Well my fantasy of spending my lunch playing with the Samsung has gone out the window because of the broken screen. Nearly half of the right side is gone showing jaggies and rectangles within rectangles.
I've been kind of the ebook reader guru on the set. As soon as it broke they came to me asking what the problem was and how they could fix it. Lost cause.
I did get about 5 minutes with it this morning before we started shooting. My quick impressions:
- Screen quality reminds of the 505 while the icons remind me of the 600/700
- It seemed pretty snappy when I clicking around with the stylus. In the short time I used it, I couldn't get the hang of using the menu toggle switch on the slide out part of the reader.
- Very easy to sign-in to a wi-fi network, even a password protected one. One great feature is that you have several choices as to when the wireless turns itself off. 3 mins is the shortest, then 5 mins and I've forgotten the rest.
- Easy to change the date and time via the settings menu (a feature some Kindle owners would love).
- There was also an option called "page flipping" in the settings. It was already on but I couldn't figure out how to use it.
- Easy to sign in to their on-line book store (Korean). It seems they have 2. The one for regular books was up and running but the one for text books was still under construction (again, this was a Korean store).
- The reader was set with English as the language but all the books except one were in Korean. The good old stand by "Pride and Prejudice". It was an ePub book and I could see the little page numbers in the far right margin.
- There is a progress bar like the Kindle but without a percentage. I did not see page numbers (this may have been an option that needed to be turned on but I don't know for sure). The progress bar also had single and double "arrows" on either side of it. The single "arrows" take you forward or back one page when you click on them with the stylus. Not sure about the double "arrows" (chapter jumps?).
- Lightweight but substantial feeling due to the thickness.
- The note taking / drawing function is pretty sweet. One of the art department people had to make a somewhat intricate drawing of a world famous landmark as well as a simple sketch of an object and they looked great. Unfortunately, the unit broke before we could shoot the drawings.
- It's not completely intuitive. The basic, "pick it up and read" stuff was very simple to figure out but I had a hard time trying to switch between the drawings in the note/drawing screen.
Wish I'd had more time with it. I do think anyone buying this particular reader will like it. I won't be one of them because I have 3 six inch readers and I don't need another.
