Hip Street M701

spindlegirl · 03-06-2012, 01:37 PM

Hi,

Does anybody have experience with this device? I have googled and watched a few you tube videos about some of the book reading capabilities, but I would like to feel out some personal experience here.

I am kind of shopping around for something for my special needs daughter who turns 22 in a couple of months and lives at home. She wants an e-reader. The features I see on it look like it would be right up her alley. She has a pretty large collection of DRM-free classics and e-books from smashwords so she is mostly looking to sideload items she already has, and can get from me as well.

WiFi being absent from the device is not important, but are there any setup issues I need to be aware of? Or does it work just straight out of the box if I were to put all of her favorite books on it.

(I want to play with whatever I buy for her in advance so I can be familiar with it, as her father and I are her "tech support" to help her out when she has issues with operating it.)

I see from the specs on the storefront that it also plays videos and accepts other android apps. And if anyone can offer some experience I would appreciate it. I haven't yet bought it, so I thought I would feel out the trusty community here.

Thanks

Jim the Obscure · 11-28-2012, 10:34 PM

I live in Canada and purchased a HipStreet M701 a few days ago at Best Buy for $39.99 (Black Friday). All my books (about 300) are DRM free epubs downloaded from places like Internet Archive, ebooks@Adleaide etc and are all out of copyright. To load books onto the device you simply connect it with the (supplied) USB cable and drag and drop your downloaded ePub files to the root directory of the ereader in Windows explorer - the device shows up as a removable drive - it will show 2 removable drives if you insert an SD card. It can accept an microSD card for additional storage but comes with 4 GB which would hold thousands of books.

It has a colour screen so probably doesn't have the best battery life but I've found that it runs for a number of days on a battery charge - haven't had time to judge that fully yet. It is quite responsive at page turns etc - takes about 15 sec's to load a book. Has a list of books read recently so you don't have to go searching for what you're reading - shows, too, what page you're on in the list.

The only issues I've seen is in swiping up and down in the full list of ebooks loaded to move up and down - I sometimes hit the "delete" button when I do it on the right side (and then have to cancel out of the delete) and sometimes open an e-book when I scroll on the left side - that should be cleared up by a little practice.

I've been satisfied with the device (it's my first e-book - bought it because it was so cheap and is much better than the net-book I've been using) - so I'm, so far, happy with it. I haven't tried the other features yet but you can play videos on it as well as mp3's (also while you're reading). Mine came with Adobe Digital Editions so it should be able to handle those DRM's (I'm not up on DRM as I prefer older books - classics etc) - the website (http://www.hipstreet.com/7-high-defi...-media-player/) says DRM enabled. Don't lose the manual as there is none on the website - I downloaded a blank Word Doc at the link).

Good value for the money!

03-06-2012, 01:37 PM	#1
spindlegirl Wizard Posts: 1,594 Karma: 21245891 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra h20, Paperwhite 2017, Phone & Tablet w Moonreader	Hip Street M701 Hi, Does anybody have experience with this device? I have googled and watched a few you tube videos about some of the book reading capabilities, but I would like to feel out some personal experience here. I am kind of shopping around for something for my special needs daughter who turns 22 in a couple of months and lives at home. She wants an e-reader. The features I see on it look like it would be right up her alley. She has a pretty large collection of DRM-free classics and e-books from smashwords so she is mostly looking to sideload items she already has, and can get from me as well. WiFi being absent from the device is not important, but are there any setup issues I need to be aware of? Or does it work just straight out of the box if I were to put all of her favorite books on it. (I want to play with whatever I buy for her in advance so I can be familiar with it, as her father and I are her "tech support" to help her out when she has issues with operating it.) I see from the specs on the storefront that it also plays videos and accepts other android apps. And if anyone can offer some experience I would appreciate it. I haven't yet bought it, so I thought I would feel out the trusty community here. Thanks Last edited by spindlegirl; 03-06-2012 at 01:48 PM.

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11-28-2012, 10:34 PM	#2
Jim the Obscure Jim the Obscure Posts: 5 Karma: 180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Device: none (Calibre)	I live in Canada and purchased a HipStreet M701 a few days ago at Best Buy for $39.99 (Black Friday). All my books (about 300) are DRM free epubs downloaded from places like Internet Archive, ebooks@Adleaide etc and are all out of copyright. To load books onto the device you simply connect it with the (supplied) USB cable and drag and drop your downloaded ePub files to the root directory of the ereader in Windows explorer - the device shows up as a removable drive - it will show 2 removable drives if you insert an SD card. It can accept an microSD card for additional storage but comes with 4 GB which would hold thousands of books. It has a colour screen so probably doesn't have the best battery life but I've found that it runs for a number of days on a battery charge - haven't had time to judge that fully yet. It is quite responsive at page turns etc - takes about 15 sec's to load a book. Has a list of books read recently so you don't have to go searching for what you're reading - shows, too, what page you're on in the list. The only issues I've seen is in swiping up and down in the full list of ebooks loaded to move up and down - I sometimes hit the "delete" button when I do it on the right side (and then have to cancel out of the delete) and sometimes open an e-book when I scroll on the left side - that should be cleared up by a little practice. I've been satisfied with the device (it's my first e-book - bought it because it was so cheap and is much better than the net-book I've been using) - so I'm, so far, happy with it. I haven't tried the other features yet but you can play videos on it as well as mp3's (also while you're reading). Mine came with Adobe Digital Editions so it should be able to handle those DRM's (I'm not up on DRM as I prefer older books - classics etc) - the website (http://www.hipstreet.com/7-high-defi...-media-player/) says DRM enabled. Don't lose the manual as there is none on the website - I downloaded a blank Word Doc at the link). Good value for the money!

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