jetBook Beta Firmware - Round Two

[jetreader]

Originally Posted by jgray

I just flashed a newer beta firmware on my jetBook and gave it a drive around the block. Here are my thoughts, compared to the previous beta that I had tested. BTW, this beta is v0.33c Patch v13.

Compared to the previous beta, ebooks open much faster. In fact, I think this firmware opens ebooks faster than the previous, released firmware. Ebooks under 1MB take only 1-4 seconds to open. When I opened a monster, "Terro-Human Future History Omnibus", which is a 4.37MB epub, it took about 4 minutes (I hope this can be improved). Once the monster ebook was opened, jumping to any page was instantaneous. Searching took about 1 second.

The dictionary now works perfectly with all supported ebook formats. The menu items have moved a bit. The dictionary is now number 1 on the menu.

Speaking of supported formats, HTML is now supported and the dictionary works with this format, just like all the others. Something that may have been in the previous firmware, but unnoticed - the HTML ebook had a superscript, which displayed correctly.

The previous beta did not center text that should have been centered (headings and explicitly centered text/images). This has been fixed. As with the previous beta, multiple-level indentation displays fine (the mouse tail poem from "Alice").

One new feature is a percentage figure in the titlebar, to the left of the page count. This is for the mathematically challenged

Now for the bad. This beta firmware still does not scale oversized images to fit the screen. Bold still isn't supported (this also affects headers). I don't know whether these two items will be fixed in the released firmware or not.

The Bold issue seems to be due to the limited font support. I don't think there is a bold font installed. Italics display, but it looks like a slanted normal font to me, rather than a true italic font. I think that when Ectaco adds more fonts to the device, these issues will disappear.

With the much better epub and mobi support, the addition of HTML, and the dictionary working with all formats, this firmware (when released) should be very good news to all jetBook owners and prospective owners.

Talking about formats jetBook can read. Several days ago I was looking for my jetBook and found it in my son’s room. He used it to play his electric piano. And what he does! He downloaded sheet music in pdf format and let the jetBook turn pages! You can program it to turn pages every other minute. You can make it faster or slower depending on your reading speed with 10 seconds increments. That was really unexpected turn of events! On the other hand, kids always know better what to do with your equipment!

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by jetreader

Talking about formats jetBook can read. Several days ago I was looking for my jetBook and found it in my son’s room. He used it to play his electric piano. And what he does! He downloaded sheet music in pdf format and let the jetBook turn pages! You can program it to turn pages every other minute. You can make it faster or slower depending on your reading speed with 10 seconds increments. That was really unexpected turn of events! On the other hand, kids always know better what to do with your equipment!

I don't play the piano but it sounds like a good idea to use jetBook for this purpose.

[LuBiB]

Originally Posted by jgray

Do I get a gold crown? Do you know how much gold is going for these days?

we can get REAL fancy and go with platinum and all sorts of precious stones

[LuBiB]

Originally Posted by jetreader

Talking about formats jetBook can read. Several days ago I was looking for my jetBook and found it in my son’s room. He used it to play his electric piano. And what he does! He downloaded sheet music in pdf format and let the jetBook turn pages! You can program it to turn pages every other minute. You can make it faster or slower depending on your reading speed with 10 seconds increments. That was really unexpected turn of events! On the other hand, kids always know better what to do with your equipment!

thats pretty neat, i played the recorder in school lol but i actually play piano and never even though of doing that.

AWESOME STUFF and hats off to your son for finding something like that out!!

[jgray]

One feature I did not test until just now is PDF support. I don't like using PDF files on small screen devices and didn't use it on the original firmware, so I don't know if this beta firmware is any different than the previous firmware. Perhaps someone with the current firmware can compare and let me know.

Trying a PDF with this beta firmware, I see that the Menu shows these unique entries:
Table of Content
Full Screen
Fit Width

The Full Screen and Fit Width options don't seem to be much different in portrait mode. In landscape, Fit Width is readable, but very small, since the margins are shown. A more useful zoom level for Fit Width would be if the surrounding margins were discarded and just the text filled the screen.

The Font button is now used for zoom levels. Each zoom level is a doubling of the previous one (50%-6400%). This is too wide a jump to be useful on the jetBook. More useful zoom levels would be 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 250 and 300.

When zoomed, the D-button jumps up/down and left/right by a screenful. In PDF viewing mode, you no longer can use left/right for paging. You have to use the dedicated page up/down buttons.

Also in PDF mode, you loose the percentage figure in the titlebar that was recently added for the other ebook formats. Not a big issue, as you still have the page number and total pages figures. Another missing feature in PDF mode is the dictionary. Again, not a huge loss for me, as I don't like reading PDF files on a small screen.

[Dr. Drib]

I just wanted to share with everyone here that I recieved my Jetbook yesterday, while visiting Tulsa.

Thoughts and comment offerings later, as I play with it.

This is the version on the unit: v0.30e / patch v12

So far, I'm impressed by this little monster.


Don

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I just wanted to share with everyone here that I recieved my Jetbook yesterday, while visiting Tulsa.

Thoughts and comment offerings later, as I play with it.

This is the version on the unit: v0.30e / patch v12

So far, I'm impressed by this little monster.


Don

Don, I'm glad that you received your jetBook on time before your trip!
It will be nice to read your comments .

[rgeorg]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I just wanted to share with everyone here that I recieved my Jetbook yesterday, while visiting Tulsa.

Don

Glad the BB&B shipment arrived before you had to leave!

[wodin]

The new firmware is supposed to be out "this week", but I just checked and they still have v 030i. Not much longer to go this week!

[jgray]

It seems that the jetBook does have an option to remove white space (margins). The PDF I was using had crop marks, which interfered with this.

One option that I just found lets you turn off or on the titlebar for more screen real estate. Another option is called "hyperlinks". I assume that this shows you a list of links (PDF bookmarks) so you can jump to one. The PDF I was using doesn't have any. I'll have to load another PDF to test this.

The above options may all be in the current firmware. As I said before, I never really used the PDF capability with the previous firmware, so I can't compare.

[jgray]

Originally Posted by wodin

The new firmware is supposed to be out "this week", but I just checked and they still have v 030i. Not much longer to go this week!

I just checked, too. When does the week end in Russia?

[Kris777]

December 25 by the Gregorian calendar is January 7 by the Julian calendar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_New_Year

I just sent e-mail to Ectaco support to check when updated firmware will be available.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by jgray

I just checked, too. When does the week end in Russia?

I think Russia is something like ten timezones wide!

[Kralik]

In the current PDF firmware there is an 80% zoom option. Is this retained in the beta? I read a lot of PDF's with the jetBook and it works well. I only wish the normal page controls would turn the page as well as scroll.

Also, for both people who commented on T9, you are incorrect. The jetBook DOES have T9 support, in fact, for several languages! You can do T9 English, T9 Spanish, T9 Polish... when typing in text, you need to use the page-up/down buttons (bottom left of device) to change the mode. Try it!

[jgray]

Originally Posted by Kralik

In the current PDF firmware there is an 80% zoom option. Is this retained in the beta? I only wish the normal page controls would turn the page as well as scroll.

50%, 100%. Like I mentioned above, it keeps doubling. I don't know about the current firmware, but the beta uses the page Up/Down keys to page a PDF. The arrow keys only scroll/jump the current page.