Originally Posted by delphidb96
I've now had the Cybook Gen3 for just one week. And I'm beginning to like it. Notice I said 'beginning'. I've owned a Sony PRS-500 for over a month now and for the first few days the Cybook was here, I didn't really care for it.
Don't get me wrong, the new Visplex eInk display is, to my eye, much sharper and noticeably more contrasty than the older eInk display found on the PRS-500. But Sony's device seemed somehow... more polished... more finished.
And it finally 'clicked' in my mind what the problem was with the Cybook. It's too danged LIGHT! That's right, my PRS-500 is heavier than the Cybook and even more so when I put the PRS-500 into it's softcover case. And, subconsciously, I felt the Cybook was 'flimsier' than the PRS-500 as a result.
So what happened to change my mind? I dropped the Cybook. I was attempting to pull it out of the cargo pocket in my trousers when I bumped my arm and let go. It promptly fell three feet to the hard, linoleum floor in the kitchen. The Cybook was on at the time - I'm tending to just leave it on during the day - and my first thought was "Ohmygod! I broke it!". Then I flipped it over so I could see the screen and there was my ebook, right at the page I left it. Still, I couldn't help wondering if maybe it had frozen there upon impact. Crossing my fingers, I paged forward. It changed to the next page! I called up the contextual menu and returned to the Library, and it did as I commanded! Finally, taking a deep, deep breath, I turned it off and then, after waiting a minute, turned it back on...
Hooray! It came right back up! This happened two days ago and I've been using it ever since.
Now I wouldn't recommend anyone go around dropping a $300+ ebook reader, but I'm now completely satisfied with the hardware.
As for the software, I like what I can do, but I must point out that I can't really do as much as I want to because I don't have the most recent firmware updates. Those come this next week. Considering what will be added by then, I don't believe it would be fair to Bookeen for me to make serious criticisms of what is, essentially, 'beta' software.
Still, there are some things I'd like to see in upcoming updates.
1. ability to use the SD card - this has been promised soon.
2. ability to open pdb files - should be working soon.
3. ability to 'Go To' a specific page - or First and Last - promised soon.
4. softcover - we'll have it when it's ready, but I worry about scratching the display - and as clumsy as I am, dropping it again.
5. some sort of user's manual.
6. a better way to group ebooks, say into folders. I believe work is being done on this.
7. support for FBReader ebook files. Again, I believe this is being worked on.
8. support for PDF. (Okay, maybe not. I find it's not all that difficult for me to use Adobe Acrobat Pro to extract everything and re-format into Mobipocket.)
9. battery-level indicator inside the ebooks!!! This is a must-have!
10. removable/modifyable headers and footers. Coming, just not in my beta release.
11. toolkit CD which contains the latest version of BookDesigner and an instruction guide for using it to port over to Mobipocket. This is, IMO, another must-have! Many people are going to buy these who don't already know about BD or where to get it and they aren't going to be all that interested in going through forum support groups to find copies. I'm sure there will be other goodies which can be tossed onto the CD as well.
12. let's just leave it at that, because I'm sure the list will change, shrink or maybe grow, after the next firmware update.
Still, I'm finding that I like the Cybook.
I have mastered BookDesigner to the point where I can make a pretty good conversion of text, html and rtf ebooks into the Mobipocket format. And I've found that the Mobipocket format versions of Baen's Webscriptions ebooks work great on the Cybook. I haven't yet purchased an ebook in Mobipocket format from either Mobipocket or Fictionwise. I'm about to do so. I'll tell you how it went, later.
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