New Jetbook

jgray · 05-29-2009, 08:27 PM

I ordered a Jetbook from NewEgg on Monday, using the coupon code. It arrived today. I have only done a preliminary hands-on so far, but thought I'd share my initial impressions.

First, the screen. It is a non-backlit, reflective, B&W LCD. It is similar to the screen on the eBookwise 1150 that I used to have, but has four times the resolution (640x480) and no backlight. It also doesn't appear green, as the 1150 did. Although the screen does have a reasonably wide viewing angle, the background does get lighter or darker with a change in angle. This is inherent in LCD screens. It is not too critical, so I don't find it a problem when reading.

I haven't seen the Pixel Qi screen that everyone is raving about, but I would imagine that in B&W mode, it is probably similar to the Jetbook. Although I believe the Pixel Qi screen is supposed to be higher resolution.

Since I commented elsewhere about having to return a Sony PRS-505 because of lack of contrast, I'll compare it with the Jetbook. The Sony has the advantage of not being as affected by viewing angle. The Jetbook seems to have more contrast in low light (quite dim light in fact). The Sony does have a larger screen with a higher DPI, but the Jetbook seems more than adequate to me in that regard. Even at the smallest 12pt font, the Jetbook was readable if you have very good eyes. Being LCD, the Jetbook has no flashing or lag when turning pages. When opening books, there is a 1-2 second delay.

I haven't read the user's manual yet, but I was able to figure out all the controls quite easily. The page up/down slider on the left side is a bit cumbersome. I don't really see how you can hold the reader with one hand and activate the slider with your thumb without almost dropping it. Maybe I'm just not dexterous enough. The two paging buttons on the lower left work just fine without fumbling.

The Jetbook comes with several translation dictionaries and a straight English lookup dictionary. Looking up a word is fairly easy, considering the buttons-only interface. While reading a book, two button presses to get you into dictionary mode, use the arrows to highlight the word, then press OK. You can use the L/R arrows to change dictionaries when the definition or translation is on screen. I did have to change the default dictionary to English, so I didn't have to keep selecting it instead of the translation dictionaries. The English dictionary does seem to be missing some words that you would expect, however. I'll have to see whether better dictionaries can be loaded or not. The dictionaries are apparently from Lingvosoft, who specialize in translation software.

All of the sample ebooks that came preloaded are either TXT or FB2. I have yet to try my own epub, mobi or RTF ebooks. The current firmware does not support any DRM format. This is of no concern to me. There was mention on the Jetbook forum about some DRM format being supported in a future firmware.

Speaking of firmware, my Jetbook came with v0.30f firmware. I see that a newer version is available. I will be updating it later this evening.

I will have more to say after I have used the Jetbook further and tested the other ebook formats. For now, I think that it is well worth the $170 that I paid for it.

jgray · 05-29-2009, 10:16 PM

After more testing with the original v0.30f firmware, I have the following to report.

Mobi (prc), epub and RTF files are recognized.
HTML and Zip files are not.
EDIT (01 Jun 2009): LIT files are also not supported.
Folders are very nice to have.
You can delete an ebook on the reader.

In all formats:
Non TXT formats take longer to load. Up to several seconds.
Bold tags/markup did not seem to do anything at all. Italics are ok.
Centering of text/images doesn't work.
CSS markup is ignored.
Fixed indent on first line of paragraph. No way to change?
Extra blank lines are stripped.
Line spacing appears to be about 1.5
Dictionary menu option is only available on TXT and FB2 ebooks.
Hyperlinks - can't find any way to select them. Are they even active?

epub format:
A new chapter/file does not force a new page as it should.

I am disappointed that most formatting seems to be stripped from the ebook formats that support fancy formatting. The way things are displayed remind me very much of earlier versions of FBReader. I have no idea what the internal software is, but the similarity is there.

I will be trying the latest firmware later. Hopefully more of the text formatting is supported by it. As for the dictionary not supporting the recently added ebook formats, I did see a comment on the Jetbook forum promising firmware to correct this in the very near future.

jgray · 05-30-2009, 01:02 AM

I flashed the latest firmware and I can see no difference in functionality. Since no changelog is provided, I have no idea what is different with the new firmware.

I am disappointed that dictionary support for epub/mobi was not in this firmware, nor was better epub/mobi rendering. I hope that the folks at Ectaco are diligently working on firmware with the missing features. Also, adding support for HTML ebooks should be included. If the Jetbook forum postings are believable, then I have hope.

When I got into the semi-hidden diagnostic menu, I did find a few interesting things. The diagnostic menu offers quite a few tests for various parts of the hardware. The first menu is entitled "Display Info" and shows the following:

Processor ARM 920T
BogoMIPS 99.94
Mem Total 62932KB
Mem Free 56004KB
uname 2.6.16.14

The last item on the diagnostic menu is an entriguing "WiFi Test". Hmm, is this a portent of hardware to come?

So, how is my score for this reader at this point?

+ The display is very readable in dim light.
+ The buttons and interface are easy to understand and use.
+ Very small and lightweight.
+ A 5 inch screen doesn't seem noticeably smaller than a 6 inch.
+ Basic support for TXT, PDF, RTF, FB2, PRC and epub w/o DRM.
- PDF support on such a small screen is marginally useful, just as with any of the 6 inch eInk readers.
- RTF, FB2, PRC and epub do not yet support most of the formatting that they are capable of.
- The dictionary does not yet work with all formats.
- No apparent hyperlink support.

While I could wish for better firmware, I think that this is a rather nice ebook reader, especially for the price that I paid. I paid almost as much when I purchased my eBookwise 1150 a few years ago. In fact, I think a good comparison would be to call this an improved 1150 with higher resolution screen, smaller size, better battery life and support for more ebook formats.

The Sony PRS-505 that I returned certainly had much better epub support. I don't think the Sony user interface was any better or worse, just different. In some respects, the Jetbook seems to have a better arrangement of buttons at the bottom. The Sony was significantly more expensive, and for me, was not useable in dim light.

Every Jetbook problem that I have listed can be resolved with better firmware. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Edit: I can't be sure, but the new firmware seems to have decreased the line spacing a bit. It doesn't look overly large as I remember before I flashed it. I guess I should have taken a picture of the screen to compare.

wodin · 05-30-2009, 01:03 AM

I've heard that the firmware is some version of Linux. If that be the case, then your observation about FBReader may be accurate. It would also mean that upgraded firmware to newer versions of FBReader should be trivial.

We can hope!

jgray · 05-30-2009, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wodin

I've heard that the firmware is some version of Linux. If that be the case, then your observation about FBReader may be accurate. It would also mean that upgraded firmware to newer versions of FBReader should be trivial.

We can hope!

Yes, not only do they say on their forum that it is Linux, but the information I posted above (the "uname 2.6.16.14") proves that it is Linux. I am going to see if I can learn anything from the firmware image that I downloaded. I can't promise anything, but I would very much like to add fonts to this thing if I can figure it out.

jgray · 05-30-2009, 01:44 AM

One other thought that contributes to the theory that FBReader may in fact be the reader used on the Jetbook: The way pages are counted correlates with how FBReader does it. A screenful of text does not correspond to a page. Some unknown quantity that is larger than a screen constitutes a page.

If indeed FBReader is being used, then this holds great promise that a new firmware could incorporate the latest FBReader, which has some CSS support. This would give us much improved display of epub and mobi ebooks.

Of course, this is pure conjecture on my part at this point.

jgray · 05-30-2009, 03:38 AM

The epub versions of "The Prince and the Pauper" and "Websters Dictionary" posted here on MR will not open. I get a "file too big" error. Both files are around 13MB. Placing the files on internal memory or an SD card makes no difference. This begs the question, what is the size limit for epub on the Jetbook?

I don't know if this is a problem with epub or the implementation on the Jetbook. I'b be curious to know how the epub versions work on the Sony PRS-505.

The mobi version of "The Prince and the Pauper" opens and displays just fine (both large and small image versions). Obviously the mobi file is being uncompressed in smaller chunks than the epub.

The mobi version of Websters will not open because of an "unsupported compression method". Apparently the Jetbook does not support the high compression method. Not all readers support this, so it is not unique to the Jetbook. I wonder if there is any chance of getting a version of Websters that uses the standard compression method. I know it would be substantially larger, but it would be interesting to try it.

The obvious conclusion is that for very large ebooks (how large?) it is better to use the mobi version on the Jetbook. At least I have a choice of formats.

wallcraft · 05-30-2009, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgray

If indeed FBReader is being used, then this holds great promise that a new firmware could incorporate the latest FBReader, which has some CSS support. This would give us much improved display of epub and mobi ebooks.

I have been using FBReader for years, and it has always supported internal hyperlinks and images are always centered. So I don't think it is using FBReader. In fact, switching to FBReader (e.g. as used in OpenInkPot, with a number pad interface) would likely be an upgrade in capability.

JSWolf · 05-30-2009, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgray

The epub versions of "The Prince and the Pauper" and "Websters Dictionary" posted here on MR will not open. I get a "file too big" error. Both files are around 13MB. Placing the files on internal memory or an SD card makes no difference. This begs the question, what is the size limit for epub on the Jetbook?

Since ePub on the jetbook is not using Adobe's Mobile SDK since it doesn't work with an ePub known to work witht he 505, then I'd say the Jetbook is not yet ready for prime time.

rgeorg · 05-30-2009, 12:30 PM

Maybe I'm missing something critical here, but I downloaded a short epub book from a public-domain site and it opened and displayed just fine. Also, I am reading (as my first book on the jetBook) a rtf format book (about 250 pages) - and it also seems perfect.

Perhaps I'm just easier to please? I should also mention that my jetBook powers on in about 3 seconds flat - and opens right to where I was reading last (which is just what I want!). I expected to have to wait up to 1 minute for a power-on. I just press the ON/OFF button, I haven't even looked up anything about a sleep-mode. The few seconds needed to open a rtf book is only a one-time occurrence.

Your comments are probably at least a level-up on (reader display) technicality from mine - but I figured I'd provide my 2-cents worth as a "typical, non-expert" user experience. IMHO - non of the current batch of readers is what I'd term 100% ready-for-prime-time, you just have to decide what are the critical factors that you want and buy the device that handles them the best - preferably at a reasonable price!

Kris777 · 05-30-2009, 01:05 PM

I downloaded 16 free ePub books from
http://eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=1317 and all these books look nice on jetBook screen. I had no problems to open it.

wodin · 05-30-2009, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Since ePub on the jetbook is not using Adobe's Mobile SDK since it doesn't work with an ePub known to work witht he 505, then I'd say the Jetbook is not yet ready for prime time.

So don't buy one and go play in someone else's sandbox. You have had nothing but negative comments about the jetBook since they started showing up here. If you don't like them, fine! But I'm tired of hearing about it.

jgray · 05-30-2009, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I have been using FBReader for years, and it has always supported internal hyperlinks and images are always centered. So I don't think it is using FBReader. In fact, switching to FBReader (e.g. as used in OpenInkPot, with a number pad interface) would likely be an upgrade in capability.

It may not be FBReader, but whatever they are using, it resembles an early version, minus the two points you made. Yes, I would very much like to see Ectaco add the current version of FBReader to the firmware.

jgray · 05-30-2009, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgeorg

Maybe I'm missing something critical here, but I downloaded a short epub book from a public-domain site and it opened and displayed just fine. Also, I am reading (as my first book on the jetBook) a rtf format book (about 250 pages) - and it also seems perfect.

Perhaps I'm just easier to please? (snipped the rest)

My observations are not meant to be critical, but as factual as possible. This way, others can make a fully informed purchasing decision. Also, by pointing out the flaws in the current firmware, I hope to draw attention to them so that they may be fixed.

As for being easier to please, see previous paragraph. As I stated in an earlier comment, I like my Jetbook, despite what is lacking in the firmware.

Don't forget that none of the currently popular ebook readers were released in a perfect form. They all had/have their flaws, most of which can be addressed in firmware. Even the Sony 505 did not originally have epub support. And how many posts were made bemoaning that lack?

The current Jetbook firmware does open epub and mobi ebooks, which is great. It also seems to not support most of the formatting. This does not make the text unreadable. You just lose some of the niceties that these formats support and which we have come to expect. Some of these niceties add to the enjoyment of reading some books. Also, the choice of only two similar sans-serif fonts is rather limiting.

To make it perfectly clear, for the $170 price, I am satisfied with my Jetbook and will keep it. Does that mean that I don't wish for better firmware? No indeed.

jgray · 05-30-2009, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kris777

I downloaded 16 free ePub books from
http://eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=1317 and all these books look nice on jetBook screen. I had no problems to open it.

Did you try the two large epub ebooks that I specifically mentioned? Smaller epubs opened ok for me as well. There does seem to be some unknown size limit. As I stated, I would be curious to hear from a Sony 505 owner as to whether those two files open on that device.

05-29-2009, 08:27 PM	#1
jgray Fanatic Posts: 548 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	New Jetbook I ordered a Jetbook from NewEgg on Monday, using the coupon code. It arrived today. I have only done a preliminary hands-on so far, but thought I'd share my initial impressions. First, the screen. It is a non-backlit, reflective, B&W LCD. It is similar to the screen on the eBookwise 1150 that I used to have, but has four times the resolution (640x480) and no backlight. It also doesn't appear green, as the 1150 did. Although the screen does have a reasonably wide viewing angle, the background does get lighter or darker with a change in angle. This is inherent in LCD screens. It is not too critical, so I don't find it a problem when reading. I haven't seen the Pixel Qi screen that everyone is raving about, but I would imagine that in B&W mode, it is probably similar to the Jetbook. Although I believe the Pixel Qi screen is supposed to be higher resolution. Since I commented elsewhere about having to return a Sony PRS-505 because of lack of contrast, I'll compare it with the Jetbook. The Sony has the advantage of not being as affected by viewing angle. The Jetbook seems to have more contrast in low light (quite dim light in fact). The Sony does have a larger screen with a higher DPI, but the Jetbook seems more than adequate to me in that regard. Even at the smallest 12pt font, the Jetbook was readable if you have very good eyes. Being LCD, the Jetbook has no flashing or lag when turning pages. When opening books, there is a 1-2 second delay. I haven't read the user's manual yet, but I was able to figure out all the controls quite easily. The page up/down slider on the left side is a bit cumbersome. I don't really see how you can hold the reader with one hand and activate the slider with your thumb without almost dropping it. Maybe I'm just not dexterous enough. The two paging buttons on the lower left work just fine without fumbling. The Jetbook comes with several translation dictionaries and a straight English lookup dictionary. Looking up a word is fairly easy, considering the buttons-only interface. While reading a book, two button presses to get you into dictionary mode, use the arrows to highlight the word, then press OK. You can use the L/R arrows to change dictionaries when the definition or translation is on screen. I did have to change the default dictionary to English, so I didn't have to keep selecting it instead of the translation dictionaries. The English dictionary does seem to be missing some words that you would expect, however. I'll have to see whether better dictionaries can be loaded or not. The dictionaries are apparently from Lingvosoft, who specialize in translation software. All of the sample ebooks that came preloaded are either TXT or FB2. I have yet to try my own epub, mobi or RTF ebooks. The current firmware does not support any DRM format. This is of no concern to me. There was mention on the Jetbook forum about some DRM format being supported in a future firmware. Speaking of firmware, my Jetbook came with v0.30f firmware. I see that a newer version is available. I will be updating it later this evening. I will have more to say after I have used the Jetbook further and tested the other ebook formats. For now, I think that it is well worth the $170 that I paid for it. Last edited by jgray; 05-30-2009 at 01:06 AM.

05-29-2009, 10:16 PM	#2
jgray Fanatic Posts: 548 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	After more testing with the original v0.30f firmware, I have the following to report. Mobi (prc), epub and RTF files are recognized. HTML and Zip files are not. EDIT (01 Jun 2009): LIT files are also not supported. Folders are very nice to have. You can delete an ebook on the reader. In all formats: Non TXT formats take longer to load. Up to several seconds. Bold tags/markup did not seem to do anything at all. Italics are ok. Centering of text/images doesn't work. CSS markup is ignored. Fixed indent on first line of paragraph. No way to change? Extra blank lines are stripped. Line spacing appears to be about 1.5 Dictionary menu option is only available on TXT and FB2 ebooks. Hyperlinks - can't find any way to select them. Are they even active? epub format: A new chapter/file does not force a new page as it should. I am disappointed that most formatting seems to be stripped from the ebook formats that support fancy formatting. The way things are displayed remind me very much of earlier versions of FBReader. I have no idea what the internal software is, but the similarity is there. I will be trying the latest firmware later. Hopefully more of the text formatting is supported by it. As for the dictionary not supporting the recently added ebook formats, I did see a comment on the Jetbook forum promising firmware to correct this in the very near future. Last edited by jgray; 06-01-2009 at 03:10 AM.

05-30-2009, 01:02 AM	#3
jgray Fanatic Posts: 548 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	I flashed the latest firmware and I can see no difference in functionality. Since no changelog is provided, I have no idea what is different with the new firmware. I am disappointed that dictionary support for epub/mobi was not in this firmware, nor was better epub/mobi rendering. I hope that the folks at Ectaco are diligently working on firmware with the missing features. Also, adding support for HTML ebooks should be included. If the Jetbook forum postings are believable, then I have hope. When I got into the semi-hidden diagnostic menu, I did find a few interesting things. The diagnostic menu offers quite a few tests for various parts of the hardware. The first menu is entitled "Display Info" and shows the following: Processor ARM 920T BogoMIPS 99.94 Mem Total 62932KB Mem Free 56004KB uname 2.6.16.14 The last item on the diagnostic menu is an entriguing "WiFi Test". Hmm, is this a portent of hardware to come? So, how is my score for this reader at this point? + The display is very readable in dim light. + The buttons and interface are easy to understand and use. + Very small and lightweight. + A 5 inch screen doesn't seem noticeably smaller than a 6 inch. + Basic support for TXT, PDF, RTF, FB2, PRC and epub w/o DRM. - PDF support on such a small screen is marginally useful, just as with any of the 6 inch eInk readers. - RTF, FB2, PRC and epub do not yet support most of the formatting that they are capable of. - The dictionary does not yet work with all formats. - No apparent hyperlink support. While I could wish for better firmware, I think that this is a rather nice ebook reader, especially for the price that I paid. I paid almost as much when I purchased my eBookwise 1150 a few years ago. In fact, I think a good comparison would be to call this an improved 1150 with higher resolution screen, smaller size, better battery life and support for more ebook formats. The Sony PRS-505 that I returned certainly had much better epub support. I don't think the Sony user interface was any better or worse, just different. In some respects, the Jetbook seems to have a better arrangement of buttons at the bottom. The Sony was significantly more expensive, and for me, was not useable in dim light. Every Jetbook problem that I have listed can be resolved with better firmware. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Edit: I can't be sure, but the new firmware seems to have decreased the line spacing a bit. It doesn't look overly large as I remember before I flashed it. I guess I should have taken a picture of the screen to compare. Last edited by jgray; 05-30-2009 at 01:13 AM.

05-30-2009, 03:38 AM	#7
jgray Fanatic Posts: 548 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	More data The epub versions of "The Prince and the Pauper" and "Websters Dictionary" posted here on MR will not open. I get a "file too big" error. Both files are around 13MB. Placing the files on internal memory or an SD card makes no difference. This begs the question, what is the size limit for epub on the Jetbook? I don't know if this is a problem with epub or the implementation on the Jetbook. I'b be curious to know how the epub versions work on the Sony PRS-505. The mobi version of "The Prince and the Pauper" opens and displays just fine (both large and small image versions). Obviously the mobi file is being uncompressed in smaller chunks than the epub. The mobi version of Websters will not open because of an "unsupported compression method". Apparently the Jetbook does not support the high compression method. Not all readers support this, so it is not unique to the Jetbook. I wonder if there is any chance of getting a version of Websters that uses the standard compression method. I know it would be substantially larger, but it would be interesting to try it. The obvious conclusion is that for very large ebooks (how large?) it is better to use the mobi version on the Jetbook. At least I have a choice of formats.

05-30-2009, 01:05 PM	#11
Kris777 Banned Posts: 1,767 Karma: 2520493 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: Nexus 7, jetBook-Lite, jetBook mini, Toshiba Thrive, JETBOOK COLOR	I downloaded 16 free ePub books from http://eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=1317 and all these books look nice on jetBook screen. I had no problems to open it. Last edited by Kris777; 05-30-2009 at 01:33 PM.

05-30-2009, 01:03 AM	#4
wodin Illiterate Posts: 10,279 Karma: 37848716 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: The Sandwich Isles Device: Samsung Galaxy S10+, Microsoft Surface Pro	I've heard that the firmware is some version of Linux. If that be the case, then your observation about FBReader may be accurate. It would also mean that upgraded firmware to newer versions of FBReader should be trivial. We can hope!

05-30-2009, 01:44 AM	#6
jgray Fanatic Posts: 548 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	One other thought that contributes to the theory that FBReader may in fact be the reader used on the Jetbook: The way pages are counted correlates with how FBReader does it. A screenful of text does not correspond to a page. Some unknown quantity that is larger than a screen constitutes a page. If indeed FBReader is being used, then this holds great promise that a new firmware could incorporate the latest FBReader, which has some CSS support. This would give us much improved display of epub and mobi ebooks. Of course, this is pure conjecture on my part at this point.

05-30-2009, 12:30 PM	#10
rgeorg Guru Posts: 675 Karma: 3314796 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Europe & USA Device: K3/3G(2x), Glo HD, Amazon Voyage	Maybe I'm missing something critical here, but I downloaded a short epub book from a public-domain site and it opened and displayed just fine. Also, I am reading (as my first book on the jetBook) a rtf format book (about 250 pages) - and it also seems perfect. Perhaps I'm just easier to please? I should also mention that my jetBook powers on in about 3 seconds flat - and opens right to where I was reading last (which is just what I want!). I expected to have to wait up to 1 minute for a power-on. I just press the ON/OFF button, I haven't even looked up anything about a sleep-mode. The few seconds needed to open a rtf book is only a one-time occurrence. Your comments are probably at least a level-up on (reader display) technicality from mine - but I figured I'd provide my 2-cents worth as a "typical, non-expert" user experience. IMHO - non of the current batch of readers is what I'd term 100% ready-for-prime-time, you just have to decide what are the critical factors that you want and buy the device that handles them the best - preferably at a reasonable price!

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