PRS-600 PRS-600 tips and tricks

[MSJim]

I use both methods to change pages depending on how I'm holding the reader and the phase of the moon. I do a right to left swipe, and don't have any trouble with the buttons. I do like the swipe feature though. To each his own.

[ghpicard]

If you want to know the meaning of a word from the embedded dictionary, double tap at any word while reading a book, and then tap in the small book icon at your left in the dictionary bar. This brings up the full screen dictionary. Single tapping at the small keyboard icon at your lower right will bring up a keyboard input where you can type whatever word you want to know the meaning of.

[maxbookworm]

Thanks everyone! I edited the original post to include your input

[Dreamnine]

I just noticed today - the top-right and bottom-right corners of the PRS 600 are magnetic, and will hold the stylus without your having to put it in its silo.

Handy, perhaps, if you look up a lot of dictionary definitions and would like to grab it easily.

[zennicus]

hey fellow PRS 600 owners ... i need help i NEED a new battery for mine .... i was getting lower and lower recharge life to the point where 2-3 hours and it was flat again .... not it is not charging at all any suggestions tips? i have tried the wall charge and the PC/usb charger .. ad im happing withdrawals as i had started boxing and selling my actual books as i no longer needed them!

[Elevatorguy]

How old is your PRS600 ?

[Halk]

Have you tried disconnecting and then reconnecting the battery? I have read people saying that's "fixed" a badly performing battery. If it doesn't work... at least it's free!

[Titus Petronius]

Originally Posted by s3ntient

CDRs have been shown to not last very long. Manufacturers used to claim 100 years longevity, now that claim is down to 10 years, and I have CDs that I burned 6 or 7 years ago that are now unreadable. That's a far cry from permanent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Expected_lifespan

I don't want to start a flame war, or be seen to be criticising what s3ntient said, and I'll be the first to admit that I should have qualified what I said about CD longevity. There's a plethora if information on-line about the topic (try googling for 'longevity CD'. All I can say is that I have some very old (if you can call about 15 years 'old') CDs which are still perfectly playable/readable. I try to stick to a couple of rules if I want a recording or data to last.

IMO the crucial factors are

1. The quality of the disc-
To quote my old granny 'you buy cheap and you pay dear'. For example, HHB pro quality discs are over £0.50 each here, but their claimed lifespan is 200 years. How exactly you would go about challenging this in199 years is not clear. If they didn't last more than 10 years then you'd have a good chance of redress. If the data matters, see if you can find out something about who produced the disc. Branded discs tend to be better (i.e. known manufacturer's brands not for instance supermarket badged, which can come from anywhere).

2. The burn speed-
The higher the speed at which you burn the disc the greater chance of data errors. Try to use software and a writer which can crank itself down to low write speeds. There are a few good apps for Windows and Linux about but I wouldn't know about Macs. As I understand it, if you keep the speed low, you maximise the chances of a good burn, hence if data errors are caused by disc deterioration over time the oversampling of the reader has a better chance of correcting them.

Anyway, I see I've written far more than I intended, Hope this helps.

Titus https://www.mobileread.com/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Titus Petronius]

Originally Posted by zennicus

hey fellow PRS 600 owners ... i need help i NEED a new battery for mine .... i was getting lower and lower recharge life to the point where 2-3 hours and it was flat again .... not it is not charging at all any suggestions tips? i have tried the wall charge and the PC/usb charger .. ad im happing withdrawals as i had started boxing and selling my actual books as i no longer needed them!

I had the same problem with my old 505. I replaced the battery but unfortunately it was the charging circuit that had 'gone west'. I got a replacement battery from Hong Kong via http://www.batteryupgrade.co.uk/?gcl...FQRd4wodFA_vUw

Replacing the battery is not for the faint-hearted, mind you, and requires considerable disembowellment of the reader. You can download a copy of the service manual here: http://aldus2006.typepad.fr/files/prs600.pdf

Titus

[AprilHare]

Originally Posted by zennicus

hey fellow PRS 600 owners ... i need help i NEED a new battery for mine .... i was getting lower and lower recharge life to the point where 2-3 hours and it was flat again .... not it is not charging at all any suggestions tips? i have tried the wall charge and the PC/usb charger .. ad im happing withdrawals as i had started boxing and selling my actual books as i no longer needed them!

Tip I found on MobileRead was to discharge the Reader, then open the unit at the back, disconnect the battery - and then reconnect it.
Try recharging it after this (with power supply of course, an old PSP charger or PRS-500 charger will do) and it will potentially have much longer recharge life.
Give it a try!

[Halk]

Another couple of tips.

The touch screen works just fine inside an AquaPac case (a waterproof cover I use for reading in the bath). I actually had put the device in the case before I thought "Doh, it's touch screen!", but it worked just fine.

I've been slightly miffed at font sizes, feeling that on my Cybook I had way more control over the font sizes and that on the Reader there were only 2, maybe 3 sizes that I could every conceivably use. I've been playing in Calibre and I've changed (this is what I think I've done at least!) the font size on a book (HarryT's Challenger Omnibus, thanks again Harry!) to 6 point. This makes small almost too small to read, but with a light on it it's about as small as I could possibly want, while XL is about as large as I could possibly want - bad light, tired eyes etc. So I've gone from having 2 sizes to 4. I'll be playing more with this, it seems I may be able to define exactly how big each of the sizes are, if I can then it'll be very handy. So in short that last tip is feel free to edit the font sizes.

[grouphile]

Originally Posted by Halk

Another couple of tips.

The touch screen works just fine inside an AquaPac case (a waterproof cover I use for reading in the bath). I actually had put the device in the case before I thought "Doh, it's touch screen!", but it worked just fine.

Wonderful tips! Which AquaPac do you use? I've checked (amazon) and came up with a variety and I'm not sure which one is the rigth fit...

Phile

PS: I too have a cybook and a sony and go through the same frustration - I wish I could merge both readers into one

[Halk]

My Cybook screen is broken, so it's on the Reader for me. To be honest though I'm much happier with the Reader than the Cybook. The Cybook does have the better features, but it's slower at page turning, it turns on and off instantly, dictionary lookup is a pain, although it has folders navigation is painfully slow compared to the Reader... There's a few things I'd want on the Reader that the Cybook has, but overall the Reader is miles better.

[Lago]

Originally Posted by Halk

This is a wonderful thread in the making! Great idea Max - perhaps you might want to "own" the thread and edit the first post every so often to put everybody's tips in. I just got my PRS600 yesterday, and this is exactly the kind of information I was after.

My biggest discovery is that collections can be a poor man's folder support. Of course it isn't as good, but it does allow us to have, if you like, as many one deep directories as we choose. Using Calibre (I'd suggest Calibre as the best management software) all you need to do is add the group as a series name, and convert the book and it will add it to the ebook, and when put on the Reader it will add it to that category. So if you do have 3 books in a trilogy then adding them all with that on it will keep them under that collection. If instead you want to collect all of a particular author together, then just create a series e.g. "Philip K. Dick Books" and although they aren't a series, they'll appear in a collection together on the Reader... poor mans folders.

What seems to be a really important thing as well, I noticed in another thread (in case that thread vanishes) is the touchscreen can cease to function if a crumb gets underneath the edge.

Something I picked up myself (I'm sure I won't be the first!) is that the device will not charge unless it does a USB handshake. In other words those handy little wall plugs that have a USB port on them don't seem to work for me, I have to plug it into a PC - or use a proper wall charger. I would like it if someone could confirm that for me. I have a mobile phone that does the same thing, and the only workaround is to use a USB cable that just has power on it, no data, no idea if that'd work on the reader.

actually collection support works both through series, as well as tags. for example, the hobbit could be part of the LOTR series, as well as tagged for Tolkien, fantasy, etc. and it will show up in each of those three collections.

but i dont like Calibres insistence on having each book buried behind a collection of folders. it slows the reader down too.

[elcreative]

Try using calibre DB as backup and save to disk to sort how you want as masterset for reader... I use save ePub to folder and file dialog lets you choose or create the appropriate folder...