ectaco ebook device? gonna get one

[Lanx]

ectaco it's sale madness and i knew this week was my day to find an ereader. Ok a bit of info i have an ipod touch, yes it's great, yes i use it for it's pda abilities, yes i use it for airsharing and read lots of pdfs(i'm going back to school and everything is in pdf now) but i wanted a bigger book.

i saw this from frys for 180$, which to me is 40% off when i googled it, i never saw this anywhere, and i did a search here, i found some reviews

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...st+impressions
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...hlight=jetbook
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22224

the first one is about an older clone, and the one thing that hooked me, it is the holy grail of pdf devices, i said well thats what i've been looking for. i also read another amazon review, same thing i was looking for, some guy that reads lots of technical pdfs.

i mean this thing seems great for me, i don't do any ebook reading at all, i don't buy books i don't do nothing(which i know probably 95% of you all do) i want a device that i can take my pdf's to a cafe, to my porch(well not now since it's freezing) to the bathroom(ok lets be real some of us read in there) now i could and have done this on my touch but damn it's small, but it's nice the screen is beautiful and it's easy to navigate(oh i hate apple btw). and i can easily transfer(without conversion) though an sd card(i have like 10, 2gb micro sd cards lying around, really they are like cheap, they cost 5bucks each and everything from my cell phone to digicam to old mp3 player uses this memory option).

i'm gonna give a review, of this thing i already bought it form frys and it's free shipping too so it's a flat 180$, since the last reviews were in april(i guess when this thing was launched) oh and there's a mikev guy who i guess is a rep of this device, well i guess he's a rep but his posts sucks lol, why would you give a link to a device but make the link in cz??? at least put some effort and make it an english link, i mean you don't see mobileread.cz or .cn or whatever .ru

oh and it's graphite, so no wierd red colors for me, i can actually read this thing and not get embarressed at starbucks. i don't want to give a link since i don't want ppl thinking i'm some wierd frys rep or a ectaco rep, but you can just search ectaco on frys and find it, i'm posting at 5am right now(cuz i'm been looking for all these crazy black friday deals) and i'm tired so if you guys see this post and think like i did that you just want a pdf reader, well i just wanted to give a heads up, i mean it's saving lots of cash, i didn't want to spend 400 for a prs700 and find out the pdf support sucked or buy a 400 kindle thats even bulkier with bad pdf support but for 180, i'll chance it!

[Lanx]

ok first impressions, i just got this today, not a bad wait considering it was blackfriday/cybermonday and it was 40% off, ok to me it's great.

the readable area is the size of my ipod touch which is what i'm comparing this to, and it's a big improvement, it's like going from a 15in monitor to a 22in monitor, yea thats how big it seems.

this thing is light too i can hold it in one hand and read comfortably, ok the screen quality? of course it sucks compared to the touch, but you know what? my 22in monitor sucks compared to the touch, the touch is probably the most beautiful mobile screen around, i have a psp and a ds as well, i want to play really crappy games on the touch cuz it just looks that much better than both of these gameboy things(they really are my gf's stuff i bought for her).

the transfer? it was so easy omg, it was easier than the touch, cuz the touch has that stupid connect to wifi, no media slot thing, i just fired up a micro sd card( i have like 4 empty 2g ones laying around and various ones in cell phones, these things are CHEAP!) i dropped in 200mbs worth of work/technical/college docs , seperated into different folders (this took a few seconds) then i put it in the sd card adapter popped it in the jetbook and it reads it flawlessly, ok opening up a book takes 5seconds i guess(i see the hourglass timer) big deal, even my touch that is supposedly more powerful than the psp takes 5s to open up any app.

ok back to the quality, it's nice it's big it's convienient and it's perfect for my puposes, i can xfer pdf's with no stupid converting software or in between process in my way, i just want a simply A to B, from my computer to the reader and this does it. Again the screen looks ancient!!! i mean this brings me back to my palm III days, it brings me back to my psion days it looks like a 1999 pda screen lol, actually it looks a tad bit worse since i haven't read the manual and can't adjust the contrast, well let me read it fast and see... ok i just read the manual, no contrast adjustment i guess thats the whole, eink thing anyway(even tho this is a tft or whatever i dont' care) it has zoom it has fit to width, it's great and it has landscape mode, wow, just like my touch, it's like here it is.

if i'm out and in the mall , the touch is there cool! if i'm home i downgrade to using this thing but i get such a bigger screen it's worth it.

oh why did i decide to get this,? i saw a thread and the jetbook company compares the sony prs and kindle, and while i didn't really care for the comparision, it did make one thing clear, the screen sizes on all of them are almost the same, yea the sony got an extra inch... but again ppl have stated over and over pdf this pdf that... well i can say right away for the super pdf that this offers, nothing can beat it.

if you want more of a new review i can , i mean this thing has a lot of worthless mp3/dictionary crap that i'll never use, but i was able to read a 35page doc relatively easily on the couch.

So for ppl who have my same exact requirements of a great pdf reader that won't cost 1000$ like the rex, and knew that frys is a reputable company, and knew that deals for black friday were coming and wanted to save 40% and got this, we'll i lucked out, until this thing breaks i'm happy, heck they even included a mini usb to ac adapter for me, wow i'll never use it but heck it might be great for a cell phone or something.

[pilotbob]

Good review. But... I really don't think the screen is that bad.... I think you are more seeing the difference between color and monochrome... sort of like a B&W TV vs a Color one.

Glad you like it... I think this is a very worthy device at <$200.

BOb

[Lanx]

no, i see the jaggies, it's like this thing has a resolution of 300 x300 while the itouch has a resolution of 600 x600, it's almost as "blocky" looking as the ds. it's the same if you had a lcd monitor and you didn't turn on true type or clear type, it's like that "jaggy" to me.

i'm not zoomed in or anything i read stuff at 100% font or zoom or whatever too. but yea i've already started using this things its on my night stand right next to a memo pad and pencil it's pretty awesome.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Lanx

no, i see the jaggies, it's like this thing has a resolution of 300 x300 while the itouch has a resolution of 600 x600, it's almost as "blocky" looking as the ds. it's the same if you had a lcd monitor and you didn't turn on true type or clear type, it's like that "jaggy" to me.

i'm not zoomed in or anything i read stuff at 100% font or zoom or whatever too. but yea i've already started using this things its on my night stand right next to a memo pad and pencil it's pretty awesome.

the iTouch is really 480x320 and the Jetbook is 640x480. I am not sure what you are seeing. Perhaps one does anit-aliasing better than another or uses better fonts. If you can replace the fonts you might try some others.

Dale

[Lanx]

well tbh i was just making up theoretical numbers to illustrate a point, but using your numbers i took out a ruler and the ipod is 7.5mmx5mm and the jetbook is 10.5mm x 8mm so that'd be a ratio or dpi or something like 64 to 60 respectively. So yea the ipod does have more tightly packed pixels and i'm just guessing that the render or cpu or software or whatever in the ipod touch can scale anything perfectly b/c when i zoom in from 100 to 200 there's like no difference in quality, but i notice the jaggies if i try to do that with the jetbook.

cuz stating resolution is fine, but thats just the amount of pixels stacked up, but if you add the dimensions then you'd see how tightly packed the pixels are or how small each individual pixels are.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Lanx

well tbh i was just making up theoretical numbers to illustrate a point, but using your numbers i took out a ruler and the ipod is

cuz stating resolution is fine, but thats just the amount of pixels stacked up, but if you add the dimensions then you'd see how tightly packed the pixels are or how small each individual pixels are.

7.5mmx5mm and the jetbook is 10.5mm x 8mm so that'd be a ratio or dpi or something like 64 to 60 respectively. So yea the ipod does have more tightly packed pixels and i'm just guessing that the render or cpu or software or whatever in the ipod touch can scale anything perfectly b/c when i zoom in from 100 to 200 there's like no difference in quality, but i notice the jaggies if i try to do that with the jetbook.

I am not exactly sure what you are measuring. The easiest is to measure the full screen width and divide by the total dots to get the resolution. For an E-INK 6" device (800x600) the answer is 167 ppi. I suspect yours is a bit higher than 60, that would be awfully low.

Dale

[Lanx]

I was doing a porportional ratio rather than PPi

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Lanx

I was doing a porportional ratio rather than PPi

Ok but nothing is ever stated that way and you specifically said "or dpi" which is dots per inch, does not work for metric.

Dale

[bill_mchale]

I have had an ectaco for more than a month now (and I have to sit down and do a full review of it.. but that is for another post). With respect to PDFs, the LCD screen makes full sized PDFs more practical on this device than on the eInk readers. Since there is no eInk induced delay during scrolling it is relatively easy to scan over the full document.

That being said, it doesn't currently support reflowable PDF, and there is generally about second of lag when changing pages. That being said, I generally read novels in PDF since it is relatively easy to convert HTML into custom sized PDFs and the PDF allows me to retain all of the formatting information and special characters that I would have to give up with plain ASCII.

I am really looking forward to their release of support for ePub.

--
Bill

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I am really looking forward to their release of support for ePub.

--
Bill

Yes, lack of support for popular eBook formats is clearly the biggest limitation of this device at present.

[bill_mchale]

Yeah, its not much of an obstacle for a techie like myself. I routinely download books in .lit, use tools to convert the .lit file to html and then prince and a standard style sheet to convert to pdf. And I have also written a perl script to reformat P.G. books so that the fixed line width is eliminated and so that indentations are used instead of line breaks for new paragraphs.

All that being said though, I can see most people giving up on it rather quickly.

I wish P.G. would give up on that 72 character line width requirement. Unless one is reading P.G. books in a text editor designed for programming or a web browser, it is more of a bane than a boon.

--
Bill

[Kris777]

I have no problems with format support too.
I downloaded several books in rtf format from http://www.baen.com/ and after it saved it as fb2 format (via bookdesigner) that is supported by jetBook and these books looks very nice on the screen now. I really like this unit.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I am really looking forward to their release of support for ePub.

--
Bill

Do you know websites with ebooks available in ePub format?

[bill_mchale]

At the moment, there are not too many that support ePub, but since that is what the iPod version of Stanza supports, I am sure there will be more sooner rather than later.

Also, I know that Feedbooks and Manybooks.net supports ePub.

--
Bill