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Cruzverde · 02-09-2012, 04:19 PM

Here I am, new (and happy so far) owner of a PB 912. Parcel delivered in the afternoon, and I played with the toy since.

This is my first ebook reader, and I had made my mind for a 912 as I intend to use it mainly to read PDF (papers and books in my fields : philosophy, metaphysics and logic (which can be very technical), christian theology). So, the legibility of large pages of huge files was a must-have feature.

And I must say I am not disappointed so far. The quality of the screen is beyond what I could imagine (again : I have nothing to compare with but my actual paper books). I updated to the latest firmware version (which is 2.1.2) in the so-called 'fast and experimental' release, which indeed made the device much more responsive, I'm really impressed.

PDFs display nicely, books are so much comfier to read on that device (than on a laptop screen), and even articles I had previously scanned and OCR'd myself are readable.

I deleted all the built-in books, and I had no problem with that.

Music plays well and sound quality is decent : that's the kind of 'unnecessary add-on', but that one is happy to find.

Then, some (minor) disappointments, which actually may be questions :
1/ I use Calibre to manage the books. But I don't understand the label system. I added my own labels in Calibre (ontology, epistemology...) but they do not show up in the device when accessing the library by Genre. I don't get it : only the labels 'Roman' (novel in French) and 'Nouvelles' (short stories in French) show up... How can I get my own labels (used in Calibre) to be used to sort the files on the PB ? I must be missing something with those systems, maybe they don't match ?
2/ No cover preview for pdf files. That's annoying, since I like to spot at once the book I want to read thanks to its cover. Like in an actual shelf of my own library. But covers of epub files I also loaded (french classics I never took time to re-read since high-school) are OK.
3/ Japanese fonts problem. I grabbed some japanese books (PDF files generated from material on aozora.gr.jp) They displayed nicely, but then won't open since I upgraded the firmware to 2.1.2. When trying to open one with AdobeViewer, I get a timer, a flash, and then nothing ; and when I try with pdfviewer, it opens but it's blank (there are no characters, only blank pages. But the file does open, as I see an original picture on page 2, right at its place.) Anybody has a clue ? Should I add fonts or something ? I tried that (I put common Hiragino font files in system/fonts/Adobe, but it did nothing to the matter.)

I'll be happy to read from you guys on those matters. And feel free to ask for precisions...

02-09-2012, 04:19 PM	#1
Cruzverde Member Posts: 15 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: France Device: PB 912	PB 912 hands on Here I am, new (and happy so far) owner of a PB 912. Parcel delivered in the afternoon, and I played with the toy since. This is my first ebook reader, and I had made my mind for a 912 as I intend to use it mainly to read PDF (papers and books in my fields : philosophy, metaphysics and logic (which can be very technical), christian theology). So, the legibility of large pages of huge files was a must-have feature. And I must say I am not disappointed so far. The quality of the screen is beyond what I could imagine (again : I have nothing to compare with but my actual paper books). I updated to the latest firmware version (which is 2.1.2) in the so-called 'fast and experimental' release, which indeed made the device much more responsive, I'm really impressed. PDFs display nicely, books are so much comfier to read on that device (than on a laptop screen), and even articles I had previously scanned and OCR'd myself are readable. I deleted all the built-in books, and I had no problem with that. Music plays well and sound quality is decent : that's the kind of 'unnecessary add-on', but that one is happy to find. Then, some (minor) disappointments, which actually may be questions : 1/ I use Calibre to manage the books. But I don't understand the label system. I added my own labels in Calibre (ontology, epistemology...) but they do not show up in the device when accessing the library by Genre. I don't get it : only the labels 'Roman' (novel in French) and 'Nouvelles' (short stories in French) show up... How can I get my own labels (used in Calibre) to be used to sort the files on the PB ? I must be missing something with those systems, maybe they don't match ? 2/ No cover preview for pdf files. That's annoying, since I like to spot at once the book I want to read thanks to its cover. Like in an actual shelf of my own library. But covers of epub files I also loaded (french classics I never took time to re-read since high-school) are OK. 3/ Japanese fonts problem. I grabbed some japanese books (PDF files generated from material on aozora.gr.jp) They displayed nicely, but then won't open since I upgraded the firmware to 2.1.2. When trying to open one with AdobeViewer, I get a timer, a flash, and then nothing ; and when I try with pdfviewer, it opens but it's blank (there are no characters, only blank pages. But the file does open, as I see an original picture on page 2, right at its place.) Anybody has a clue ? Should I add fonts or something ? I tried that (I put common Hiragino font files in system/fonts/Adobe, but it did nothing to the matter.) I'll be happy to read from you guys on those matters. And feel free to ask for precisions...