MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Astak Mentor eBook readers with WiFi and Touchscreen (read-only)

pkovak · 11-19-2008, 03:54 PM

I have several questions for you, Robertb, I am not sure if you have answered some of them already, because I really haven't read all 73 pages on this, extremely popular, threat, only some of it, so I am sorry if I am asking what you answered ten times already:

First I must say I am great believer in "real world" design and testing, so my questions may be bit strange, but I think they are useful.

1) I have noticed that "Mentor's" operation temperature is between 32°~104°F (or 0°~40°C in SI). What happens when the temperature is higher or lower? Let's say I want to read while I am traveling to work, and it's winter, -10°C. What dangers I face? Sure, batteries have lower capacity in low temperatures, I don't know if this is main problem. What about the surface of the device, will it be easier to damage (scratch, more fragile, etc)?

2) Temperature again, but this time I am on summer holiday on the beach

and because it's completely boring, I take out my books - means Mentor. What dangers it faces?

3) Speaking about beach, there is another aspect: how resistant it is to damage? Sand and dirt is everywhere. Water too. Paper books don't like water, but often can survive the experience. Imagine you are holding your Mentor and entering bus, suddenly someone turn and knocks your e-book out of your hand by accident, you are fortunate to pick it up before someone steps on it, but what are you holding, 400$ e-book or 400$ former e-book, now 0$ smashed hardware?

4) I have seen Illiad e-book have touchscreen too, but in the review I read it only works with packed in stylus. Does your touchscreen work with other things? Like fingers (with fingerprints all over the book as a result)?

5) Extremely important for me: I live in Czech Republic, Europe, will Mentor be available in Europe too? When? Under what name?

6) Are there any detailed views of the device? With pinpointed buttons and their functions? This could be really useful for both your potentional customers here and you, as with such detailed view, you can get very detailed responce from people here who have real life experience with existing devices and know what they would change on them to make them better. This views don't have to be photos, basic diagram is maybe even better as it is very clear and easy to read. You started really good way with the community, keep it up and get a headstart from your competition

7) From what I have seen in the manual (took me a while to find it), 6'' EZ Reader has at least 12 buttons just on the front side. I have seen an youtube review and I must say, even though the reviewer thought using EZ Reader is easy, it didn't seemed that way from the number of buttons pressed. I understand that basic functions like page turning are easy, yes.
Now, finally, to the question... with touchscreen technology, is it possible to use display keyboard / complete alphabet? And use it for page jumping, document searching, book names searching, etc? Certainly I haven't seen that much buttons on the web page http://www.astak.com/97Ebook_Reader.html , but it isn't detailed and black buttons on black device are hard to notice...

Now that was long, but fortunately it's over! Hope for your reply.

11-19-2008, 03:54 PM	#1094
pkovak Connoisseur Posts: 60 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Earth Device: none	I have several questions for you, Robertb, I am not sure if you have answered some of them already, because I really haven't read all 73 pages on this, extremely popular, threat, only some of it, so I am sorry if I am asking what you answered ten times already: First I must say I am great believer in "real world" design and testing, so my questions may be bit strange, but I think they are useful. 1) I have noticed that "Mentor's" operation temperature is between 32°~104°F (or 0°~40°C in SI). What happens when the temperature is higher or lower? Let's say I want to read while I am traveling to work, and it's winter, -10°C. What dangers I face? Sure, batteries have lower capacity in low temperatures, I don't know if this is main problem. What about the surface of the device, will it be easier to damage (scratch, more fragile, etc)? 2) Temperature again, but this time I am on summer holiday on the beach and because it's completely boring, I take out my books - means Mentor. What dangers it faces? 3) Speaking about beach, there is another aspect: how resistant it is to damage? Sand and dirt is everywhere. Water too. Paper books don't like water, but often can survive the experience. Imagine you are holding your Mentor and entering bus, suddenly someone turn and knocks your e-book out of your hand by accident, you are fortunate to pick it up before someone steps on it, but what are you holding, 400$ e-book or 400$ former e-book, now 0$ smashed hardware? 4) I have seen Illiad e-book have touchscreen too, but in the review I read it only works with packed in stylus. Does your touchscreen work with other things? Like fingers (with fingerprints all over the book as a result)? 5) Extremely important for me: I live in Czech Republic, Europe, will Mentor be available in Europe too? When? Under what name? 6) Are there any detailed views of the device? With pinpointed buttons and their functions? This could be really useful for both your potentional customers here and you, as with such detailed view, you can get very detailed responce from people here who have real life experience with existing devices and know what they would change on them to make them better. This views don't have to be photos, basic diagram is maybe even better as it is very clear and easy to read. You started really good way with the community, keep it up and get a headstart from your competition 7) From what I have seen in the manual (took me a while to find it), 6'' EZ Reader has at least 12 buttons just on the front side. I have seen an youtube review and I must say, even though the reviewer thought using EZ Reader is easy, it didn't seemed that way from the number of buttons pressed. I understand that basic functions like page turning are easy, yes. Now, finally, to the question... with touchscreen technology, is it possible to use display keyboard / complete alphabet? And use it for page jumping, document searching, book names searching, etc? Certainly I haven't seen that much buttons on the web page http://www.astak.com/97Ebook_Reader.html , but it isn't detailed and black buttons on black device are hard to notice... Now that was long, but fortunately it's over! Hope for your reply.