I found this jetBook review very interesting:
http://332nd.org/forum/index.php?act...e;topic=4349.0
Title: Ectaco Jetbook Ebook Reader
Post by: Ghosth on May 15, 2009, 07:06:51 AM
Well a few of you have heard me talking about the new toy I was getting.
Well Malap reminded me that perhaps I should put up a review for anyone else thinking of getting one.
Well it arrived yesterday, so after some 4 hours of reading time, here are my first impressions.
First off here is a fairly helpfull review.
http://www.geardiary.com/2009/03/09/...device-review/ (
http://www.geardiary.com/2009/03/09/...device-review/)
Mine came in the exact same box, looks just like that, except its black instead of red.
It came with
A Bonus CD with more dictionarys, flashcards, and phrasebooks than you can shake a stick at.
A USB cable, standard USB to PC on one end, mini usb connects to the jetbook. Shows up in windows as a mass storage device (flashdrive, thumbdrive). This cable can also be used to charge the battery if needed.
A battery charger 110vac to mini usb port
A pair of earphone buds. (doubles as a mp3 player, think it will actually play mp3's while reading)
A nice black case for protecting your new toy. One side has a stiff shield in it, to protect the screen.
What I liked
Battery was fully charged, ready to go.
Its small, drops into a shirt pocket, with about an inch showing.
Light weight, no hand strain holding it at all.
Text is very crisp
Boots up fast
page turns are almost instantaneous, with no flash
Has a built in file manager, lets you organize, delete, etc
2 different page turning options, plus has a configurable automatic page turner as well.
Supports many different formats (Recently added Mobi, PRC, Epub, and rtf) as a firmware update.
has choice of fonts, and sizes from 12 to 32.
Has an auto shutoff, with a variety of settings.
Is simple, easy to navigate.
What I disliked
Battery not replaceable by me, sealed into the case. So if it ever needs replacing its send it back or buy a new one.
Its small (yes thats a double sided coin)
does not support .htm format
After a couple of hours of reading, experimenting with different formats. I turned it off, dropped a 512 mb sd card I have for an older camera into it, plugged it back into the PC via the usb port. Much to my surprise it opened 2 folders, one for internal memory, and one for the sd card.
I still have some experimenting to do with how well I like the different formats.
But overall at this point I am a very very happy camper.
Retails for 300$ however Newegg has them on sale right now for 199$ with free shipping.
As far as the competition is concenered, I did not look at the Rex Iliad, out of my price range.
Kindle, and Sony I looked the most closely at. Both are designed to make you buy your content from the seller. In the Kindle's case that is Amazon.com. The good news is that with a built in wireless connection that happens pretty quick. The bad news is you pay for every book you read. Also they are not designed to be easy to load books onto from your PC.
The Jet book on the other hand, doesn't have the wireless connectivity built in. But you don't have to buy your books either.
In fact it comes with a card listing 3 very good web pages where you can download books for free.
The Kindle, while considerably bigger overall, only has a slightly bigger screen.
http://freshtech.wordpress.com/2009/...ctaco-jetbook/ (
http://freshtech.wordpress.com/2009/...ctaco-jetbook/)
http://www.feedbooks.com/ (
http://www.feedbooks.com/)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page (
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page)
www.manybooks.net (
http://www.manybooks.net)
I highly recomend manybooks.net, free, you can download the book in any format you choose, and can set font, text size.
For Sci-Fi and Fantasy
http://www.baen.com/library/ (
http://www.baen.com/library/)
The Baen free library is top notch.
This was the site that set my feet on this path.
Searching here for my favorite Author (Mercedes Lackey) I ended up searching the net for a couple more books that I had
been unable to find. Much to my suprise, there are books out there to be downloaded as torrent files in whole library's.
Individual authors can take a bit more legwork. And you may have to find a converter to get it into a format you can handle.
For example I found my Mercedes Lackey source, but the vast majority were in *.lit format. Which is I believe Microsoft Ebook specific format. However a bit of research soon found me a free converter. I use the ABC Amber Lit Converter which lets me convert those files into my choice of PDF, html, hlp, rtf, chm, txt, doc, wpd, rb, pdb, fb2 formats.
Most of you know that I'm also a pirate. Grin
I am currently in the process of downloading a 23 Gigabyte library.
Under general fiction I have 2,194 books by over 100 authors.
Under Sci-fi Fantasy I have 2077 books arranged by author, and another 1500 that I have not yet sorted, removed duplicates, etc.
The Average .txt ebook seems to run less that 1,000kb, so you can pack quite a few onto a reader like the Jetbook.
Or an entire library onto a 4 gig DVD.
I have not yet started on WWII titles. I already have enough reading material to last me for many many years.
Conclusion, once I compared price, features, file types supported, and source of books there was only one decision for me.
The Jetbook won hands down. You might choose differently. But if your a reader, and tired of holding big heavy books, or paying for your reading material. You might want to give this a look. I typically spent 200$ a year on book clubs, trips to Barnes and Noble, and picked up a lot of books at the second hand store. Or, you can buy a jetbook for 200$ and have whole library's of free books at your fingertips. Partly it will depend on what you read.
Sorry this got so long, I guess I had a lot to say. And yes I'm more than a little excited.
I had read every book worth reading (in my opinion) in our high school by the 10th grade. 15 years ago I said the same for the Fargo and Moorhead public library's. Well now I'm reading my way through the Internet library's, and I don't see myself coming to an end anytime soon. In fact, I think I have enough "good stuff" to last me a couple of lifetimes.