JetBook or Libre... what's the Practical Diff Anyway?

[Ken Maltby]

I wonder why you wouldn't have it better in AUS, than we have it in USA? Most
electronics get built in China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore; most of which are
closer to you. I have often read of consumer products available in Asia long before,
if ever available, in the US.

Luck;
Ken

[GA Russell]

Does Australia have taxes placed at the wholesale level? We don't in the US. I believe that is why Canadian prices are higher than American prices.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Nakor

Could be duties involved too. Though I would hardly be shocked to learn that price gouging was involved.

Well from my readings on customs and imports, if the product (non biological) is imported into Australia for resale, there is a 5% fee, then there is the 10% GST.

So working off the $149.99US retail price, converted to Australian dollars is about $165.00AUS. Add 5% takes the total to around $173.00AUS. Add GST and you are looking at $190.00AUS, leaving there a $20.00AUS difference. So, in the off chance that products are shipped from the US at retail prices instead of the factory in China or Taiwan at cost, surely it does not cost $20.00 per item to ship to Aus in bulk. It would cost more that $20 for shipping if you sent each item individually, but then that defeats the purpose of having an Australian sales office.

Surely a batch of units could be sent directly from the factory to the Australian office, thus removing all US taxes and import duties, add on our Australian taxes, and the price of the unit would be fairly comparable.

[doug38]

I just got the Libre (though I tried jetBook last year). I have several questions, but the most important is about the ON/OFF power button. I hold the power button for five seconds (as close as I can come to that exact time) and there is a display, but when I release the button the screen goes blank again. It sometimes takes me more than one or even two minutes to release the button at the right millisecond so that the display remains and the unit stays on. When I keep trying by pushing the power button for longer, or by pushing it again briefly, I'm afraid I'm setting it into Standby. I want to avoid draining the battery by having it in Standby when I don't need it in Standby. What to do?

One posting, above, mentions the Search function, but all I see is the 'Jump to' function allows no _tex_t search, right?

Finally, I prefer Mobipocket's "scroll" feature to Libre's Auto Turn Page and want to install it on the Libre. Is it possible? Will it corrupt Libre's existing software or functions?

[Nakor]

AFAIK on the current Libre firmware there is no way to turn it off completely. (Save perhaps via use of the reset button? Not sure on this, and really wouldn't want to use it constantly anyway.)

"Find" doesn't appear for all formats. Off the top of my head I know it works in TXT and does not work in ePub.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by doug38

...I hold the power button for five seconds...

Doug, I have a jetBook Lite. It sounds to me like you are pressing the power button way too long. Just press it for one second. Then wait a couple of seconds for the screen to appear.

As I understand it, the jetBook Lite (and probably the Libre) is never off (unless the batteries are removed). The two options are ON and SLEEP.