Jetbook Review - Impressions from a first time buyer

tanglefast · 07-09-2009, 11:53 AM

First Impressions Ratings:

It’s small: Coat pocket sized. (Form factor 10/10)

It looked better than my expectations (good heft, numbered buttons on the side aren’t as garish as imagined) but it could still definitely improve (bottom right area looks like an octagonal mess, left slider bar is ribbed, not for my pleasure – clicking preferred). (Appearance 7.5/10)

I had high expectations for the display having heard many times “You have to see these Eink and this special TFT ebook to believe it,” but I was slightly disappointed. The background was not as white as I had envisioned and had a slight greenish cast to it. The fonts themselves, when inspected very closely, had a noticeable jaggedness to it. However, in bright, bright light, and from a non-perverted reading distance it looked admittedly amazing. (Display 8/10)

First few hours: Set up and understanding the quirks of the Jetbook was wholly frustrating. (

I could not for the life of me install their firmware. As a reference point, I’d say I have an above average computer skill set. I can jailbreak, handle torrents, write basic html etc…. The problem falls onto the on/off button of jetbook (which is also placed inconveniently at the bottom of the device, causing awkward fumbling). I had no idea how to put it in standby or turn it off – allegedly corresponds to the duration of holding the off button.

My process: Downloaded the firmware, “turned off” the device, then turned on with the power and the “right” button (tried the right cursor button, the right page turn button, the right page slider bar). After searching forums for half an hour I read that you have to perform a physical reset (with the pinhole). Jetbook’s website instructions said to reset the jetbook, which I assumed was turning it off and on (perhaps I only put it in standby?)

The rest of the firmware process went smoothly. I tried to put some books on the SD card and found that it would at times not read it. I realized that it was the act of me removing the SD card out (I turned it off or standby, one or the other, I don’t know) that messes with it and that a hard reset would clear up the problem.

I left the SD card in and made transfers via a usb connection but found the transfer rate unbearable. It 5x faster to use my netbook (Asus 1000he, lovely machine 9.5/10) and then install it in the Jetbook and perform the hard reset.

I read the novels and found that only the Txt format performed well on the Jetbook. Symptoms in other formats included crashing, slow loads, or poor formatting. (EDIT: after 3 crashes, RTF and epub have stopped crashing for me. Novels load after about 4 seconds, compared to 1 second for txt).

GUI and physical navigation

Folder system and drag and drop is good, but using the caliber converted files, it didn’t retain any of the meta data and the oh so beautiful and precious cover art. I was basically browsing an alphabetized list of folders, unless I want to rename all my files using their naming structure with a pound sign to indicate when the author ends and the title begins. If I did that I could sort by author or title (when sorted by title, the author is still shown prominently on top, with the title on the second line, which is a little distracting).

Clicky numbers on the side are convenient to choose items. Jumping to a page number is good, but you have no idea where you are jumping to. Would be better (not for me because I don’t have any meta data) if you could jump to letters, for example jumping to “m” authors. I also cannot book or author search by spelling it out.

Has the last 9 read books read which is very convenient.

I enjoyed the physical button for portrait/landscape mode rather than an accelerometer, which does not know when I’m lying in bed, which is often.

Navigation while reading is very good with three options of turning the page, your hand can rest in many positions. Jumping to any page in a book is easy. The page refresh is instant with no flash. The reading experience, the most important part of an ebook reader, was done right. (easy bookmarking, auto memorization of book placement, finding words was easy with T9, English and other language input methods.)

Extras

From what I heard, spoken word audio is okay, but music is not high quality.

Only two fonts to choose from, the font selection is in an unintuitive menu location and not in the same area as the font size selection.

Calibre does not recognize the SD card on the Jetbook.

I wouldn’t bother with PDFs, the screen is small and scrolling around on a zoomed page is time consuming and impractical.

Dictionary is simple and fast to use. Definitions are detailed and accurate, however, the dictionary itself could be more robust as it did not know many words. The translations dictionaries between languages is amazing and fence swinging for anyone learning English.

Battery Life seems good.

Comes with everything you need including a carrying case and a charger.

Can only read non-drm files (mostly fine with me)

Conclusion

With good looks, a beautiful display and a great reading experience the Jetbook makes me a happy first time purchaser. There was a frustrating learning curve and the product has many limitations (which some I hope will be remedied in future patches) but gets the important things right. It also sports some unique features not found in the majority of readers (no flashing or wait between turns, dictionary and translation support), which makes it a very compelling product.

Overall Rating:

7.5 but I’m sure to be revised to 8 with their next firmware upgrade (that I’ll know how to install). It’s rumoured to improve other formats readability.

rgeorg · 07-09-2009, 01:58 PM

Why did you re-install firmware right away? This is not necessary. I've never update the firmware and I probably wont until there is a significant upgrade in functionality (like new format support).

I am able to comfortably read other formats as well, notably RTF (PDF is OK when I crop out the margins and rotate the screen).

Kris777 · 07-09-2009, 03:16 PM

Yes, as I know NEWEGG sell jetBooks with newest firmware with PRC, ePub, RTF and Mobi support

tanglefast · 07-09-2009, 03:59 PM

I've had 3 crashes, 2 from rtf and 1 from epub, since I've gotten it yesterday. After those 3 crashes, I have had no more.

I did not know where to look to see which firmware was installed on the Jetbook and the reader was having problems reading curly quotes in Txt, so I assumed I did not have the lastest version since I read it processes more special characters. I may have had the lastest firmware all along.

Kris777 · 07-09-2009, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanglefast

I've had 3 crashes, 2 from rtf and 1 from epub, since I've gotten it yesterday. After those 3 crashes, I have had no more.

I did not know where to look to see which firmware was installed on the Jetbook and the reader was having problems reading curly quotes in Txt, so I assumed I did not have the lastest version since I read it processes more special characters. I may have had the lastest firmware all along.

You can check the firmware this way:
Settings->System Settings->Firmware version

Canuck_in_Japan · 07-11-2009, 06:30 PM

I installed the new firmware as well. I know mine came with the "f" version and I just bought it a few days ago. Agree that installing the firmware is hellish. It took me a little while to figure out that you needed to reset the jetbook first to turn it off. Fortunately I remembered reading somewhere in the manual that resetting would turn off the Jetbook so that's what I did. It's bloody hard holding all those buttons at once! I wish you could just go to a menu with an "Apply new Firmware" option. That's really the way it should be instead of all of this ridiculous button holding.

Not disappointed in the screen at all. It is slightly greenish but that doesn't bother me a bit.

One thing I've found is that with my Calibre formatted books, the linespacing seems to be 1.5 whereas with the books that come preinstalled on it the line spacing seems much closer. Any ideas how I could maybe change that? A setting on the Jetbook perhaps?

Also-transferring books from the computer to the Jetbook memory via USB is SLOW AS MOLASSES!! I don't know what the heck the problem is but it's ridiculous. I recommend getting an SD card and then putting that directly into your computer whenever you want to transfer books.

One question about the file management system. I don't know if this is normal or if I've screwed something up. When using the Jetbooks on board memory, selecting "Books" on the home screen will take you directly to your books and so own. But when I have my SD card inserted, clicking on books will take me to a different screen with four folders ("books", "audiobooks", "pictures", etc) Is this redundancy normal? Or did I screw up somehow when copying the information onto my SD card? I'm pretty sure there's only one layer of folders on my SD card, not two.

jgray · 07-12-2009, 01:06 AM

Speaking of jetBook firmware, I should have a second beta firmware soon for testing. I understand that there will be something really special in this new firmware. More details after I get my hands on the firmware.

rgeorg · 07-12-2009, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

I

I recommend getting an SD card and then putting that directly into your computer whenever you want to transfer books.

One question about the file management system. I don't know if this is normal or if I've screwed something up. When using the Jetbooks on board memory, selecting "Books" on the home screen will take you directly to your books and so own. But when I have my SD card inserted, clicking on books will take me to a different screen with four folders ("books", "audiobooks", "pictures", etc) Is this redundancy normal? Or did I screw up somehow when copying the information onto my SD card? I'm pretty sure there's only one layer of folders on my SD card, not two.

That's how I use the SD card (load it outside the jetBook) and then insert it. I've also had some trouble with the USB-connection unexpectedly terminating while loading the SD card via the jetBook. However, deleting books from the SD card via the jetBook menu works fine.

I turn-off the jetBook (standby) - remove the SD card - add whatever I want. Then I turn on the jetBook and insert the SD card. So far it works fine every time.

Selecting "Books" from the main menu lists all of the folders on the jetBook main memory as well as the SD card folders. The "SD" is displayed on the bottom of the screen when a card-folder is selected, so it's pretty easy to check.

Kris777 · 07-12-2009, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgeorg

I turn-off the jetBook (standby) - remove the SD card - add whatever I want. Then I turn on the jetBook and insert the SD card. So far it works fine every time.

I do the same but I don't turn jetBook off when I remove SD card and when I insert it back. jetBook recognizes all folders on SD card automatically and shows the message on the screen about update.

rgeorg · 07-16-2009, 11:59 AM

Hate to start a new thread, so I'll just list my problem here since it has to do with SD/memory - maybe?

When I turn on and attach the jetBook to the PC (Vista), it comes up as an USB device and the SD card comes up as a second device - so far so good. Then, when I delete/copy to the SD card, the device just seemed to jump out of USB-mode and into charging mode. Since I could not "Safely Remove" the hardware I just turned it off and unplugged. Worked fine to read.

I took out the SD card and used my (much faster) SD-connector and all the data was fine and I added books. They came up fine on the jetBook when I inserted it and switched it on.

Now though, with or without a SD card inserted, I can only access the jetBook internal memory very briefly (like one operation) before it logically disconnects. Seems to work fine though - in general - and I'm OK for books since I just store and organize them on the SD card - but this may be a major problem if I ever want to upgrade the firmware? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any assistance!

Kris777 · 07-16-2009, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgeorg

Hate to start a new thread, so I'll just list my problem here since it has to do with SD/memory - maybe?

When I turn on and attach the jetBook to the PC (Vista), it comes up as an USB device and the SD card comes up as a second device - so far so good. Then, when I delete/copy to the SD card, the device just seemed to jump out of USB-mode and into charging mode. Since I could not "Safely Remove" the hardware I just turned it off and unplugged. Worked fine to read.

I took out the SD card and used my (much faster) SD-connector and all the data was fine and I added books. They came up fine on the jetBook when I inserted it and switched it on.

Now though, with or without a SD card inserted, I can only access the jetBook internal memory very briefly (like one operation) before it logically disconnects. Seems to work fine though - in general - and I'm OK for books since I just store and organize them on the SD card - but this may be a major problem if I ever want to upgrade the firmware? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any assistance!

I keep all my books on SD card and usually don't use USB connections.
Did you try to reset jetBook? It may help.

tanglefast · 07-17-2009, 12:51 AM

sorry, rgeorg, i have nothing to help you with since i just use the sd card and never the internal memory, but i have solved my sd card problem.

it seems that when i pull out my SD card, when i have it on the home page, it all works okay. the problems came from leaving the screen inside a folder or just in the folder listing screen.

rgeorg · 07-17-2009, 02:30 AM

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try the reset and continue to use the SD card for books, as I usually do. I don't think it's a big deal - I'm not the type to install new firmware in any case!

Canuck_in_Japan · 07-17-2009, 07:01 PM

Your problem seems odd and I can't quite comprehend it but let me say that I also never use the USB mode because it's so damned slow and I can't see how it will effect your ability to upgrade because you can copy the firmware file to your SD card and use that to upgrade. No need to connect to USB (or have the charger on)

Kris777 · 07-17-2009, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Your problem seems odd and I can't quite comprehend it but let me say that I also never use the USB mode because it's so damned slow and I can't see how it will effect your ability to upgrade because you can copy the firmware file to your SD card and use that to upgrade. No need to connect to USB (or have the charger on)

Yes, you are correct. You don't need USB for firmware upgrade. SD card only.

07-09-2009, 11:53 AM	#1
tanglefast Technophile Posts: 7 Karma: 82 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: jetbook, ipod touch, asus 1000HE with eee-rotate	Jetbook Review - Impressions from a first time buyer First Impressions Ratings: It’s small: Coat pocket sized. (Form factor 10/10) It looked better than my expectations (good heft, numbered buttons on the side aren’t as garish as imagined) but it could still definitely improve (bottom right area looks like an octagonal mess, left slider bar is ribbed, not for my pleasure – clicking preferred). (Appearance 7.5/10) I had high expectations for the display having heard many times “You have to see these Eink and this special TFT ebook to believe it,” but I was slightly disappointed. The background was not as white as I had envisioned and had a slight greenish cast to it. The fonts themselves, when inspected very closely, had a noticeable jaggedness to it. However, in bright, bright light, and from a non-perverted reading distance it looked admittedly amazing. (Display 8/10) First few hours: Set up and understanding the quirks of the Jetbook was wholly frustrating. ( I could not for the life of me install their firmware. As a reference point, I’d say I have an above average computer skill set. I can jailbreak, handle torrents, write basic html etc…. The problem falls onto the on/off button of jetbook (which is also placed inconveniently at the bottom of the device, causing awkward fumbling). I had no idea how to put it in standby or turn it off – allegedly corresponds to the duration of holding the off button. My process: Downloaded the firmware, “turned off” the device, then turned on with the power and the “right” button (tried the right cursor button, the right page turn button, the right page slider bar). After searching forums for half an hour I read that you have to perform a physical reset (with the pinhole). Jetbook’s website instructions said to reset the jetbook, which I assumed was turning it off and on (perhaps I only put it in standby?) The rest of the firmware process went smoothly. I tried to put some books on the SD card and found that it would at times not read it. I realized that it was the act of me removing the SD card out (I turned it off or standby, one or the other, I don’t know) that messes with it and that a hard reset would clear up the problem. I left the SD card in and made transfers via a usb connection but found the transfer rate unbearable. It 5x faster to use my netbook (Asus 1000he, lovely machine 9.5/10) and then install it in the Jetbook and perform the hard reset. I read the novels and found that only the Txt format performed well on the Jetbook. Symptoms in other formats included crashing, slow loads, or poor formatting. (EDIT: after 3 crashes, RTF and epub have stopped crashing for me. Novels load after about 4 seconds, compared to 1 second for txt). GUI and physical navigation Folder system and drag and drop is good, but using the caliber converted files, it didn’t retain any of the meta data and the oh so beautiful and precious cover art. I was basically browsing an alphabetized list of folders, unless I want to rename all my files using their naming structure with a pound sign to indicate when the author ends and the title begins. If I did that I could sort by author or title (when sorted by title, the author is still shown prominently on top, with the title on the second line, which is a little distracting). Clicky numbers on the side are convenient to choose items. Jumping to a page number is good, but you have no idea where you are jumping to. Would be better (not for me because I don’t have any meta data) if you could jump to letters, for example jumping to “m” authors. I also cannot book or author search by spelling it out. Has the last 9 read books read which is very convenient. I enjoyed the physical button for portrait/landscape mode rather than an accelerometer, which does not know when I’m lying in bed, which is often. Navigation while reading is very good with three options of turning the page, your hand can rest in many positions. Jumping to any page in a book is easy. The page refresh is instant with no flash. The reading experience, the most important part of an ebook reader, was done right. (easy bookmarking, auto memorization of book placement, finding words was easy with T9, English and other language input methods.) Extras From what I heard, spoken word audio is okay, but music is not high quality. Only two fonts to choose from, the font selection is in an unintuitive menu location and not in the same area as the font size selection. Calibre does not recognize the SD card on the Jetbook. I wouldn’t bother with PDFs, the screen is small and scrolling around on a zoomed page is time consuming and impractical. Dictionary is simple and fast to use. Definitions are detailed and accurate, however, the dictionary itself could be more robust as it did not know many words. The translations dictionaries between languages is amazing and fence swinging for anyone learning English. Battery Life seems good. Comes with everything you need including a carrying case and a charger. Can only read non-drm files (mostly fine with me) Conclusion With good looks, a beautiful display and a great reading experience the Jetbook makes me a happy first time purchaser. There was a frustrating learning curve and the product has many limitations (which some I hope will be remedied in future patches) but gets the important things right. It also sports some unique features not found in the majority of readers (no flashing or wait between turns, dictionary and translation support), which makes it a very compelling product. Overall Rating: 7.5 but I’m sure to be revised to 8 with their next firmware upgrade (that I’ll know how to install). It’s rumoured to improve other formats readability. Last edited by tanglefast; 07-09-2009 at 04:04 PM. Reason: Added comment about other formats

07-12-2009, 01:06 AM	#7
jgray Fanatic Posts: 548 Karma: 2928497 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Clara 2E & Sage	jetBook Firmware Speaking of jetBook firmware, I should have a second beta firmware soon for testing. I understand that there will be something really special in this new firmware. More details after I get my hands on the firmware.

07-16-2009, 11:59 AM	#10
rgeorg Guru Posts: 675 Karma: 3314796 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Europe & USA Device: K3/3G(2x), Glo HD, Amazon Voyage	Question/problem? Hate to start a new thread, so I'll just list my problem here since it has to do with SD/memory - maybe? When I turn on and attach the jetBook to the PC (Vista), it comes up as an USB device and the SD card comes up as a second device - so far so good. Then, when I delete/copy to the SD card, the device just seemed to jump out of USB-mode and into charging mode. Since I could not "Safely Remove" the hardware I just turned it off and unplugged. Worked fine to read. I took out the SD card and used my (much faster) SD-connector and all the data was fine and I added books. They came up fine on the jetBook when I inserted it and switched it on. Now though, with or without a SD card inserted, I can only access the jetBook internal memory very briefly (like one operation) before it logically disconnects. Seems to work fine though - in general - and I'm OK for books since I just store and organize them on the SD card - but this may be a major problem if I ever want to upgrade the firmware? Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any assistance!

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07-09-2009, 01:58 PM	#2
rgeorg Guru Posts: 675 Karma: 3314796 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Europe & USA Device: K3/3G(2x), Glo HD, Amazon Voyage	Why did you re-install firmware right away? This is not necessary. I've never update the firmware and I probably wont until there is a significant upgrade in functionality (like new format support). I am able to comfortably read other formats as well, notably RTF (PDF is OK when I crop out the margins and rotate the screen).

07-09-2009, 03:16 PM	#3
Kris777 Banned Posts: 1,767 Karma: 2520493 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: Nexus 7, jetBook-Lite, jetBook mini, Toshiba Thrive, JETBOOK COLOR	Yes, as I know NEWEGG sell jetBooks with newest firmware with PRC, ePub, RTF and Mobi support

07-09-2009, 03:59 PM	#4
tanglefast Technophile Posts: 7 Karma: 82 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: jetbook, ipod touch, asus 1000HE with eee-rotate	I've had 3 crashes, 2 from rtf and 1 from epub, since I've gotten it yesterday. After those 3 crashes, I have had no more. I did not know where to look to see which firmware was installed on the Jetbook and the reader was having problems reading curly quotes in Txt, so I assumed I did not have the lastest version since I read it processes more special characters. I may have had the lastest firmware all along.

07-11-2009, 06:30 PM	#6
Canuck_in_Japan Wizard Posts: 1,475 Karma: 14328611 Join Date: May 2009 Location: Tokyo, Japan Device: Aura, Aura H2O, Kindle PW3	I installed the new firmware as well. I know mine came with the "f" version and I just bought it a few days ago. Agree that installing the firmware is hellish. It took me a little while to figure out that you needed to reset the jetbook first to turn it off. Fortunately I remembered reading somewhere in the manual that resetting would turn off the Jetbook so that's what I did. It's bloody hard holding all those buttons at once! I wish you could just go to a menu with an "Apply new Firmware" option. That's really the way it should be instead of all of this ridiculous button holding. Not disappointed in the screen at all. It is slightly greenish but that doesn't bother me a bit. One thing I've found is that with my Calibre formatted books, the linespacing seems to be 1.5 whereas with the books that come preinstalled on it the line spacing seems much closer. Any ideas how I could maybe change that? A setting on the Jetbook perhaps? Also-transferring books from the computer to the Jetbook memory via USB is SLOW AS MOLASSES!! I don't know what the heck the problem is but it's ridiculous. I recommend getting an SD card and then putting that directly into your computer whenever you want to transfer books. One question about the file management system. I don't know if this is normal or if I've screwed something up. When using the Jetbooks on board memory, selecting "Books" on the home screen will take you directly to your books and so own. But when I have my SD card inserted, clicking on books will take me to a different screen with four folders ("books", "audiobooks", "pictures", etc) Is this redundancy normal? Or did I screw up somehow when copying the information onto my SD card? I'm pretty sure there's only one layer of folders on my SD card, not two.

07-17-2009, 12:51 AM	#12
tanglefast Technophile Posts: 7 Karma: 82 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: jetbook, ipod touch, asus 1000HE with eee-rotate	sorry, rgeorg, i have nothing to help you with since i just use the sd card and never the internal memory, but i have solved my sd card problem. it seems that when i pull out my SD card, when i have it on the home page, it all works okay. the problems came from leaving the screen inside a folder or just in the folder listing screen.

07-17-2009, 02:30 AM	#13
rgeorg Guru Posts: 675 Karma: 3314796 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Europe & USA Device: K3/3G(2x), Glo HD, Amazon Voyage	Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try the reset and continue to use the SD card for books, as I usually do. I don't think it's a big deal - I'm not the type to install new firmware in any case!

07-17-2009, 07:01 PM	#14
Canuck_in_Japan Wizard Posts: 1,475 Karma: 14328611 Join Date: May 2009 Location: Tokyo, Japan Device: Aura, Aura H2O, Kindle PW3	Your problem seems odd and I can't quite comprehend it but let me say that I also never use the USB mode because it's so damned slow and I can't see how it will effect your ability to upgrade because you can copy the firmware file to your SD card and use that to upgrade. No need to connect to USB (or have the charger on)

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