Cybook Gen3 e-reader in September 2007 for $350

[HarryT]

Hadn't checked that - thanks! I know, however, that the £:€ rate has been pretty constant, whereas the £:$ rate has gone from something like £1 = $1.60 to £1 = $2 in the last year or so.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

You won't be seeing *native* .LIT support. That's because .LIT requires the *highly-proprietary* litgen.dll in order to display the contents of the .LIT file. Yes, litgen.dll *is* used both in the creation and display of a .LIT file. Now ConvertLit does extract the contents of a .LIT file to HTML, but it doesn't do display.

I should have said OEB, rather than LIT, since ConvertLIT explodes .LIT to OEB (HTML with a .opf manifest). However, once we allow (automatic) conversion on a PC many formats are potentially supported.

[Adam B.]

Linux, Vizplex, Mobipocket.

I may have to get one of these for reading...

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by rjnagle

will it read .epub format out of the box?

It won't.

Hibernate mode is a good question: that's a fantastic feature on the reader, no booting time at all.

[Steve P]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is MobiPocket format like eReader format in that it has line spaces between paragraphs? I hope I'm wrong, because if not, that's going to make for one heck of an annoying read.

That depends on the publisher, and how they write their HTML. If you want to play with it yourself, you can download MobiPocket eBook Reader for your PC, and MobiPocket eBook Creator on this page:
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/Downloa...sp?Language=EN

Yes, you can import DOC, RTF, and TXT files into Creator, but before it can create the MobiPocket PRC file it has to first convert them to HTML, so that's the true basis for MobiPocket files. The default is to put spaces between paragraphs, and I prefer it myself, but you can write the HTML code so that there are no spaces between them.

Steve P

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

It supports PDF, HTML, RTF, TXT and Mobipocket. However, everything is in the details - for example does RTF reflow nicely and can the font size be changed on the device. We will have to wait for a hands on review to find out. HTML is also promising, because Plucker, .FB2, .LIT and .EPUB are all HTML-like.

Plucker, FB2, LIT, and ePub are nOT HTML and not close enough. So sorry, HTML support will NOT read them.

The questions are will the RTF reader display graphics and allow links/bookmarks? Will the PDF reader allow pan and zoom or is it as useless as it is on the Sony Reader for most PDF?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Steve P

That depends on the publisher, and how they write their HTML. If you want to play with it yourself, you can download MobiPocket eBook Reader for your PC, and MobiPocket eBook Creator on this page:
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/Downloa...sp?Language=EN

Yes, you can import DOC, RTF, and TXT files into Creator, but before it can create the MobiPocket PRC file it has to first convert them to HTML, so that's the true basis for MobiPocket files. The default is to put spaces between paragraphs, and I prefer it myself, but you can write the HTML code so that there are no spaces between them.

Steve P

Yes, I think most commercial MobiPocket books have the line space since MobiPocket was originally for PDA type devices which have much smaller screens. I wish they'd create a version of MobiPocket that allows you to get rid of the line spacing. On a larger device such as the iLiad or Gen3, it's going to be rather annoying.

MobiPocket, ARE you listening?

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes, I think most commercial MobiPocket books have the line space since MobiPocket was originally for PDA type devices which have much smaller screens. I wish they'd create a version of MobiPocket that allows you to get rid of the line spacing. On a larger device such as the iLiad or Gen3, it's going to be rather annoying.

MobiPocket, ARE you listening?

I don't link blank lines either: doesn't look like a real book.
What we need is indenting instead of blank lines.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

I don't link blank lines either: doesn't look like a real book.
What we need is indenting instead of blank lines.

It's ok if you are reading on a small screen, but the new e-ink screen are alltoo large to be classed as small and what worked on a PDA no longer works.

[kleykenb]

Originally Posted by TadW

Well, you cannot blame Bookeen for the current strong EUR. But I agree, it would be nice if they went down with the price in EUR to avoid arbitrage (people buying in USD and selling in EUR).

350Euro/$ is the price exclusive VAT, no doubt.
Not sure how that will reflect to the full price in all the different countries around the world so I hope someone has a better understanding of all these things, Im very interested in any views on the possible nonsense that follows :-)
From my little experience in this area I think that :
1) People in France will have to add VAT to that price but they will pay little for shipping and no importing rights.
2) People elsewhere will pay extra for shipping and importing rights
3) people living in the EC will benefit from the Schengen deal, those outside will not.
Ironically I think those that will be worst off will be those outside EC and outside the VS, they might not even get access to the device because it's really not all that high-tech a device and therefor pricepoint is definately important.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kleykenb

From my little experience in this area I think that :
1) People in France will have to add VAT to that price but they will pay little for shipping and no importing rights.
2) People elsewhere will pay extra for shipping and importing rights
3) people living in the EC will benefit from the Schengen deal, those outside will not.
Ironically I think those that will be worst off will be those outside EC and outside the VS, they might not even get access to the device because it's really not all that high-tech a device and therefor pricepoint is definately important.

That's not entirely correct. If you are selling a product within the European Union, you have to charge your own local VAT rate to all customers within the EU. Everyone in the EU will, therefore, be charged the French VAT rate of 19.6% (but will not have to pay any import duty). Customers outside the EU will not be charged VAT, but will have to pay the appropriate local taxes when they take delivery of the product.

Whether you are "better" or "worse" off being outside the EU therefore depends on whether your local taxes are higher or lower than the French VAT rate of 19.6%.

[fireproof]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Could you explain what you mean by a "yearly subscription"? Subscription for what?

I'm pretty certain that they simply mean that they'll sell the old CyBook in the same way they sold the old one, as a number of different "packages" with or without leather cover, spare charger, memory card, or whatever.

I hope you're right -- by "subscription" I meant a book-club like fee that would be required to get the reader hardware at a reduced price. For example, sign up for a one year, $6/mo club subscription and you'll get the reader for $350, but without the subscription its $450 (or whatever). I'd be much more inclined to purchase a device at that price WITHOUT a subscription.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fireproof

I hope you're right -- by "subscription" I meant a book-club like fee that would be required to get the reader hardware at a reduced price. For example, sign up for a one year, $6/mo club subscription and you'll get the reader for $350, but without the subscription its $450 (or whatever). I'd be much more inclined to purchase a device at that price WITHOUT a subscription.

I've never heard of an arrangement like that! I very much doubt that will be the case. Bookeen have already announced that the CyBook will be available in "basic" and "deluxe" packages - the latter including a charger and a leather cover.

[andym]

You can find an interview with Michael and Laurent the 'Bookeen' guys here

It's in French of course but even if you don't speak it, you might find it worth looking at for the (unfortunately brief) demo of the screen. It does seem to change pages pretty quickly, at the press of a button.

The price is 350 euros TTC ie including VAT. So $350 give or take. It willl be sold direct from the Bookeen site, though they have distributers ib Spaion and italy.

No support for pdfs to start with but the interview seemed to suggest that it is in the pipeline. I wasn't quite sure whether this is because they are trying to find a way to get the text to reflow. (I'd be happy with pocketXpdf for the minute!).

Oh and it will support zipped/compressed files.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by andym

You can find an interview with Michael and Laurent the 'Bookeen' guys here

It's in French of course but even if you don't speak it, you might find it worth looking at for the (unfortunately brief) demo of the screen. It does seem to change pages pretty quickly, at the press of a button.

The price is 350 euros TTC ie including VAT. So $350 give or take. It willl be sold direct from the Bookeen site, though they have distributers ib Spaion and italy.

No support for pdfs to start with but the interview seemed to suggest that it is in the pipeline. I wasn't quite sure whether this is because they are trying to find a way to get the text to reflow. (I'd be happy with pocketXpdf for the minute!).

Oh and it will support zipped/compressed files.

The refresh time is impressive indeed. This is pretty old (1 month old) though, they're still talking about a July release in this video. Now that the release is in September, they get some extra time to tweak up the software and maybe add a few features (PDF support for example). Last time I tried a Mobipocket file on the iLiad, the typesetting wasn't any good, I hope it'll be better on this device (it was maybe related to the file itself and not Mobipocket support on the device).

It's a shame that Mobipocket can't provide a mobigen for linux, if they really want to extend the support for their format, such an app is desperately needed.