W.H. Smith's selling Gen3 for £149.99 (now £179.99)

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Loopy65

yup I think it's 'broken' but wouldn't it be awesome if it was 'broken' enuf for them to send me out an additional unit! lol

Like Bookeen sending me the Deluxe package when I only ordered (and paid for) a Cybook + cover last November? ;-)

[AnthonyWebb]

My Cybook arrived today too. I ordered it for £150 on 5 September, sent a gentle email reminder to the WH Smith customer services team on 16 September when it was showing as in-stock, and received it today. (I suspect my email had no effect though.) It's now charged up and working.

A taster for Bill Clinton's My Life is pre-loaded: what a fantastic ego he has!

I posted a 2 min "first impressions" video here for anyone who might find it interesting: blog link

I am impressed that WH Smith stood by their obvious error in setting the initial price

[Tommo43]

I received my cybook yesterday but was only able to play with it for a few minutes I have a problem charging the battery and am unable to switch the darned thing on. Looks like I'll have to send it back to Smiths and wait for a replacement.

Any suggestions to kick start the machine

Bob Thomas

[Loopy65]

Originally Posted by Tommo43

I received my cybook yesterday but was only able to play with it for a few minutes I have a problem charging the battery and am unable to switch the darned thing on. Looks like I'll have to send it back to Smiths and wait for a replacement.

Any suggestions to kick start the machine

Bob Thomas

I charged it for hours before touching (usually I'm not so patient and if it had been my first Cybook I don't think I'd have managed to be so restrained! lol) .. have no idea if that made a difference.

I had trouble putting the new firmware onto mine but thanks to a long-ago post from Harry I managed to re-flash the whole machine and it worked! .. now all I need is Fictionwise to release a PID so I can download to my hearts content! lol

Hope you're able to get it sorted out

Loopy

[NetSlut]

Originally Posted by Tommo43

I have a problem charging the battery and am unable to switch the darned thing on.
Any suggestions to kick start the machine

I don't know if this applies to the Cybook, but when I got my Sony Reader, the battery remained so completely flat that it took an hour of charging before I could switch it on -- before that, there was absolutely no response.

[Tommo43]

Originally Posted by NetSlut

I don't know if this applies to the Cybook, but when I got my Sony Reader, the battery remained so completely flat that it took an hour of charging before I could switch it on -- before that, there was absolutely no response.

I charged mine on a laptop for over four hours and still the red light flashed. Today I connected it to my desktop (thinking that perhaps there wasn't enough juice coming through from my laptop although it was mains connected) nyway I have had it connected to my desktop machine for over 5 hours today and still no go. I'm going to have to send it back to WHS

Bob T
come on Harry O come up with a solution

[HarryT]

Perhaps the battery connector has come loose? Try unplugging and replugging in the battery.

[NetSlut]

Originally Posted by Tommo43

I charged mine on a laptop for over four hours and still the red light flashed. Today I connected it to my desktop (thinking that perhaps there wasn't enough juice coming through from my laptop although it was mains connected)

Ah, have you made sure that you have powered USB ports? There are a great many machines that have only unpowered ports, and plenty of machines on which only a specific port is powered.

Unpowered ones could well be enough to light the red light, but not enough current to charge the battery.

The only way you can be certain is if you have it documented somewhere...

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by NetSlut

Unpowered ones could well be enough to light the red light, but not enough current to charge the battery.

The only way you can be certain is if you have it documented somewhere...

Yep, many times the ports on the front of a PC are not powered but those on the back are.

BOb

[Tommo43]

Thanks everyone. Harry tried what you suggested but no improvement. also tried using different usb ports no change. Anyway I spoke with WHS yestereday and another machine is winging its way to me as I type this. I I was going to order a mains charger from Bookeen but the price is silly. I also looked to buy a memory chip Sandisk 2GB Secure Digital Card but they want £19.95 whereas Amazon only charge £3.77 the picture for both seem the same. Am I missing something? Who else sells the mains charger for a reasonable price ?

Bob T

[HarryT]

You can use any USB mains adaptor - I bought one for about £3 from my local Maplins.

Any SD card up to 2GB in size should work just fine. Do you really need one, though? I have something like 300 books on my Gen3, and am only using slightly over half the available memory. Obviously it would be useful, though, if you're planning to store enormous PDF files or something like that!

Good to hear that WHS are being so responsive.

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by Tommo43

Thanks everyone. Harry tried what you suggested but no improvement. also tried using different usb ports no change. Anyway I spoke with WHS yestereday and another machine is winging its way to me as I type this. I I was going to order a mains charger from Bookeen but the price is silly. I also looked to buy a memory chip Sandisk 2GB Secure Digital Card but they want £19.95 whereas Amazon only charge £3.77 the picture for both seem the same. Am I missing something? Who else sells the mains charger for a reasonable price ?

Bob T

Well, for the mains charger, you could use any mini usb mains chager and it should work fine. I've used the ones that came with my phones and one that came with my GPS reciever.

The only problem you may run into is that the plug may be a little big, so may not fit under the lip of the Gen3. a couple of minutes with a razor should fix that or you could go for the other option.

Another more useful option would be to buy a mains usb charger, which allow you to plug in your existing USB cable. That way you can also use it for other gadgets you might have which have or you can get USB chargers for.

Something like this. Link



And for SD card, Amazon is definitely one of the best source. I got a couple of Mini SDHC cards for my N800 for £15 each.

When I got a SD card for my Gen 3 I decided to get a Sandisk ULtra II Plus 2GB, which while a more expensive has the benefit of having a USB plug built in, making it very easy to take out and load stuff on.
Especially handy if you don't have a card reader easily available.

[Tommo43]

Any SD card up to 2GB in size should work just fine. Do you really need one, though? I have something like 300 books on my Gen3, and am only using slightly over half the available memory. Obviously it would be useful, though, if you're planning to store enormous PDF files or something like that!

Good to hear that WHS are being so responsive.

Yes you are right just planning for the future
Damn why didn't I think of maplins. Well when I take my old machine to Smiths and get a refund I shall pop into Maplins.
Thanks again
I see from some of the above threads that you also recommend books. I shall contact you again when I am ready to buy

Regards

Bob T

[Tommo43]

And for SD card, Amazon is definitely one of the best source. I got a couple of Mini SDHC cards for my N800 for £15 each.

When I got a SD card for my Gen 3 I decided to get a Sandisk ULtra II Plus 2GB, which while a more expensive has the benefit of having a USB plug built in, making it very easy to take out and load stuff on.
Especially handy if you don't have a card reader easily available.[/QUOTE]


Reads really good on Amazon Web site I've bought one for my camera. Great Thanks luv this site

Bob Thomas

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Tommo43

I also looked to buy a memory chip Sandisk 2GB Secure Digital Card but they want £19.95 whereas Amazon only charge £3.77 the picture for both seem the same. Am I missing something?

There are two differences between SD cards. The capacity and the speed. The lest expensive SD cards are usually 6x cards (.9 MBs). Given the same speed and capacity the card should be the same. Some feel brand names are better than others... but I think there are only a few OEM makes of SD cards, but lots of brands.

Does CyBook specify a minimum SD card speed? If not, I assume a 6x speed card will work fine.

BOb