Bebook versus Sony PRS-505 - Page 4

pox67 · 04-14-2009, 06:35 PM

Yep, that new screen/old screen picture shows what I see on my Bebook. The Sony PRS-505 looked like the new screen and my Bebook looks like the old screen.

AlfonsVH · 04-14-2009, 07:56 PM

Hm.. I asked Peter from BeBook about the "new" screen, and he told me that they've been using "version 2" of Vizplex for a long time, and that the whiteness of the screen differs per batch and depending on the software. He dismisses the claim by lBook as nonsense.

pox67 · 04-28-2009, 06:58 PM

Just got to vent before I go nuts.

The Bebook is crashing a lot now. When the reader comes across a character it doesn't like it crashes out to the book select screen.
The only way to get over that point in the book is to skip a page. That is not ideal. What I have resorted to doing is reading the page on either my home computer or work computer.
Last night I got one of these pages and the Bebook crashed. So I read the page on the computer before work so I could continue reading my book on the commute to work. Fucking BAM, 2 pages in to the book on the train and it does it again. I nearly smashed the thing to pieces right there.

I can under no circumstances recommend a Bebook.

Does the Lbook or EZReader do this with Mobi files?

carandol · 04-28-2009, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pox67

Just got to vent before I go nuts.

The Bebook is crashing a lot now. When the reader comes across a character it doesn't like it crashes out to the book select screen.
The only way to get over that point in the book is to skip a page. That is not ideal. What I have resorted to doing is reading the page on either my home computer or work computer.
Last night I got one of these pages and the Bebook crashed. So I read the page on the computer before work so I could continue reading my book on the commute to work. Fucking BAM, 2 pages in to the book on the train and it does it again. I nearly smashed the thing to pieces right there.

I can under no circumstances recommend a Bebook.

Does the Lbook or EZReader do this with Mobi files?

I've had this problem with a few (three, I think) mobipocket books on my Bebook. I've tried running the Hanlin and the LBook software and the result is the same -- there are obviously a few characters or formatting glitches that the software really doesn't like. It's annoying, but I've read scores of mobipocket books on my Bebook, and so far only those few have misbehaved.

I did find with those books that the OpenInkpot software coped with them OK. It's still at an early stage, and has other annoying problems, but if there's a book you're really wanting to read, it might be worth having the "live" version installed on your SD card so you can switch to it if necessary.

pox67 · 04-28-2009, 08:37 PM

This always seems to happen at least 1/3 of the way in to a book. If it happened in the first chapter I would more than likely just skip it.

I'll try the OI version soon. I lent my small SD card to a mate on a camping trip as he forgot the one for his camera.

I am going to actively try and sell my Bebook now. I'll get a Sony PRS-505 unless something new is released.

Dave_S · 04-29-2009, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carandol

it might be worth having the "live" version installed on your SD card so you can switch to it if necessary.

The "live" version of OI is also not stable on the BeBook. The installed version of OI is very stable (never crashed yet for me), and is the only version I read with on my BeBook. I keep testing every new version of the Jinke/Hanlin firmware, but the crashing problems remain. It appears that Jinke/Hanlin are just doing feature creep development without paying any attention to the core problem of their OS stability.

cvkemp · 04-29-2009, 09:02 AM

I guess it is just me and the way I use my EZ reader but I have tried all of the firmware and the only one that has crashed on me with the orginal EZ reader firmware. The BeBook firmware is been stable for me. I am now using the hanlin firmware from April and it is much improved from all of the other firmware that I have tried. The formating of mobi and pdf is much improved and no crashes.

Dave_S · 04-29-2009, 09:10 AM

I tried the April update as well, but I only read FB2 and EPUB. Both of those look pretty bad with the factory firmware compared to OI's FBreader. There are extraneous spaces inside of words that are just really irritating. After seeing that, I did not wait around for the inevitable crash of the factory firmware, and just reinstalled OI immediately. If they had properly fixed the kernel, I am pretty sure they would have made some mention of it somewhere????

cvkemp · 04-29-2009, 09:28 AM

Maybe that is the difference I do not have any FB2 or EPUB books. The formatting of the mobi and pdfs are the best of any firmware that I have tried and that includes OI.
I am not say you are wrong it is just the difference in the way we format our books. And I do format my own mobi and pdfs and make sure they fit the reader display.

DaleDe · 04-29-2009, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_S

I tried the April update as well, but I only read FB2 and EPUB. Both of those look pretty bad with the factory firmware compared to OI's FBreader. There are extraneous spaces inside of words that are just really irritating. After seeing that, I did not wait around for the inevitable crash of the factory firmware, and just reinstalled OI immediately. If they had properly fixed the kernel, I am pretty sure they would have made some mention of it somewhere????

The extraneous spaces are caused by the justification algorithm. It is annoying. I will be explaining this to Jinke today. The spaces are caused by things like ' and " and a few other characters being considered as legal places to insert a space. Of course this is not the case. They also have a terrible algorithm for hyphenation. I don't think it is for English.

Dale

Dave_S · 04-29-2009, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The extraneous spaces are caused by the justification algorithm. It is annoying. I will be explaining this to Jinke today. The spaces are caused by things like ' and " and a few other characters being considered as legal places to insert a space. Of course this is not the case. They also have a terrible algorithm for hyphenation. I don't think it is for English.

Dale

Thank you very much for the explanation, Dale!!!

I am sure that the native language of the Jinke developers is not English or any other alphabetic language, so I can respect that they may have a difficult time developing for those kinds of languages. I sure would not want to try developing software to be used in the Chinese language!

pox67 · 04-29-2009, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

The extraneous spaces are caused by the justification algorithm. It is annoying. I will be explaining this to Jinke today. The spaces are caused by things like ' and " and a few other characters being considered as legal places to insert a space. Of course this is not the case. They also have a terrible algorithm for hyphenation. I don't think it is for English.

Dale

I have just recently noticed this.

I used Calibre to convert the book I was complaining about a few posts above from MOBI to EPUB. Now the book doesn't crash and the strange character shows up as a square.

So I can have crashy with good formatting or REALLY ugly and no crashes...so far I am going with ugly and no crashes. Not an ideal situation though

Xachariah · 05-01-2009, 10:35 AM

I cannot reccomend Open Inkpot enough for the Bebook. It's endlessly customizable, has a longer battery life, is faster than the original firmware for screen updates and actually more stable. I've never had my Bebook crash on me before. In fact, the only difficulty I have ever experianced with the Bebook running the Open Inkpot firmware is that it can sometimes tend to move around the book as it doesn't have the ability to lock the screen. You can find yourself a few pages ahead or backwards. I get around it by bookmarking before stowing the book and using the 'Bookmark Added' screen as a lock. OI pretty much has an advantage over the original firmware in almost every respect. Clock on it's never in sync though.

I mainly convert all my ebooks to Mobipocket format by dragging the .html/.doc/.pdf/.rtf file into Mobipocket Reader, then using Mobi2Mobi GUI to change the book titles to my own system (I use a number of different sources for ebooks). Never had a book do anything besides show me words.

pepak · 06-23-2009, 03:39 AM

Since Borders cancelled my order of the $200 Sony Reader, I am considering buying a Hanlin V3 instead. Does anyone have any recent ideas about how V3 compares to PRS-505? The original poster's comments were very useful in this aspect, but still, they have been made some time ago and perhaps some of the issues vere fixed in between?

Also, having had a longer experience with V3 - is there anything particularly annoying in it when compared to PRS-505? I don't know, inability to bookmark pages, frequent crashes, stuff like that?

pox67 · 06-23-2009, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pepak

Since Borders cancelled my order of the $200 Sony Reader, I am considering buying a Hanlin V3 instead. Does anyone have any recent ideas about how V3 compares to PRS-505? The original poster's comments were very useful in this aspect, but still, they have been made some time ago and perhaps some of the issues vere fixed in between?

Also, having had a longer experience with V3 - is there anything particularly annoying in it when compared to PRS-505? I don't know, inability to bookmark pages, frequent crashes, stuff like that?

Issues? Yes still after all this time and a few firmware updates. I still regret buying a Bebook and not paying the extra money for a Sony

My top 3 issues:
1. Memory corruption: this happens frequently and requires you to plug the Bebook in to a computer and run a disk repair/chkdsk on the internal memory. Carry a USB cable with as I often need to do this at work or accessible computer. Symptoms are: bookmarks not working and crashes.
2. Mobi format issue:Crashing and restarting when the device hits a character it doesn't know/doesn't like. This doesn't happen that often but when it does it is impossible to get past in short of reading that page on a computer and skipping on the Bebook or converting the book to something else - .lit is ugly but works. There is no other way around this as that page cannot be displayed.
3. Some batches of the Bebook have a dodgy screen that is never truly white or black. Mine is like this

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04-14-2009, 06:35 PM	#46
pox67 Connoisseur Posts: 52 Karma: 12 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Australia Device: Sony PRS-505 (stolen), Bebook	Yep, that new screen/old screen picture shows what I see on my Bebook. The Sony PRS-505 looked like the new screen and my Bebook looks like the old screen.

04-14-2009, 07:56 PM	#47
AlfonsVH Addict Posts: 253 Karma: 2113226 Join Date: Jun 2008 Device: BeBook Neo	Hm.. I asked Peter from BeBook about the "new" screen, and he told me that they've been using "version 2" of Vizplex for a long time, and that the whiteness of the screen differs per batch and depending on the software. He dismisses the claim by lBook as nonsense.

04-28-2009, 06:58 PM	#48
pox67 Connoisseur Posts: 52 Karma: 12 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Australia Device: Sony PRS-505 (stolen), Bebook	Just got to vent before I go nuts. The Bebook is crashing a lot now. When the reader comes across a character it doesn't like it crashes out to the book select screen. The only way to get over that point in the book is to skip a page. That is not ideal. What I have resorted to doing is reading the page on either my home computer or work computer. Last night I got one of these pages and the Bebook crashed. So I read the page on the computer before work so I could continue reading my book on the commute to work. Fucking BAM, 2 pages in to the book on the train and it does it again. I nearly smashed the thing to pieces right there. I can under no circumstances recommend a Bebook. Does the Lbook or EZReader do this with Mobi files?

04-28-2009, 08:37 PM	#50
pox67 Connoisseur Posts: 52 Karma: 12 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Australia Device: Sony PRS-505 (stolen), Bebook	This always seems to happen at least 1/3 of the way in to a book. If it happened in the first chapter I would more than likely just skip it. I'll try the OI version soon. I lent my small SD card to a mate on a camping trip as he forgot the one for his camera. I am going to actively try and sell my Bebook now. I'll get a Sony PRS-505 unless something new is released.

04-29-2009, 09:02 AM	#52
cvkemp Loving life Posts: 1,412 Karma: 7991496 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Device: PaperWhite 5,iPhone 13, IPad, MacBook Air	I guess it is just me and the way I use my EZ reader but I have tried all of the firmware and the only one that has crashed on me with the orginal EZ reader firmware. The BeBook firmware is been stable for me. I am now using the hanlin firmware from April and it is much improved from all of the other firmware that I have tried. The formating of mobi and pdf is much improved and no crashes.

04-29-2009, 09:10 AM	#53
Dave_S What Title ? Posts: 1,325 Karma: 1856232 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Bavaria Germany Device: Sony Experia Z Ultra	I tried the April update as well, but I only read FB2 and EPUB. Both of those look pretty bad with the factory firmware compared to OI's FBreader. There are extraneous spaces inside of words that are just really irritating. After seeing that, I did not wait around for the inevitable crash of the factory firmware, and just reinstalled OI immediately. If they had properly fixed the kernel, I am pretty sure they would have made some mention of it somewhere????

04-29-2009, 09:28 AM	#54
cvkemp Loving life Posts: 1,412 Karma: 7991496 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Device: PaperWhite 5,iPhone 13, IPad, MacBook Air	Maybe that is the difference I do not have any FB2 or EPUB books. The formatting of the mobi and pdfs are the best of any firmware that I have tried and that includes OI. I am not say you are wrong it is just the difference in the way we format our books. And I do format my own mobi and pdfs and make sure they fit the reader display.

05-01-2009, 10:35 AM	#58
Xachariah Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 30256 Join Date: May 2009 Device: Bebook	I cannot reccomend Open Inkpot enough for the Bebook. It's endlessly customizable, has a longer battery life, is faster than the original firmware for screen updates and actually more stable. I've never had my Bebook crash on me before. In fact, the only difficulty I have ever experianced with the Bebook running the Open Inkpot firmware is that it can sometimes tend to move around the book as it doesn't have the ability to lock the screen. You can find yourself a few pages ahead or backwards. I get around it by bookmarking before stowing the book and using the 'Bookmark Added' screen as a lock. OI pretty much has an advantage over the original firmware in almost every respect. Clock on it's never in sync though. I mainly convert all my ebooks to Mobipocket format by dragging the .html/.doc/.pdf/.rtf file into Mobipocket Reader, then using Mobi2Mobi GUI to change the book titles to my own system (I use a number of different sources for ebooks). Never had a book do anything besides show me words.

06-23-2009, 03:39 AM	#59
pepak Guru Posts: 610 Karma: 4150 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: Sony Reader PRS-T3, Kobo Libra H2O	Since Borders cancelled my order of the $200 Sony Reader, I am considering buying a Hanlin V3 instead. Does anyone have any recent ideas about how V3 compares to PRS-505? The original poster's comments were very useful in this aspect, but still, they have been made some time ago and perhaps some of the issues vere fixed in between? Also, having had a longer experience with V3 - is there anything particularly annoying in it when compared to PRS-505? I don't know, inability to bookmark pages, frequent crashes, stuff like that?

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