Bebook Neo alternatives in Europe?

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

Just keep OK pressed for a few seconds, and the book you're reading will close and you're taken back to the menu. All you need to do then is re-open the book from Recent Documents, and you can resume reading within seconds. This should work on the Neo as well.

Thanks for the tip, we havent tried that, but since it sounds like the same problem you have been having it would probably work. Its still annoying when it happens, but as mentioned earlier its certainly no dealbreaker.

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

a bit of dry humor. I suppose i could have used the rolleyes

Okay I considered whether it was meant as a joke, but i wasnt sure. The price does seem a bit excessive compared to the Neo.

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

You rule it out: But still, Sony 900 may be worth checking out. The display quality is better than on Sony 600 or 700.

But is it as good as the Neo? The single biggest weakness of e-paper right now is its relatively low contrast ( i dont find the page refresh speed a big issue). I dont want the addition of a touch screen to adversely affect this aspect. But perhaps i have misunderstood the statements regarding the overlaid touchscreen, is it only a matter of glare( which i guess refers to reflection og light sources?) and not lowered contrast?

Personally, I wait for PocketBook 602. PocketBook 302 seems to be interesting, but has glare similar to Sony 600. You either can have PocketBook exchange the display later on (don't want that, don't want to send in any of my readers) or wait for the successor PocketBook 602.

I can also see that they will be introducting the 603, which will have a Wacom display.

[HarryT]

The stability of my Neo is excellent. It's been my main reader for several months now; the only crashes I've had have been while annotating text - a few times (and I mean perhaps 3-4 times in all those months), when highlighting a passage of text with the stylus, it's suddenly closed the book and gone back to the main menu. Nothing has been lost by this, however; all my annotations have been preserved.

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The stability of my Neo is excellent. It's been my main reader for several months now; the only crashes I've had have been while annotating text.

I think its pretty amusing how many have replied regarding the stability of the Neo considering i only mentioned it in passing.

Stability was not my primary reason for asking for alternatives. Rather, i was simply trying to figure out whether a better (or cooler device had surfaced (or was about to surface) since we bought the first Neo (or if i had simply missed some brilliant reader when i bought the first Neo).

As to what excellent stability is, i might have high expectations, i wouldnt expect to be able to crash any of the built-in programs on a device such as this.

[mike_bike_kite]

Originally Posted by ziphnor

I think its pretty amusing how many have replied regarding the stability of the Neo considering i only mentioned it in passing.

Your opening words stated that the Neo had poor stability and that it kept crashing. It's a device that's very much in the public eye and I guess others felt completely the opposite. In any case it now seems that the situation isn't quite as bad as you mentioned. Must admit I've only played with one in the shop and the firmware seemed quite good to me - it's certainly near the top of my shopping list.

I guess if you want to avoid crashes all together then you should avoid those devices supporting the latest technology or at least wait for a few iterations of the firmware to come out though for true stability there's always the printed page

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

Your opening words stated that the Neo had poor stability and that it kept crashing. It's a device that's very much in the public eye and I guess others felt completely the opposite. In any case it now seems that the situation isn't quite as bad as you mentioned. Must admit I've only played with one in the shop and the firmware seemed quite good to me - it's certainly near the top of my shopping list.

And its at the top of my shopping list

But i do think its poor stability when the reader software freezes say once a week. In addition to those freezes we have also had the content of the SD card disappear a few times when coming out of standby (requiring a power cycle to show the contents).

I guess if you want to avoid crashes all together then you should avoid those devices supporting the latest technology or at least wait for a few iterations of the firmware to come out though for true stability there's always the printed page

It can always be discussed how much Q&A should be done on a device before you start selling it to people. The easy access to firmware updates via the internet has unfortunately meant that its become commonplace to launch products with beta software.

But there are plenty of people buying consumer electronics like this that have no clue about firmware updates.

[mike_bike_kite]

I guess it's a trade off between getting it to market and endless testing on every media file available. The fact it's still near the top of your shopping list suggests they've made a reasonable judgement on this. Hopefully they'll release new firmware to fix your issues as a matter of priority. I assume you have contacted their support with the file that's causing you issues?

It still might be worth trying the Onyx firmware to see how that copes though.

[ziphnor]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

The fact it's still near the top of your shopping list suggests they've made a reasonable judgement on this.

But thats mostly because i suspect the situation is no different with other readers and because i know that i can expect firmware upgrades. Plenty of people will never upgrade their Neo because they havent got a clue about firmware updates, and they might get a negative impression of the reader because of this.

It still might be worth trying the Onyx firmware to see how that copes though.

I think i might do that