For to Buy?

[sfrey]

Hello, before I start, this is the place to post questions about the BeBook, right?

I just returned my Cybook planning to return it for a Bebook (as advised here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=37502&page=4). My purposes are to read scientific papers, because I am a student. Cybook's A4 PDF support was actually satisfactory, working on 95% of files, even old scanned A4 sheets, once you got the hang of it. However, it crashed on PDFs, TXT and HTML a lot, had no folder support and I wasn't confident that there were going to be regular firmware updates. I was attracted to Bebook's wide variety of supported formats and regular firmware updates, but, after just today getting my refund processed on the Cybook, I was really bummed out to find the following:
http://mybebook.com/forum/viewtopic....5&p=3200#p3200
Only 3 zoom levels, compared to Cybook's 10 levels (not including rotation vs landscape modes). So now I'm kicking myself, and not sure if I should go through with it and buy the Bebook. I won't be reading any mobi or ebooks at all. I will read only TXT, HTML and (mostly) scanned PDFs.

So the questions:
1) Should I take a leap of faith that better PDF support is imminent?
2) Being that OpenInkPot seems well-supported on this reader, does it have the flexibility I need for scanned A4s to be readable (keeping in mind that I was satisfied with the performance of another small-format reader) (Also keeping in mind that I'm comfortable with all the trials and tribs common to opensource OSs). In other words, does Openinkpot's firmware have zoom/rotate flexibility comparable to that of the Cybook?

If the answers don't come back right, I'll have to decide between reordering the Cybook (with faith that a firmware update will come and be satisfactory) or waiting and lurking to see which reader accidentally comes out with great old PDF support.

Oh, and for those folks who sigh regretfully and say "well, small readers just weren't made for PDF" my answer is that the current inadequacy of small readers for (possibly scanned) A4 pages has nothing to do with the hardware. Some combination of flexible zoom and rotation (which rests entirely in the firmware) will make it practical, and I came really close to a good experience with the Cybook.

[wallcraft]

With scanned PDFs, it is often a good idea to pre-process them for a 6" device. PDFread is one program that does this.

Open Inkpot has just introduced a basic PDF reader. I don't use PDFs much, and I had a hard time working out how it works. However, its options look promising - see the attached scan of the screen showing its setup menu.

If you post a copyright free scanned PDF I can try it on my EZ Reader and show you what it looks like under Hanlin and Open Inkpot firmware. However, I am not sure I am using the Open Inkpot PDF reader optimally.

There probably are new devices in the pipeline from multiple vendors using the Epson controller and 16 grey shades. The Sony PRS-700 (8 gray shades) and the Kindle 2 are the 1st two devices using this controller. The reason I bring this up is that it is much faster for partial screen updates and will probably be partnered with faster processors. I'm not sure this will help for PDFs, but most of the software development is probably now going into these new devices.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by sfrey

2) Being that OpenInkPot seems well-supported on this reader, does it have the flexibility I need for scanned A4s to be readable (keeping in mind that I was satisfied with the performance of another small-format reader) (Also keeping in mind that I'm comfortable with all the trials and tribs common to opensource OSs). In other words, does Openinkpot's firmware have zoom/rotate flexibility comparable to that of the Cybook?

You will probably get a better answer to this question on the OpenInkPot forum on this site as the developers DO monitor that forum. Short answer is that the current snapshot of OpenInkPot does do zoom and pan on PDF. Also, IMHO, the current snapshot of OpenInkPot is more stable on the BeBook(Hanlin) than the factory firmware is.