Bookeen Cybook Gen3 - Out of Stock

[Lima_dat]

Has anyone seen the O.O.S. notice on the Bookeen website?



Pretty straightforward notice, I think. No monkey business.

[HarryT]

Er, yes, this has been discussed at length elsewhere .

[viejo]

Yes, I saw. I ordered it on 10th and I hope my orden won't be affected by it.
I'm writing them quickly.

Viejo

PS: Excuse my bad english.

[lee1234]

It seems that there is a great demand of eBook devices, Amazon's Kindle is sold out and now Bookeen is sold out.

[talaivan]

I hope Iliad gets some of this business -- it's the best eBook device in my opinion, and I'd hate to see it fail financially.

[Taylor514ce]

I'd love to have an Iliad. It appears to be the state of the art for e-ink devices. I just can't help feeling that all of the e-ink devices on the market now retail for about twice what they should. I think if Irex would dramatically reduce the price, they'd own the market.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I'd love to have an Iliad. It appears to be the state of the art for e-ink devices. I just can't help feeling that all of the e-ink devices on the market now retail for about twice what they should. I think if Irex would dramatically reduce the price, they'd own the market.

It does have some major issues, however, which is why I sold mine: a rather long boot-up time (45s or so) and a short battery life. Additionally, the MobiPocket Reader implementation on the iLiad is considerably more "basic" than that of other versions of it. You really need to recharge the iLiad every day or so, as you would a laptop. The dedicated bookreaders can all go for weeks between charges. If you want to read A4 PDFs then yes, the iLiad is undoubtedly the best. If you want to read fiction, my experience (having owned all three) is that both the Sony and Gen3 are better.

It's best to think of the iLiad as an eInk Tablet PC rather than as a bookreader.

The price of all the devices is determined by the price of the screen. That's bound to fall with time, but at the moment, as you know, eInk screens are made by one company (PVI in Taiwan) who can't produce enough to satisfy demand. That's not an environment in which prices are going to fall.

[Onemack]

"a rather long boot-up time (45s or so) and a short battery life. Additionally, the MobiPocket Reader implementation on the iLiad is considerably more "basic" than that of other versions of it. You really need to recharge the iLiad every day or so, as you would a laptop. The dedicated bookreaders can all go for weeks between charges."


I must admit to being a bit puzzled by all this, I own a Sony 500 and A Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 and have just ordered an ILiad. I find the Bookeen never boots in under 30 secs and most times takes around 45. I find that its battery life is inceasingly shorter as I use it more, I now have to charge it every other day, yet when I bought it I went over a couple of weeks. As well as this I cannot see how Mobipocket can get much more "basic" than it already is.
In spite of all this I still like the Bookeen and use it consistently and would recommend it. The only problem with the Sony is the bookstore. Apart from the DRM/USA restrictions on purchasing. I cannot configure it to operate through a proxy server, hence when I am overseas (frequently for months at a time) I cannot buy books for it.
I think the Bookeen is a very good purchase, if you dont want to spend the extra money for an Iliad.

John

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Onemack

I must admit to being a bit puzzled by all this, I own a Sony 500 and A Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 and have just ordered an ILiad. I find the Bookeen never boots in under 30 secs and most times takes around 45. I find that its battery life is inceasingly shorter as I use it more, I now have to charge it every other day, yet when I bought it I went over a couple of weeks.

My Gen3 boots in 25s - I've just timed it. But, the point about the Gen3 is that when you're not using it, it goes into a low-power "hibernate" mode and will (or should, at least) run for 4-5 days on a battery charge. The iLiad will run for about 12h on a battery charge, and doesn't "hibernate", so if you want to have several short reading sessions during the day, as I do, you have to constantly switch it on and off. My Gen3 I can just switch on in the morning, leave it on, and recharge it perhaps once a week or so.

If you're needing to recharge the Gen3 every other day, it sounds as if your battery is faulty. As I say, even if you disable auto-shutdown and leave it running constantly, you should get 4-5 days from it.

As well as this I cannot see how Mobipocket can get much more "basic" than it already is.

The main issues with the iLiad Mobi reader are that it only supports a single font (and I really don't like the font which it uses), and it will only show you specific navigation items, so, for example, there's no way to see a book's cover page. It also doesn't have any form of "Librarian" as the other Mobi implementations do, so there's no way to browse through a list of books by their metadata - you just open a book's file directly from the file system.

[Onemack]

Thanks Harry,

Very informative, I learn a little more each day

Cheers

John

[GavinK151]

Originally Posted by Onemack

"a rather long boot-up time (45s or so) and a short battery life. Additionally, the MobiPocket Reader implementation on the iLiad is considerably more "basic" than that of other versions of it. You really need to recharge the iLiad every day or so, as you would a laptop. The dedicated bookreaders can all go for weeks between charges."


I must admit to being a bit puzzled by all this, I own a Sony 500 and A Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 and have just ordered an ILiad.
John

Hi, I am curious - why do have so many types of ebook reader? Are you just trying them out to compare? Do you prefer the cybook to the sony?

[talaivan]

The Iliad is the only e-ink reader you can read normal pdf's on -- and you can also annotate them with the wacom pen. It does not take terribly long to boot up, but does have a relatively short battery life -- about 18 hours. I find it much better for reading ebooks than the Sony or the Flicker, though I don't like Mobipocket reader. I use FBReader, which allows you to modify the font, though not without a lot of grief. For me, the much bigger screen makes up for all its obvious problems. I'm hoping the IRex people are working on a new Iliad that is faster and has better software.

[Ebook lover]

I played with the Iliad once, but from my past experience, the response time for each page turn is too slow. I quicky lost my patience and gave up on it. As for the Cybook, I am very impress with it. I really enjoy reading novels on it, but I had spend too much money buying books from Mobipocket...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by talaivan

The Iliad is the only e-ink reader you can read normal pdf's on -- and you can also annotate them with the wacom pen. It does not take terribly long to boot up, but does have a relatively short battery life -- about 18 hours.

I'm impressed that you can get 18h out of your iLiad - the best that people generally seem to achieve is about 12h. Can you offer any tips on how to get such good battery life? Presumably you're not making much use of the pen? That drastically reduces battery life.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm impressed that you can get 18h out of your iLiad - the best that people generally seem to achieve is about 12h. Can you offer any tips on how to get such good battery life? Presumably you're not making much use of the pen? That drastically reduces battery life.

Since my iLiad has returned with the updated battery, I get 18 hours out of it with no problem.