It was pointed out to me that my review on the inkBOOK really didn’t have a conclusion, i.e. do I like the device. At the time I wrote the review I had owned the inkBOOK for less than 2 weeks, I wanted a little more time to experiment, test and use the inkBOOK before finalizing the review. While I am currently writing up that final part of my review I thought I would drop off a few more observations/tips.
FBReader
When using the most recent version of FBReader, beyond the issue with setting screens being difficult to read (limitation 16 gray levels on e-Ink) the setting to use a custom font in a ePub doesn’t have any effect. Falling back to the e-Ink specific version built for the Nook the custom font function works, along with the obvious setting screens are now readable. I haven’t (yet) tried intermediate versions to determine when the custom font feature stopped working for the inkBOOK and/or for it’s version of Android.
If you want to use the FBReader Book Network, you will need to install a more robust browser than the one built in. I just did the easy route and installed Chrome; I was then able to set up the upload/download/sync without any problems.
Moon+ Reader
Not my normal reading app so maybe all of these are known. There are a couple of screens that hang when using Moon+ Reader, such as the first time it pops up the configuration screen for the bottom toolbar. After exiting, killing the app, or rebooting (depending on what you can get to work) and then returning to the same screen the app will not hang again.
There are a few of issues when using a custom font override in Moon+ Reader. Some of the fonts that I have copied to the device do not show up in the list available fonts (such as Google’s Literata font), there are other fonts that are present in the list but when selected the book renders as a series of blank pages (of course, now that I wrote that I went back to find a font example, they all now work. So you milage will definitely vary)
Bookari
I haven’t been able connect the inkBOOK to the Bookari network. After going through the login/configuration screen, there is no error message displayed but you are also not logged into the network. I have emailed Mantano but haven’t received a response yet, if I find a resolution I will post a followup.
Recent versions of Bookari have an e-paper mode to optimize the display on e-Ink devices. Not sure if it is the inkBOOK or Mantano’s implementation (not having another e-Ink device to compare) but to my eyes the e-paper mode is actually worse the normal mode. Fonts become thinner (less bold, less black) in the e-paper mode making a lot harder to read, kind of like trying to read a book that has been left out in the rain and then dried.
Google Play Books
I listed out the steps to get
a recent version of Google Play Books installed over
here. Unfortunately the most recent version doesn’t work with this configuration of apps, maybe someday when I have some time to kill I will make another run at finding different versions of the apps that will work.
Side note on installing Google Play Books, partitioning might become an issue. You start with 8GB of storage on the device, slicing off around a 1.5GB for the OS leaving about 6.5GB; this space is further partitioned into “internal” (little less than 1GB) and “NAND” (5GB+) partitions.
The 5 apps I listed, while not huge, can take a large chunk of that internal partition. Normally you can “move the app to the SD”, which moves the app (or at least the part of the app that can be moved) to the “NAND” partition. However, in getting Google Play Books working I took the shortcut of just installing the Google framework apps into the system directory, so these apps cannot be moved to the SD card. End result is that if you install Google Play Books, using the method outlined, you probably aren’t going to install many other apps.
PocketBook
Strangely enough, out of all the reader apps I have used on the inkBOOK this is the only one that has a significant ghosting problem.