OK so after a couple of days with it...
Bugs I have had to do one hard reset on the first day/ half hour (I was ready to nerd rage I can tell you!) of getting it, it wouldn't start and just had the last page showing. I think this was my fault pushing the buttons too quickly. Been fine since.
Every so often (once per 100 pages or so I suppose) you push the next page button, it flickers but doesn't change page...just push it again. Not a biggy for me.
Power It charges quickly even using a USB to mini USB cable from the PC. I have done over 5 hours of reading, going on and off often (maybe 25 odd times) and the battery indicator has just gone to half way. 2 of 4 bars. I'll try and resist charging it and give an idea until run down.
I don't know how other readers work but it seems to go into sleep mode after each pages (cos the page image stays without power) and wakes up when you push a button.
Comfort As I said in my first post it weighs next to nothing. It also feels good in the hand (I don't have huge hands for a guy), the buttons easy to activate... the few there are
Reading the screen is great, but I have no other eReader to compare it too only laptops/phones/monitors. Even in the brightest light it is clear and easy to read. Even a crappy scan I have was easily readable at 8 point size. The 'zoom to fit content' works really well, I picked up a PDF from Baen to test and it was really small, but readable, font. Zoom to content was great.
Reflow is
OK, once again I have nothing to compare it to, but I have landscape PDFs (with 3 columns... which it refuses to let me view in landscape grrrrr..greyed out option) and portrait PDFs (2 cols). They come out OK. There are pictures and stuff in them but they just get ignored I think. You get some split lines like:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog becomes:
The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog. rather than:
The quick brown fox jumps over the
lazy dog.The quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy dog.
Some empty lines also appear. Certainly usable, my files are full of images so not the best for reflow I guess. You can choose font size (I use 8) for the reflow, but I prefer to modify my files with PDFCropper first.
Speed: It 'boots' up in about 10 seconds. PDFs are generally loaded in a quicker time 3 to 5 secs (even my 800+ page ones); often less. A page turn can take anything from less than a second to 2 secs, although the occasional turn takes 5 seconds or so. The menu appearing takes a second or two as well, and there is a definite 'lag' on button inputs and what happens on the screen... takes some getting used to. I dunno if this is the norm but I calmed down after realising that whatever I am doing (turning a page, finding something in the bookmarks, etc) is still quicker than a physical book, unless I niow that book inside out. It is really slow to transfer files using the USB cable, so I take out the SD card (max size 4GB) and transfer it plugged in my PC... However I do the same with every device like that I can (phone, camera, MP3 player etc), my PC is a quad core overclocked to over 4Gz so the CPU in the device is always going to be a bottleneck!
Other Well I can't think of much else to say. It is a REALLY simple device. It reads PDFs. Some work is required on the PDF to get the best out of it, but it
is still fine just reading raw PDFs. It plays MP3s but apart from that the menu is amazingly lacking in options.... I have no problem with any of this because I use other tech [s]toys[/s] tools to do the other things I want. I can do a bit of work getting the PDFs exactly as I want them and I have a great, and cheap, source of reading material.
Overall I am happy with it, I would like it to be faster... but then I want my PC to be faster as well!
Hope this helps anyone thinking about the eSlick.
EDIT: A frimware update already, that is what I like to see! (I know it would be better if there were no bugs but we are in the real world here! If it was a PC game the patch would be out before the game LOL)
Quote:
This update includes performance enhancements and minor bug fixes listed below.
Bug Fixes
*
Cannot save the last viewing settings on a document when the power is turned off.
* The slow speed when rendering txt files.
* Some of the MP3 files are displayed twice in category “Music”.
* Cannot refresh the list of the “Music” category when inserting the SD card again.
* The error message “File corrupted” shows up randomly after it shows up for the real error file for the first time.
* Power leak after full charging and the USB cable is still connected.
Foxit strongly receommends that you update your firmware even if you have not experienced the problem that the eSlick device while in standby mode begins draining the battery after being fully charged (usually after 5 hours of continuous charging).
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