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Well, I picked up my JBL from my mail service the other day, after I got back in town, and sat down last night to play with it. The resolution was a bit disappointing; it's not as good as the Astak Mentor I have (and it has a 6" screen) but it's still useable. After I figured out how to get a card to work in the machine (nowhere in the directions did it say a card has to be formatted for fat, not fat 32, which the card I was using happened to be), I loaded the PDF image book I have that has the largest pages and smallest font into the JBL. Even using it in portrait would be a dramatic improvement over the Mentor since there is a "Fit Screen" option...if the resolution was as good as the Mentor's. It's not so it is a toss up. However, in landscape, the JBL shines. Using the Fit Screen option, the book zooms itself to fit nicely across the screen with no margins showing (something the Mentor was unable to do; readability was far worse with the Mentor in landscape due to the lack of zoom). Although the contrast and resolution of the Mentor's screen is much better, the JBL's is much more readable.
Scrolling down each page is...ah...interesting. The last line of the previous screen is repeated on the next screen (in other words, the screens overlap slightly). This is a good thing because there will be no danger of winding up with half lines between screens but took a bit of getting used to. On this particular book, the last screen of a page overlaps the previous screen by 50%, a little disconcerting but I was able to adapt to that as well. When reading a real e-book, I miss the 6" screen of the Mentor.
The JBL starts much faster than the Mentor except occasionally for initial loading (then it's a tossup).
It's far too soon to tell if being able to use my own rechargeables in the JBL will be an advantage over the longer charge life of the proprietary battery in the Mentor. I do like the idea of being able to change batteries with ones I always have on hand anyway when they run low instead of having to be tethered to a power source when it happens.
As expected, the JBL is a compromise between using a reader (or tablet) with a larger screen and having a more portable unit that has potentially longer life since the batteries are easier to change and replacements (for me) are more available. The JBL fits in my purse better than the Mentor since the Mentor is a 6" reader and has a leatherette cover that opens like a book. Pity JBL doesn't offer the same. They have a leatherette cover on their website (I hear the silicone cover is a joke) but it appears to just be a sleeve and having to slip the JBL in and out would be a nuisance I do not wish to put up with so I may have to get a screen protector until I have enough time (and ambition) to make my own cover (I have some rusty leatherworking skills). A cover would be desireable for more than just screen protection since the JBL doesn't feel as well constructed as the Mentor. The JBL body feels like flimsy plastic while the Mentor has a more solid feel and a rubberizedlike (is that a word?) coating that make it easier to grip although the JBL's battery wart does assist in gripping it. A flip cover would go a long way toward making the JBL less vulnerable to accidental damage.
I'm hanging onto the Mentor to keep comparing to JBL. Also, there is always a chance Astak may come up with firmware that will give it the zoom it so sorely needs, which then would mean the competition would be over alleged longer times between charges vs. the ability to easily change batteries with non-propriety batteries. It will take a while to do this informal test since I also have (and will continue to have) a bunch of paper books to also read.
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