The positive
This new version is quite good.
The upgrade went smooth and as long as I know it happen the same with all the people who upgrade until now… something that was quite different with the last version, who has “bricked” quite some people machines.
The overall impression is very positive: zero crashes and reboots, the reader is faster and more responsive and the loosing of keys pressed zero (I had almost none with the last upgrade too).
PDF
It works.
Now it reads every PDF I have thrown in… I have even tested with a full PDF colour 130 pages magazine 42 Megs in size and the little devil did open it.
But… it was completely useless, taking a regular 1.5 minutes to open and to turn pages.
My experience is: the more complex the file, the slower is the machine… meaning here complex: colour and complicated formatted PDFs.
Text/image PDF files run fast (not so fast as Mobipocket/txt/html ones, but very close), and even when they are a little slow to open, after that they turn the pages quite fast.
Single image files /scanned PDFs are slower to turn pages… but still acceptable.
The negative
This was not the road I wanted.
Zooming PDF files is not the solution… Ok one can read some files… hell read quite some files… but for me is not the answer.
I have stated before in “ePub and Pdf that can reflow - I want it all and I want it now!” (
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26916) that I think a much better answer is the road taken by Sony for it’s 505 reader = reflowing text PDF’s.
I think the perfect solution would be both, good zooming “a la Cybook” and reflowing “a la Sony”, and the user would choose what was more comfortable for him(her) in each situation.
Finally
I’m pretty pleased that this solution contemplates both version of the Cybook (64 and 512 Megs), and who knows this is one reason why the flowing of PDF’s was not chosen. Maybe someone with inside information can comment on this.
Also PDF’s are now quite acceptable… and I bet evolution in this field for the 6” Cybook will stop here… pity I say… but it’s much better then it was in the last version when 8 out of 10 PDF’s would not open or crashed the machine.
Hell… if this will be so… I can always go out and buy a Sony…
I would love to not come to that! I like my Cybook and it answers my needs - it has paid itself several times this 7 months I have it.
Now the “the left out question”: nothing is said about ePUB for the next firmware… so, Bookeen are you considering it? Or our reader is not going to offer that option?
Best regards,
PS: very curious to what will be the Mobipocket improvements in the next firmware…