Quote:
Originally Posted by Classica
I'm a reader. All I need is a device for reading; I don't care about music or pictures. ...An expansion slot is a must. ...As far as the JetBook goes, I know their screen is a no-back light LCD or something of the sort. Is it easy to read?
Bottom line:
Affordable
Portable and Lightweight
Expansion Slot
Able to use many formats
Changeable Font and Landscape Mode
Hopefully able to handle textbooks
|
With respect to the jetBook, my list was similar to yours, and I bought one.
The LCD is, IMO, better in readability than eInk in most situations. The only drawback is the need to charge it once or twice a week rather than (I have heard) once or twice a month.
It was cheap, and Ectaco has just announced a cost reduced version...coming soon.
5" readers, by their nature, are very light and portable.
It has an SD card slot. I've never experimented to see if it can handle SDHC. I have an ancient 256 Mb card in mine. It works with up to 2 Gb cards for sure.
It (along with the Astak 5") probably has the largest range of formats supported. Be warned, however, that a lot of functionality is eliminated by the jetBook's lack of working internal hyperlinks. If you need those kinds of features, you'll have to convert to pdf. The pdf viewer is quite good. Open Office will output good pdfs for the jetBook. Set the page to 3" wide x 3.78" high, with a tiny left margin, and you get a perfect fit to the screen.
You have a choice of two (2) sans-serifed fonts! Not very impressive. Fortunately, one of them is Verdana, which is very good with (actually designed for) black-and-white displays like this one.
Landscape/Portrait switching is easy. One button.
Textbook use is questionable. I'm told that not even the Kindle DX, which was intended for this, is acceptable yet.
Hope this helps,
Jack Tingle