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Egbert · 09-03-2009, 06:59 PM

I got my Pocket PRO yesterday and I just want to comment on a particular aspect of it. I bought the Pocket PRO partially on the basis that page turns will be much faster than most other ebook readers out there. To quote RobertB's blog: "The heart and soul of any eBook Reader is centered around the controller and the processor. The speed of bringing up a book and speed of turning pages... all are a matter of the controller and processor. The Pocket PRO has the new Epson high-speed controller and a 400MHz processor (about double what the competition has in most cases)." In addition, on June 8th, he also said "page turns are a matter of 1-2 tenths of a second". (The quotes link to the relevant blog posts)

Now for the reality: my unit (and I must stress that this based only on a sample of one) does not turn pages as fast as I had been led to believe. First, according to the E-book Reader Matrix on the MobileRead Wiki, it has the same exact Epson controller as the Kindle 2, which is listed as having a 0.9 second full-screen refresh rate. Second, and to me more troubling, is that it takes at least a full second before the screen starts refreshing. I have tested this under various conditions (PDFs, TXTs, and ePUBs) and this is reproducible. This only occurs when I have been on a page for 2+ seconds. When I press the page turn button less than 2 seconds after the screen has refreshed, there is no lag of that length for the next refresh. This behavior does not happen on the Kindle 2.

Do I regret buying the Pocket PRO because of this slowness? It depends on whether the "input lag" issue can/will be fixed. This is a solid e-book reader for the price point ($200) and it has a better button layout than the Sony PRS-300, which is the only other competition at that price. However, I do feel that anyone who is considering buying the Pocket PRO based on the speed of the page turns should be aware that it is not as fast as we have been initially told. I would implore Aztak (or Jinke) to release a new firmware that fixes the "input lag" issue though. Otherwise, when the price returns to $230, having an effective page turn speed of ~2 seconds would make the Pocket PRO a really hard sell.

09-03-2009, 06:59 PM	#1
Egbert Member Posts: 16 Karma: 488 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Aztak EZ Reader Pocket Pro	"Slowness" of the Pocket PRO I got my Pocket PRO yesterday and I just want to comment on a particular aspect of it. I bought the Pocket PRO partially on the basis that page turns will be much faster than most other ebook readers out there. To quote RobertB's blog: "The heart and soul of any eBook Reader is centered around the controller and the processor. The speed of bringing up a book and speed of turning pages... all are a matter of the controller and processor. The Pocket PRO has the new Epson high-speed controller and a 400MHz processor (about double what the competition has in most cases)." In addition, on June 8th, he also said "page turns are a matter of 1-2 tenths of a second". (The quotes link to the relevant blog posts) Now for the reality: my unit (and I must stress that this based only on a sample of one) does not turn pages as fast as I had been led to believe. First, according to the E-book Reader Matrix on the MobileRead Wiki, it has the same exact Epson controller as the Kindle 2, which is listed as having a 0.9 second full-screen refresh rate. Second, and to me more troubling, is that it takes at least a full second before the screen starts refreshing. I have tested this under various conditions (PDFs, TXTs, and ePUBs) and this is reproducible. This only occurs when I have been on a page for 2+ seconds. When I press the page turn button less than 2 seconds after the screen has refreshed, there is no lag of that length for the next refresh. This behavior does not happen on the Kindle 2. Do I regret buying the Pocket PRO because of this slowness? It depends on whether the "input lag" issue can/will be fixed. This is a solid e-book reader for the price point ($200) and it has a better button layout than the Sony PRS-300, which is the only other competition at that price. However, I do feel that anyone who is considering buying the Pocket PRO based on the speed of the page turns should be aware that it is not as fast as we have been initially told. I would implore Aztak (or Jinke) to release a new firmware that fixes the "input lag" issue though. Otherwise, when the price returns to $230, having an effective page turn speed of ~2 seconds would make the Pocket PRO a really hard sell. Last edited by Egbert; 09-03-2009 at 07:07 PM.