MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - New PW3 arrived: Comparing it to Nook Simple Touch

haertig · 10-10-2017, 08:28 PM

The PW3 was not registered to my account yet because I couldn't get it to connect to my router's WiFi. Everything else in the house connects just fine. And I tried disconnecting, then reconnecting my Fire HD8 and that worked fine. However, the PW3 refused to connect. So my initial post here was with an unregistered Kindle. Not because I wanted that, but because it wouldn't connect.

Eventually, after several tries, it finally connected just now as I try it again. So I am now registered. Nothing changed here WiFi-wise or network-wise. The entire time, both during my earlier attempts and my successful connection just now, the PW3 has been about three feet from the router. Not a signal strength issue.

Anyway, I am finally connected and registered. And I see that I am allowed to create collections and add books to them now. The PW3 did warn that my collections would not be synced to the cloud due to side-loaded books. That's fine.

The PW3 did forget the place I was in the book, and lost the bookmarks I had set up somewhere during the connection/registration process. No problem there, as I was just playing around and not setting real bookmarks. I can set bookmarks again, so I'm sure this was just some minor "who cares?" issue when the PW3 did it's syncing up to Amazon servers.

Next I downloaded a book from my Amazon library. Book downloaded to 89% then PW3 lost it's connection. Still three feet from the router, and PW3 was showing full signal bars prior to dropping. Router has been rock stable for years. No other devices every drop or fail to connect. This will warrant some close watching - maybe I got a bad PW3. I was able to reconnect and the book finished downloading. This second normally downloaded book allows me to change text justification. The original side-loaded one still does not.

[ This second book I added looks much better that the first book did (when fully justified). Just a difference in word lengths I guess. First book that doesn't look so good is "Spartan Gold" by Cussler. Second book is "Riptide" by Preston/Child. Although, Riptide looks good page after page, and Spartan Gold looks not-as-good page after page. So that tends to point to something other than random word length, but I can't say for sure. ]

So I side-loaded another book, "The Final Day" by Forstchen. This one looks good fully justified as well, but would not allow left justification when I attempted that. So it appeared that side-loading a book may disable being able to change justification. As a further test, I stripped the DRM off of that same Riptide book mentioned above and side-loaded it onto the PW3 as opposed to downloading it as I did the first time. And the side-loaded version would not allow changing text justification. So this looks like it proves things: side-loading disables changes to text justification. It was the same file in both cases (albeit minus DRM and side-loaded in one of the test cases). This may not turn out to be an issue. If a book looks good, I don't care how it's justified. Hopefully most books will look good. But in the specific case of Spartan Gold, that one does not look good fully justified and I would like to change justification. This is not a deal-breaker by itself, just a minor disappointment.

The potential deal-breaker was what appeared to be a lack of organization of side-loaded books into Collections. But after registering the PW3, that initial issue resolved itself. Yea!

So I'm off to the races learning how to use this new PW3. So far, I like the Kindles bookmark feature better than the Nooks. The fact that you can preview a bookmarked page before jumping to it. That's cool. The overall interface is different, but that's to be expected. A little practice and I should have it down. WiFi connectivity will be getting close scrutiny however. I'm betting that if this indeed turns out to be a chronic problem, then a replacement PW3 would fix things. I could have just received a lemon.

Firmware version is 5.8.9.0.1

Oops. Scratch that. The PW3 just decided to update itself. Now it's running 5.8.10. Maybe that's the firmware update that fixes the WiFi bug (fingers crossed!) No difference to text justification for side-loaded books though.

10-10-2017, 08:28 PM	#8
haertig Wizard Posts: 1,739 Karma: 26006874 Join Date: Sep 2017 Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26	The PW3 was not registered to my account yet because I couldn't get it to connect to my router's WiFi. Everything else in the house connects just fine. And I tried disconnecting, then reconnecting my Fire HD8 and that worked fine. However, the PW3 refused to connect. So my initial post here was with an unregistered Kindle. Not because I wanted that, but because it wouldn't connect. Eventually, after several tries, it finally connected just now as I try it again. So I am now registered. Nothing changed here WiFi-wise or network-wise. The entire time, both during my earlier attempts and my successful connection just now, the PW3 has been about three feet from the router. Not a signal strength issue. Anyway, I am finally connected and registered. And I see that I am allowed to create collections and add books to them now. The PW3 did warn that my collections would not be synced to the cloud due to side-loaded books. That's fine. The PW3 did forget the place I was in the book, and lost the bookmarks I had set up somewhere during the connection/registration process. No problem there, as I was just playing around and not setting real bookmarks. I can set bookmarks again, so I'm sure this was just some minor "who cares?" issue when the PW3 did it's syncing up to Amazon servers. Next I downloaded a book from my Amazon library. Book downloaded to 89% then PW3 lost it's connection. Still three feet from the router, and PW3 was showing full signal bars prior to dropping. Router has been rock stable for years. No other devices every drop or fail to connect. This will warrant some close watching - maybe I got a bad PW3. I was able to reconnect and the book finished downloading. This second normally downloaded book allows me to change text justification. The original side-loaded one still does not. [ This second book I added looks much better that the first book did (when fully justified). Just a difference in word lengths I guess. First book that doesn't look so good is "Spartan Gold" by Cussler. Second book is "Riptide" by Preston/Child. Although, Riptide looks good page after page, and Spartan Gold looks not-as-good page after page. So that tends to point to something other than random word length, but I can't say for sure. ] So I side-loaded another book, "The Final Day" by Forstchen. This one looks good fully justified as well, but would not allow left justification when I attempted that. So it appeared that side-loading a book may disable being able to change justification. As a further test, I stripped the DRM off of that same Riptide book mentioned above and side-loaded it onto the PW3 as opposed to downloading it as I did the first time. And the side-loaded version would not allow changing text justification. So this looks like it proves things: side-loading disables changes to text justification. It was the same file in both cases (albeit minus DRM and side-loaded in one of the test cases). This may not turn out to be an issue. If a book looks good, I don't care how it's justified. Hopefully most books will look good. But in the specific case of Spartan Gold, that one does not look good fully justified and I would like to change justification. This is not a deal-breaker by itself, just a minor disappointment. The potential deal-breaker was what appeared to be a lack of organization of side-loaded books into Collections. But after registering the PW3, that initial issue resolved itself. Yea! So I'm off to the races learning how to use this new PW3. So far, I like the Kindles bookmark feature better than the Nooks. The fact that you can preview a bookmarked page before jumping to it. That's cool. The overall interface is different, but that's to be expected. A little practice and I should have it down. WiFi connectivity will be getting close scrutiny however. I'm betting that if this indeed turns out to be a chronic problem, then a replacement PW3 would fix things. I could have just received a lemon. Firmware version is 5.8.9.0.1 Oops. Scratch that. The PW3 just decided to update itself. Now it's running 5.8.10. Maybe that's the firmware update that fixes the WiFi bug (fingers crossed!) No difference to text justification for side-loaded books though.