is around six hours or so--I charge it every night. The battery drains even if you don't use it, and if it drains completely after a few days of nonuse, you lose your bookmarks, which is annoying. It also does not have a search feature.

I like the Libre Color's screen size, backlit screen, and color better than the JBL, but if I had to pick one e-reader, I'd go with the JBL for the AA batteries, the number of formats it can read, its ability to handle a huge number of files, and the search feature.

[mitchwah]

Thanks. Perhaps I'll give it a try and look out for JBL bargains. The cheapest seller for JBL is J&R.com at $106 with shipping, which is not bad considering I paid for my old one for $200 2 years ago. But still, if it go down for less than a hundred, I wouldn't think twice.

Thanks again!

[hedgehog1]

Hi Mitchwah,

I received an email from Aluratek -- they now have a outlet store where they are selling refurbished products.

http://aluratek.com/outlet-store

The Color Libre Pro is selling for $49.99;
the black and white Libre Pro is $39.99.

The catch is that the shipping is not free, and will set you back another $10-$15.

[mitchwah]

Thank you, hedgehog1! I'll check it out.

[RKanarek]

Greetings.

I *just* bought my Aluratek 7” Libre | Color Ebook Reader from B&H Photo, and I’d like to amplify Catlady’s comments and add a few of my own.

N.B. Before I discovered this one, I had intended to start a new thread. I hope you'll forgive me if this is a bit long.

First about my ebook habits. I normally store virtually all of by ebooks on a single 16GB non-mini SD card. The 8GB of ebooks that the card contains are all 100% DRM-free, mostly in the form of images of scanned books bound in a PDF format (e.g., “Google [PDF] Books”), and logically organized in a hieratical directory structure. My actual reading is indoors, under sub-optimal lighting conditions

My previous ebook reader, an Aluratek Libre Pro, made reading most of the scanned books impossible due to its tiny 5” screen and its imperfect PDF viewer, but navigating the SD card was a cinch (almost a delight considering the set of piano-style menu keys that line one side of the ‘Pro) and it could handle other formats (including “proper” reflow-able PDFs). The Libre | Color, however, is absolutely awful!

The L|C seems to delight in pointlessly and extremely slowly scanning the SD card at every opportunity or pretense of an opportunity. And by extremely slowly, I mean MINUTES, not seconds! After a hard reset, it seems to scan the card twice! Usually it conducts these scans for the purpose of listing my ebooks alphabetically, without regard to my subdirectories: If arranging books alphabetically were a sensible thing to do, why would Melvil Dewey have bothered to create his system? Have these Aluratek people never been to a library?

Once can put the L|C into “file explorer” mode, in which case it will, after yet another lengthy scan, display my directories properly. Unfortunately, will only display directories page by page; advancing to the next page requires another lengthy scan (albeit not quite as lengthy, but still over a MINUTE!), and there is no way to jump ahead. Oh, and when the gadget is in ‘explorer mode, one loses all of the home page context menu options.

The actual viewing of PDFs (any type) is also far more badly implemented than in the ‘Pro reader, despite the fact that its wide (in landscape mode) screen could have made viewing scanned-book PDFs feasible IF it had quality software.

As far as reading text on the screen, IMHO its like trying to read the markings on an illuminated car headlight at night. Okay, the comparison is not exact, but its not as different as one would hope. In fairness, however, I don’t think any backlit LCD is suitable for e-book reader use. (The notion that backlit LCDs on ereaders make them better for reading when lighting is poor is, IMHO, silly. The more your pupils are dilated, the more unpleasant it’s going to be to stare at something bright for a prolonged period of time.)

Tip: If the above has not dissuaded you, Aluratek is selling refurbished Libre Color ereaders (AEBK07FS-R) for $49.00 (I bought my new for $7x.xx; I just can’t catch a break ;-).

[mitchwah]

Dear RKanarek,

Thank you for sharing your experience with the Aluratek Color. I'm sure those who's contemplating buying it and doing research beforehand will thank you.

I'm glad I didn't buy it. It was on top of my list but decided to wait till Black Friday which was a good thing coz by accident, I saw a Walmart promo for this Ematic 7" eReader on sale for just $55. If anyone is in the market for eReaders similar to the Aluratek Color, I urge you to look at it coz I am loving my pink Ematic a lot.

I'm not sure if the Ematic will work for you and your library setup, but at least it's cheaper and has lots of bangs for the buck. I tried viewing some of my PDF books and I'm pleasantly surprised that the reader handles them beautifully - it can fit the book to screen and the fonts are readable. I don't have reflowed PDF though - I just convert all my books to epub using Calibre. I also store my books on an SD card (though I have to buy a new microSD), grouped by Genre, then by Author, then by Title. Browsing books isn't as breezy as the Jetbook Lite (which was like a brother to the Aluratek Libre Pro), but it doesn't take minutes as you described with the A|C. It has browsing options, which is helpful, and you can navigate your library by File Name, Title, Author or by Directory - I mainly use the Directory. I also have to click the "next" buttons until I reach the book I want to read - which is frustrating if you have thousands of folders to navigate, but in case of my library, I don't mind it a bit. I also let my 2yo daughter use the Ematic to view her videos and I like it that the player will play all the videos in a folder - like a playlist.

I use the Ematic as my main reader and when it's time to charge, I turn to my newly acquired used Jetbook Lite that I won from Ebay. I am one happy camper!

Well I hope this helps those who's planning to buy the Aluratek Color or similar ereaders.

[Ken Maltby]

The JBL has always been my reader of choice, except for non-reflow .pdf files.

I ran across this at Geeks.com:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...7287-R&cat=CON

It might be a replacement for the LC.

Geeks has other ereaders listed also.

Luck;
Ken

[RKanarek]

I’m glad that my review was helpful (if only tangentially), but I’ve been thinking that I may have been a little too harsh on the Aluratek.

In fairness to the Aluratek, I am becoming seriously fond of its LCD screen: with the brightness set on simmer rather than full boil, it’s really quite nice to look -- and read -- at. I think the white case (on my model) also makes it a bit more eye-friendly, too.

While the Aluratek Color might have its good points (and more [!!!] bad points I’ve yet to mention), I doubt you, Mitchwah, will regret having purchased your gadget. Even if it turns out to do a poor job as an ereader, it seems as if it could replace an entire home entertainment center. So, in any case, it will be good for something.

Thanks, both of you, for sharing your information.

Happy holidays to all!

[alg2468]

The Slick e700 reader looks exactly the same as the Aluratek Color reader,both in appearance , button locaton, and software. The Slick e701 changes the location of buttons to the side, but the software is the same.