View Single Post
Old 04-03-2008, 01:20 PM   #178
delphidb96
Wizard
delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.delphidb96 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 2,999
Karma: 300001
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Citrus Heights, California
Device: TWO Kindle 2s, one each Bookeen Cybook Gen3, Sony PRS-500, Axim X51V
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmbs View Post
They show the number of pages in the book and allow you to go to a specific page. It certainly does not say "estimated". It says go to page _ of [number of pages]. Nothing about this being anything but accurate is indicated. If you choose to go to page 50, then you assume you're on page 50. It's not at all obvious that it's "estimated." It seems pretty crystal clear to me that they're saying this is how many pages are in the book, and you can go to a specific page.

Mobipocket didn't charge me $350 for a product with multiple problems and then refuse to answer my emails. Furthermore, they absolutely have modified the code, as their version doesn't work nearly as well as the free version I have on my pc.
Mobipocket also didn't develop the reader app installed on the Cybook. That app was developed, under license from Mobipocket if I understand correctly, by Bookeen. And if you think you have a flawed product, just remember that *MY* first Cybook Gen3 was an 'engineering sample' and didn't even come with Version 1.0 build 1 of the reader app. I got Version 0.91!!!

Yes, Boo Reader is designed to implement the feature-set that Mobipocket Reader offers. But it IS a work-in-progress! Clearly it supports just a subset of MobiReader features. However, the subset offered in V1.0b538 is far and away SUPERIOR to what I first got to use!

I had NO working dictionary-lookup, NO Secure Mobipocket support, NO Go To, No ability to turn page-flashing on/off, and the list goes on and on. Bookeen has made tremendous strides in what features Boo Reader offers.

Is it as complete as MobiReader 6.x? No. Is it moving in that direction? Yes. Is it worth the $350-$450 we paid? Well, no. But then, Boo Reader is NOT the entirety of the Cybook. Nosirree, Bob! The vast majority of what we paid for is wrapped up in the hardware and the underlying OS! Believe you me, even if you go for a 'generic' e-ink device nearly exactly the same as the Cybook - but without Boo Reader - you're going to pay about $280-$325 (including shipping). And at that you'll have a device which can read TXT, HTML and *some* PDF. I've seen the "library" functions these offer and they're not even as good as what Bookeen offers in the Cybook.

Granted, buying one of these means we can get a cheaper price, but then anyone who buys one is going to have to figure out how to: 1) "upgrade" FBReader to allow reading of Secure Mobipocket and, 2) "port" FBReader to install and run on the device - or - 3) write from scratch a custom Secure Mobipocket reader for the device. This can be done. But it's going to take some time. Gosh durn! By shelling out $350-$450 a customer can get 85% of what Mobipocket Reader supplies on that same basic hardware framework.

Given that most customers are NOT going to want to have to become C++/Python/Java application and systems programmers, I think you might want to cut Bookeen some slack. But that's just my humble opinion.

Derek
delphidb96 is offline   Reply With Quote