First Impressions Ratings:
It’s small: Coat pocket sized.
(Form factor 10/10)
It looked better than my expectations (good heft, numbered buttons on the side aren’t as garish as imagined) but it could still definitely improve (bottom right area looks like an octagonal mess, left slider bar is ribbed, not for my pleasure – clicking preferred).
(Appearance 7.5/10)
I had high expectations for the display having heard many times “You have to see these Eink and this special TFT ebook to believe it,” but I was slightly disappointed. The background was not as white as I had envisioned and had a slight greenish cast to it. The fonts themselves, when inspected very closely, had a noticeable jaggedness to it. However, in bright, bright light, and from a non-perverted reading distance it looked admittedly amazing.
(Display 8/10)
First few hours: Set up and understanding the quirks of the Jetbook was wholly frustrating. (
I could not for the life of me install their firmware. As a reference point, I’d say I have an above average computer skill set. I can jailbreak, handle torrents, write basic html etc…. The problem falls onto the on/off button of jetbook (which is also placed inconveniently at the bottom of the device, causing awkward fumbling). I had no idea how to put it in standby or turn it off – allegedly corresponds to the duration of holding the off button.
My process: Downloaded the firmware, “
turned off” the device, then turned on with the power and the “
right” button (tried the right cursor button, the right page turn button, the right page slider bar). After searching forums for half an hour I read that you have to perform a physical reset (with the pinhole).
Jetbook’s website instructions said to reset the jetbook, which I assumed was turning it off and on (perhaps I only put it in standby?)
The rest of the firmware process went smoothly. I tried to put some books on the SD card and found that it would at times not read it. I realized that it was the act of me removing the SD card out (I turned it off or standby, one or the other, I don’t know) that messes with it and that a hard reset would clear up the problem.
I left the SD card in and made transfers via a usb connection but found the transfer rate unbearable. It 5x faster to use my netbook (Asus 1000he, lovely machine 9.5/10) and then install it in the Jetbook and perform the hard reset.
I read the novels and found that only the Txt format performed well on the Jetbook. Symptoms in other formats included crashing, slow loads, or poor formatting.
(EDIT: after 3 crashes, RTF and epub have stopped crashing for me. Novels load after about 4 seconds, compared to 1 second for txt).
GUI and physical navigation
Folder system and drag and drop is good, but using the caliber converted files, it didn’t retain any of the meta data and the oh so beautiful and precious cover art. I was basically browsing an alphabetized list of folders, unless I want to rename all my files using their naming structure with a pound sign to indicate when the author ends and the title begins. If I did that I could sort by author or title (when sorted by title, the author is still shown prominently on top, with the title on the second line, which is a little distracting).
Clicky numbers on the side are convenient to choose items. Jumping to a page number is good, but you have no idea where you are jumping to. Would be better (not for me because I don’t have any meta data) if you could jump to letters, for example jumping to “m” authors. I also cannot book or author search by spelling it out.
Has the last 9 read books read which is very convenient.
I enjoyed the physical button for portrait/landscape mode rather than an accelerometer, which does not know when I’m lying in bed, which is often.
Navigation while reading is very good with three options of turning the page, your hand can rest in many positions. Jumping to any page in a book is easy. The page refresh is instant with no flash. The reading experience, the most important part of an ebook reader, was done right. (easy bookmarking, auto memorization of book placement, finding words was easy with T9, English and other language input methods.)
Extras
From what I heard, spoken word audio is okay, but music is not high quality.
Only two fonts to choose from, the font selection is in an unintuitive menu location and not in the same area as the font size selection.
Calibre does not recognize the SD card on the Jetbook.
I wouldn’t bother with PDFs, the screen is small and scrolling around on a zoomed page is time consuming and impractical.
Dictionary is simple and fast to use. Definitions are detailed and accurate, however, the dictionary itself could be more robust as it did not know many words. The translations dictionaries between languages is amazing and fence swinging for anyone learning English.
Battery Life seems good.
Comes with everything you need including a carrying case and a charger.
Can only read non-drm files (mostly fine with me)
Conclusion
With good looks, a beautiful display and a great reading experience the Jetbook makes me a happy first time purchaser. There was a frustrating learning curve and the product has many limitations (which some I hope will be remedied in future patches) but gets the important things right. It also sports some unique features not found in the majority of readers (no flashing or wait between turns, dictionary and translation support), which makes it a very compelling product.
Overall Rating:
7.5 but I’m sure to be revised to 8 with their next firmware upgrade (that I’ll know how to install). It’s rumoured to improve other formats readability.