[doremifaso]

When I first got my PB360 over the weekend, I was pretty excited about it, so I installed and downloaded everything I could find:
- downgraded firmware to 14.2 to make sure it's stable
- installed fbreader180 v0.92 and modified extension.cfg file to use fbreader as the default reader
- installed hack Adobe reader to use custom fonts
- installed asian fonts, new themes, and new apps
- downloaded Weber and Oxford dictionary
- downloaded Wikitravel and Wikipedia epub files
- created logos for the power-on/off screens

There are lots to love about PB360:
- very light and portable
- the snap-on cover is very convenient
- key mapping is great
- fbreader let user to customize book format, which is invaluable
- display is very crisp and clear, even sharper than my PRS-505

BUT!! The main thing that I really need is not working properly. I have a collection of Chinese books, which I want to read on PB360. I heard that PB360 supports a lot of languages including Chinese, that's why I brought it. After testing it for a while, I found there are so many bugs on how the system handle Chinese that makes it unusable for me.

First, I tried to open the Chinese epub in fbreader. I found that the text are running off on the right edge. It seems that fbreader interpret the whole sentence as one word. Even turning on/off hyphenation doesn't work. Then, I tried Adobe Reader. The original version doesn't show Chinese words at all. So, after fiddling with the hacked Adobe Reader, I finally can read Chinese with it. I thought that's the last of my problem, but there are more to come.

I have one directory where I have more than 100 files in it. These files have Chinese title and author names. I was able to browse through the first 100 items in the book list, but when I go to the next page to show the 101th and the rest of the item, the device freezes. I have to do a soft reset. This happens not just once, but every single time. Also, the book list and table of contents doesn't show the Chinese text correctly. Some have extra spaces and some have overlap words.

If those are the only problems, I would have coped with it, but the system is too unstable to cope with. All the Chinese books I have are in epub format. They are all working fine with my PRS-505, so I expect them to work on PB360 as well. However, I got a lot of crashing and rebooting opening/reading those files. Some files won't open at all; when PB360 tries to open it, it freezes. I was able to open some other files, but after reading a few pages, it suddenly jumps back to the book list page.

I love PB360. I really do. I was even thinking of buying the 90x when it comes out. I think PB360 would be my perfect ebook reader if I only use it for English or other European languages. But with so many bugs and instability with Chinese, I am not so sure anymore.

I suspect the system doesn't support Asian language very well. I guess no one has ever tested it with Asian language and just assumes it works. Pocketbook really should hire someone to test out the device with other languages to make sure they work.

Would Pocketbook make any effort in improving the support for other languages? How long do I have to wait? Since most of the PB's customer are in Europe/US, I don't think they would make much effort on this front. Right now, I am leaning toward returning the device, because I can't justify myself buying a $200+ device that doesn't meet my expectation. Please tell me otherwise.