MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Astak Mentor Lite 6"

Tom2112 · 12-14-2009, 07:23 PM

Well, I just bought an Astak Mentor Lite 6" for my sister. (Don't tell her, it's a surprise!) And it arrived in the mail today. I've had it for all of about 3 hours so far, and I've only had an hour or so to monkey with it.

I purchased it through buy.com, and it was a good price: $230 plus $15 shipping and handling. The package arrived without incident, and I was impressed with how well they packed the Mentor's box inside another box with a bunch of packing foam. So kudos to buy.com.

I pulled the unit out of the packing materials, and the consumer box it was in was stylishly designed. It was lighter than I expected. I popped it open and pulled out the Mentor. The mentor was securely packed within the box and protected with a heavy foam pad over the screen. It was also inside a plastic pouch. While it isn't waterproof, I will have no anxiety shipping this to my sister overseas.

Finally:
I got a black Mentor simply because I didn't like the look of the white and I figured white would show its age quicker in the long term. The Mentor was surprisingly thin. You don't really think about how thin 0.35 inches is, but it's thinner than my iPhone. It was also very light. I don't know what I was expecting - as this is my first dedicated ereader - but maybe I was expecting a big battery and extra weight and size from it.

The Mentor has a nice satin finish to it. I would have liked a glossier finish for bling-factor, but I know the satin will hold up better, give better tactile grip when holding the device, and it will fade into the background while I'm reading. So that was a good choice, Astak.

The black Mentor is nice looking, and has several buttons (seven) around the outer edge of the device. They are all cryptically labeled with unintelligible icons - except the power button which is obvious. I was shocked to learn that the "Off" notification on the screen was NOT printed on the plastic sheet of screen protector. And as soon as I pressed the power button the device booted. It booted relatively quickly, though I think it should be quicker. But then again, we all want things quicker no matter how fast they are. The boot time was not excessive by any stretch.

Once the device booted, I started playing around with it. The interface isn't complicated, but it will take a minute or two to figure out. The one thing that really puzzled me was that you could scroll down through the ebooks already on the device by hitting the down directional button, but it did not scroll to the next page after the bottom item. You have to hit the right button to go to the next page. While I suppose that makes sense from a book perspective, it doesn't make sense from a computer perspective.

The device isn't nearly as responsive as my iPhone, but it wasn't terribly slow either. I opened up one of the included ebooks and paged through it. I was completely impressed with the e-ink screen. It looks fabulous! Sure the black could be a touch blacker, but the contrast was excellent and the text was easier to read than a lot of papaerback novels I have lying around.

I thought the screen flashing between each page turn was bizarre until I found out that it is the nature of the e-ink screen to do that. The page turns weren't lightning fast, but were very acceptable - probably about the same amount of time as I would normally take turning a page in a print book.

I found the interface to be a bit klunky at first. I guess I'm just used to using Stanza on my iPhone. But after a few minutes I was navigating with ease.

The menus are a bit cryptic, and I wish the device were more configurable - but I'm a techie - I wish everything was more configurable.

I only ran into one real problem. I loaded a large (13 Mb) .RTF file onto the device and tried to read it. The device never opened the file. It sat for several minutes - I even left, went to the restroom and came back and the device still hadn't started the file. I tried navigating away, but all the buttons were unresponsive - even the power button. So I clicked the reset button on the back with the tip of a pen, and the device immediately rebooted. I didn't try that file again. I grabbed a couple other files and they all worked fine.

I did notice that the device does not support .LIT files. That's disappointing as I have a ton of them. It's not a deal-breaker though, since I can convert them to epubs if I take the time.

I should mention that the device came with a nice faux-leather carrying case. The case fits the device nicely, but the front flap doesn't close quite right. I think the magnets are misaligned, and you have to close it "just right" to get it to stay closed. Other than that, the case is nice. I don't think I would want to read too much with it in that case, but I'm sure my sister will appreciate it since she will probably throw the device in her cavernous purse.

Overall, I'm impressed with the Mentor 6" and if I didn't always have an iPhone in my pocket, I would probably buy one of these for myself. As it is, I will definitely take advantage of the device and use it to read on the plane trip to go deliver it to my sister.

Feel free to ask questions, if you have any. I will have the device for a few weeks before I give it to my sister.

12-14-2009, 07:23 PM	#1
Tom2112 Tablet eReader Posts: 45 Karma: 12620 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Western PA Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab 7, iPad, Dell Streak 7, Moto RAZR MAXX	Astak Mentor Lite 6" - First Impressions Well, I just bought an Astak Mentor Lite 6" for my sister. (Don't tell her, it's a surprise!) And it arrived in the mail today. I've had it for all of about 3 hours so far, and I've only had an hour or so to monkey with it. I purchased it through buy.com, and it was a good price: $230 plus $15 shipping and handling. The package arrived without incident, and I was impressed with how well they packed the Mentor's box inside another box with a bunch of packing foam. So kudos to buy.com. I pulled the unit out of the packing materials, and the consumer box it was in was stylishly designed. It was lighter than I expected. I popped it open and pulled out the Mentor. The mentor was securely packed within the box and protected with a heavy foam pad over the screen. It was also inside a plastic pouch. While it isn't waterproof, I will have no anxiety shipping this to my sister overseas. Finally: I got a black Mentor simply because I didn't like the look of the white and I figured white would show its age quicker in the long term. The Mentor was surprisingly thin. You don't really think about how thin 0.35 inches is, but it's thinner than my iPhone. It was also very light. I don't know what I was expecting - as this is my first dedicated ereader - but maybe I was expecting a big battery and extra weight and size from it. The Mentor has a nice satin finish to it. I would have liked a glossier finish for bling-factor, but I know the satin will hold up better, give better tactile grip when holding the device, and it will fade into the background while I'm reading. So that was a good choice, Astak. The black Mentor is nice looking, and has several buttons (seven) around the outer edge of the device. They are all cryptically labeled with unintelligible icons - except the power button which is obvious. I was shocked to learn that the "Off" notification on the screen was NOT printed on the plastic sheet of screen protector. And as soon as I pressed the power button the device booted. It booted relatively quickly, though I think it should be quicker. But then again, we all want things quicker no matter how fast they are. The boot time was not excessive by any stretch. Once the device booted, I started playing around with it. The interface isn't complicated, but it will take a minute or two to figure out. The one thing that really puzzled me was that you could scroll down through the ebooks already on the device by hitting the down directional button, but it did not scroll to the next page after the bottom item. You have to hit the right button to go to the next page. While I suppose that makes sense from a book perspective, it doesn't make sense from a computer perspective. The device isn't nearly as responsive as my iPhone, but it wasn't terribly slow either. I opened up one of the included ebooks and paged through it. I was completely impressed with the e-ink screen. It looks fabulous! Sure the black could be a touch blacker, but the contrast was excellent and the text was easier to read than a lot of papaerback novels I have lying around. I thought the screen flashing between each page turn was bizarre until I found out that it is the nature of the e-ink screen to do that. The page turns weren't lightning fast, but were very acceptable - probably about the same amount of time as I would normally take turning a page in a print book. I found the interface to be a bit klunky at first. I guess I'm just used to using Stanza on my iPhone. But after a few minutes I was navigating with ease. The menus are a bit cryptic, and I wish the device were more configurable - but I'm a techie - I wish everything was more configurable. I only ran into one real problem. I loaded a large (13 Mb) .RTF file onto the device and tried to read it. The device never opened the file. It sat for several minutes - I even left, went to the restroom and came back and the device still hadn't started the file. I tried navigating away, but all the buttons were unresponsive - even the power button. So I clicked the reset button on the back with the tip of a pen, and the device immediately rebooted. I didn't try that file again. I grabbed a couple other files and they all worked fine. I did notice that the device does not support .LIT files. That's disappointing as I have a ton of them. It's not a deal-breaker though, since I can convert them to epubs if I take the time. I should mention that the device came with a nice faux-leather carrying case. The case fits the device nicely, but the front flap doesn't close quite right. I think the magnets are misaligned, and you have to close it "just right" to get it to stay closed. Other than that, the case is nice. I don't think I would want to read too much with it in that case, but I'm sure my sister will appreciate it since she will probably throw the device in her cavernous purse. Overall, I'm impressed with the Mentor 6" and if I didn't always have an iPhone in my pocket, I would probably buy one of these for myself. As it is, I will definitely take advantage of the device and use it to read on the plane trip to go deliver it to my sister. Feel free to ask questions, if you have any. I will have the device for a few weeks before I give it to my sister.