MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Fictionwise: eSlick Reader for $259 with $100 for eBooks

sc3 · 12-22-2009, 01:33 PM

I bought the Foxit Eslick through this offer from Fictionwise and have been using it for 2 days. $259 + $11.80 S&H, with $104 in Micropay credits + additional 15% credit for Buywise Club large purchase (I think that included 15% credit on the S&H fee also!). The Eslick nicely reads all of my Ereader DRM PDB books on the SD card (used a card reader to put them there) and supports folders there also (which I have heard neither Kindle nor Nook do). Entering the name and credit card number are tedious procedures, but fortunately that only needs to be done once. Menu options for PDB books are Go To (page number), Font Size (12, 18, 24, 30, 36 pixels), Bookmark (go to chapter headings in book), and Landscape. The e-ink display is very clear, and page turning speed is ~1sec with the usual annoying flicker, which one gets used to quickly. It keeps your place in the last 10 books opened. A 4MB book took about 17 sec. to load (this book has lots of pictures, which don't look as good in Eslick's 4-level grayscale as they do on the Tungsten T5); 676k about 6 sec., 294k 3sec (2 sec next time if reopening to go back to where you were reading). You can also read PDBs and PDFs in landscape mode.

I also loaded some technical 2-column PDF files from journals onto the SD card, and they are quite legible, depending on the zoomed size (Fit page, Fit content, fit content width, fit content height, 150%, 200%, 400%, 800%). For the larger sizes, you need to scroll around the page to read it all. If you turn on Reflow mode, the text is reformatted to fill the screen, with occasional spaces incorrectly deleted between words, and line breaks in odd places. Now you can choose the font size (12-36 pixels) instead of the zoomed size. The four-way navigation button (for turning pages and scrolling up and down menus), with center selection button, works fine. The center selection button brings up a shortcut menu with Go to page, Landscape, Reflow, and Return. The + or - buttons on the right can also be used to change either zoom size or font size. Four buttons on the left for Music, Menu, Return, and Delete. I haven't tried the ePub or MP3 files yet.

Windows XP Sp2 doesn't recognize the Eslick as a USB device, but my card reader works fine and is probably faster. I can read books while charging from the USB wall charger. Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase-- great price for an Eink reader for secure Ereader books and technical PDF files.

12-22-2009, 01:33 PM	#25
sc3 Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2009 Device: Foxit Eslick, Palm Tungsten T5	I bought the Foxit Eslick through this offer from Fictionwise and have been using it for 2 days. $259 + $11.80 S&H, with $104 in Micropay credits + additional 15% credit for Buywise Club large purchase (I think that included 15% credit on the S&H fee also!). The Eslick nicely reads all of my Ereader DRM PDB books on the SD card (used a card reader to put them there) and supports folders there also (which I have heard neither Kindle nor Nook do). Entering the name and credit card number are tedious procedures, but fortunately that only needs to be done once. Menu options for PDB books are Go To (page number), Font Size (12, 18, 24, 30, 36 pixels), Bookmark (go to chapter headings in book), and Landscape. The e-ink display is very clear, and page turning speed is ~1sec with the usual annoying flicker, which one gets used to quickly. It keeps your place in the last 10 books opened. A 4MB book took about 17 sec. to load (this book has lots of pictures, which don't look as good in Eslick's 4-level grayscale as they do on the Tungsten T5); 676k about 6 sec., 294k 3sec (2 sec next time if reopening to go back to where you were reading). You can also read PDBs and PDFs in landscape mode. I also loaded some technical 2-column PDF files from journals onto the SD card, and they are quite legible, depending on the zoomed size (Fit page, Fit content, fit content width, fit content height, 150%, 200%, 400%, 800%). For the larger sizes, you need to scroll around the page to read it all. If you turn on Reflow mode, the text is reformatted to fill the screen, with occasional spaces incorrectly deleted between words, and line breaks in odd places. Now you can choose the font size (12-36 pixels) instead of the zoomed size. The four-way navigation button (for turning pages and scrolling up and down menus), with center selection button, works fine. The center selection button brings up a shortcut menu with Go to page, Landscape, Reflow, and Return. The + or - buttons on the right can also be used to change either zoom size or font size. Four buttons on the left for Music, Menu, Return, and Delete. I haven't tried the ePub or MP3 files yet. Windows XP Sp2 doesn't recognize the Eslick as a USB device, but my card reader works fine and is probably faster. I can read books while charging from the USB wall charger. Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase-- great price for an Eink reader for secure Ereader books and technical PDF files.