Astak EZ reader rocks

[Bookathon]

I have sold my sony 505 and in the process of selling kindle 1 after a lot of research on this forum and now I have astak ez reader.

I've been with astak ez reader for about a week purchased from Frys and could'nt be more happy. Positive points are.

Price is about right, mine cost me 239 after rebate. It comes with good and sturdy case, headphones, ac adaptor, wrist strap, usb cable and 2 gb sd card with 200 books on it in .pdb format. Now I can read my palm era books

Excellent screen readibility ( better than Kindle 2)
Better pdf support than sony or kindle (pdf reflow is coming this month)
Custom fonts ( I changed to versa)
Folder creation
long battery life ( mine battery came fully charged and after a week still full)
Multitude of format support.(mobi, word and txt are the best)
Supports 3 font face type, while sony and kindle do not support more than one

I noticed pagination is lot faster than sony prs 505, sd or int memory access speed is the same and page turning is at par with sony and kindle

I dont understand if this device which is based on linux can support folders why not kindle and sony support it.

I am happily reading newspapers and blogs with calibre in mobipocket format. Calibre has no support for it or any hanlin v3 clone, but you can transfer to hard disk after news are downloaded.

Now some negatives

usb 1.1( nowadays every other device is 2.0)
Inadequate .lit support
Does not support in device deletion of books

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

long battery life ( mine battery came fully charged and after a week still full)

Hi Bookathon,

Just so you know.. the EZ Reader from it's own documentation mentions that the battery meter will not report correctly till the battery has drained and charged a few times.. So your battery may show full but it could be low.

I too got my EZ Reader at Fry's.. and the battery did show full but I went and charged it for 12 hours like recommended.. I'm over a week into using it and it show one bar down.. I believe it is mentioned in the docs that once it gets to about half, to charge it again for the first 2 - 3 times then the meter should be more accurate.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

I dont understand if this device which is based on linux can support folders why not kindle and sony support it.

The short answer is obviously that they could easily do so.

In the case of MobiPocket, there is a "legacy" issue. They want Windows MobiPocket Reader (WMR) to act as the hub of your MOBI ebook world, and it does not "do" folders. Windows handles folders but many of the original handheld targets of the MOBI format did not. So devices like the Bookeen Gen3 which started out as MOBI devices tend not to have folders. Devices that added MOBI later, like the iLiad and the Hanlin, do tend to have folders. If you want to use WMR to manage your MOBI ebooks they all have to go in one folder on the Hanlin and iLiad too.

The Kindle started out with MOBI, so they had a no-folders bias. I think it is the case that Amazon's content delivery can handle folders. In other words you can move a Kindle ebook to a folder and the Kindle "knows" it is the same ebook and does not download it again. So this is better than WMR, and it means that it would be almost trivial for Amazon to add support for folders in the user interface. I really have no idea why they don't do so.

[Bookathon]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I believe it is mentioned in the docs that once it gets to about half, to charge it again for the first 2 - 3 times then the meter should be more accurate.

Hi shadow

I just finish reading battery section in onboard manual, it recommends to fully charge after fully discharged for the first three times. I am guessing by the time we are on last bar the reader will be so slow for us to recharge it right there, but we will have to see. I ahve already turned some 2100 pages along with numerous pc connection without charging and it is still running at full tilt, kindle battery sucks even with wireless off.

As I understand from discussion here that eink screen only uses power when page turning but I think power is also used when pressing any button to access a menu, sleep button press, sd card ejection or insertion etc. Anyway I am very happy with ez reader.

[Bookathon]

wallcraft

You may be right about it that folder creation is something to do with mobi software, but how hard is giving this ability in software and subsequently into the device. I have begged amazon in multiple emails to implement this feature and on their forum people pleading it but amazon pays no attention.

EZ reader is also geared towards mobi as their most strongly supported format but they give you this ability. IMO ez reader is a better product and very consumer friendly.

[torbich]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

Hi shadow
I ahve already turned some 2100 pages along with numerous pc connection without charging and it is still running at full tilt, kindle battery sucks even with wireless off.

When you connect EZ Reader to PC, it automatically charges the battery. So, to test the correct battery life, you have to copy new books via SD Card and Cardreader, not via USB connecton

[Bookathon]

Torbich

Ez reader does not automatically start charging upon connecting to pc via usb cable, it instead asks you whether you want to charge the device or want to connect to pc for transfers.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by torbich

When you connect EZ Reader to PC, it automatically charges the battery. So, to test the correct battery life, you have to copy new books via SD Card and Cardreader, not via USB connecton

I'm not so sure of that.. when you plug in the reader it asks you if you wish to charge it, or mount it for transfers.. and if I remember right when I mount it for transfers it does not show the battery charging icon

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Bookathon

Torbich

Ez reader does not automatically start charging upon connecting to pc via usb cable, it instead asks you whether you want to charge the device or want to connect to pc for transfers.

It does use the power that is available on the port to charge the device even when connected to a pc for data transfer. However, it won't charge as fast typically. The question is useful to decide that no pc connection is needed which frees the unit itself to respond to reading requests so that you can charge while reading.

Dale