902 Pocketbook 902: first impressions and questions

[parkher]

Originally Posted by Bonex

Please, can anybody tell me if between the dictionaries preinstalled on the 902 there's an English-English dictionary?

Thanks and...

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to You!!

Yes, there is ABBYY Lingvo English-English Oxford Dictionary.
At least in EURO version. Different pre-installed dictionaries may be present in CIS and North America configurations, not sure.
At least pre-installed TTS modules are different, pre-installed free books are in different languages, etc.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by parkher

Merry Christmas to You!!

Yes, there is ABBYY Lingvo English-English Oxford Dictionary.
At least in EURO version. Different pre-installed dictionaries may be present in CIS and North America configurations, not sure.
At least pre-installed TTS modules are different, pre-installed free books are in different languages, etc.

I just got my 902 today here in North America, updated the firmware to 2.0.3, and I can't find any English-English dictionary in it (just some En-Xx and Xx-En translation dictionaries). Does your En-En dictionary just spit back the exact same word that you type in?

[italianReader]

Originally Posted by parkher

italianReader,
it would be better if you gave us a link to a specific file, otherwise, the results might be all over the place. And really, I don't have such a file and I am not sure where to find it, many large pdf files have drawings/pictures and not so many pages. Nothing close to 1000 pages.

I'm sorry but I'm not able to find a pdf in my library which is not copyrighted and matches that description. If I find a valid file elsewhere I will surely put here a link.

Thanks anyway.

[rkomar]

I got my 902 yesterday, updated the firmware and tested opening times for a bunch of PDF and EPUB files. Most are O'Reilly technical manuals, with one picturesque physics book (Motion Mountain Physics vol.1 http://www.motionmountain.net/), and a couple of texts I scanned myself at 300 dpi. I've attached the results to keep the table formatting sane. I measured the time to open each book for the very first time, browsed about 30 pages into it, closed it, and then measured the time to open it again immediately after.

Page turns generally take about one second in all cases, except for chapter changes in EPUBs under fbreader, which can take quite a few seconds.

[SkyDream]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I measured the time to open each book for the very first time, browsed about 30 pages into it, closed it, and then measured the time to open it again immediately after.

Seems to be empty...

[parkher]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I just got my 902 today here in North America, updated the firmware to 2.0.3, and I can't find any English-English dictionary in it (just some En-Xx and Xx-En translation dictionaries). Does your En-En dictionary just spit back the exact same word that you type in?

Never happens, for some words there is a short definition and an example usage in a sentence, for others, more complex list of definitions.
Actually, it is almost like an encyclopedia, I just fetched the dictionary on a random page, and highlighted a random word "Anaheim":
[...] a city in California, on the SE side of the Los Angeles conurbation; pop. 328,014 (2000).
It is the site of the amusement park Disneyland.

I don't think a dictionary should use such words as "conurbation" in definitions, it should use 4000 basic words. Let's see if it even knows it:

[...] noun: an extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of a central city.
Origin:
early 20th cent.: from "con-" 'together' + Latin urbs, urb- 'city' + "-ation"

By [...] I marked pronunciation which is always given.
Here is what is missing (or I could not find how to do it):
It is easy to choose a word on the current page of a book without typing it in, but I would like to be able to do the same in the description of the word, to be able to build a chain. In this example, I had to type in the word "conurbation" because it was not on the page but in the description of another word.

[Bonex]

Thank you very much parkher! That is exactly what I wanted to know.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by SkyDream

Seems to be empty...

I mistakenly said the results were "appended" rather than "attached" when I first wrote the note. They should be visible in the attachment (it shows as having 813 bytes on my display, which is the size of my original). Does anyone else have problems seeing the results?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by parkher

Never happens, for some words there is a short definition and an example usage in a sentence, for others, more complex list of definitions.
Actually, it is almost like an encyclopedia...

Thanks parkher. I was hoping mine would have an English dictionary like that. I should check the PocketBook site to see if they offer it as a download.

[skydive]

I got mine this week, and I tell you, it is was I expected. My mostly use is for PDF technical readings, and I opened a 5000 pages CHM file, it takes its time, PB902 cryout that is big, but it load. So far so good. The only complain is the lousy keyboard!!! it si hard to use!!

Also, I do not know how to move the browser app from games to the main menu

Else, it good!

keep you posted

[parkher]

Now that there are two pdf viewers, it is an improvement. The new pdf viewer actually reacts to the side zoom buttons even without re-flowing. But the issue remains: margins, margins margins! Where are they after some zooming?

skydive,
actually, the keyboard is pretty good. What else can be done without the touchscreen or without dedicated keyboard keys/buttons?
Here at least, you can navigate to any letter by pressing buttons only 1,2, or 3 times, never more.
3 letters - 1 button, 12 letters - 2 buttons, 12 letters (including apostrophe) - 3 buttons.
And then, one more button to enter it, but it is always the same button, so does not really count.
I guess, it should be possible to get used to it pretty quickly and type words without looking and without even thinking about what buttons you press. Your fingers will remember for you. If you will be typing with it a lot, of course.

I also would like to appeal to PocketBook here:
what about supporting usb and/or BlueTooth keyboards?
In one of the next firmwares? But after you fix the margin issues - give us some margins on 9.7" screens! Make it different than with 6", we can afford it.
First of all, in pdfviewer, but also give us freedom to set our own much wider margins in FBReader as well.

[parkher]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Thanks parkher. I was hoping mine would have an English dictionary like that. I should check the PocketBook site to see if they offer it as a download.

You don't have to wait for that.
There is a special converter tool to convert dictionaries to PocketBook format, you can convert them and install yourself.
It converts dictionaries from XDXF, Dict and Lingvo DSL.
I believe there are many English-English dictionaries that can be downloaded and converted to the PocketBook format.
I found a list (with links for downloading, it seems) of Lingvo English-English dictionaries 6 pages long.

A good place to start is to download the converter and read its Instructions.rtf file - inside it there are some URLs where to download dictionaries from.
The Instructions.rtf seems to be in Russian only, but even if you don't understand Russian, you still can spot the links to the sites with dictionaries.
Or you can find dictionaries in those formats elsewhere.

Here is the dictionary converter tool:
http://pocketbook-global.com/downloa...yConverter.zip

IMPORTANT (actually, I took this info from the above mentioned Instruction.rtf):

1. you can convert ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries to PocketBook format from sources (DSL) only, not from the compiled version (LSD) because of the copyright restrictions.

2. to covert a Dict dictionary, you need to unpack it first with makezd tool, you can download it from free-dict.narod.ru. (the name of this site suggests you may find some free dictionaries there too).

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by parkher

You don't have to wait for that.
There is a special converter tool to convert dictionaries to PocketBook format, you can convert them and install yourself.
It converts dictionaries from XDXF, Dict and Lingvo DSL.
I believe there are many English-English dictionaries that can be downloaded and converted to the PocketBook format.
I found a list (with links for downloading, it seems) of Lingvo English-English dictionaries 6 pages long.

A good place to start is to download the converter and read its Instructions.rtf file - inside it there are some URLs where to download dictionaries from.
The Instructions.rtf seems to be in Russian only, but even if you don't understand Russian, you still can spot the links to the sites with dictionaries.
Or you can find dictionaries in those formats elsewhere.

Here is the dictionary converter tool:
http://pocketbook-global.com/downloa...yConverter.zip

IMPORTANT (actually, I took this info from the above mentioned Instruction.rtf):

1. you can convert ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries to PocketBook format from sources (DSL) only, not from the compiled version (LSD) because of the copyright restrictions.

2. to covert a Dict dictionary, you need to unpack it first with makezd tool, you can download it from free-dict.narod.ru. (the name of this site suggests you may find some free dictionaries there too).

Actually, there are some english-english dictionaries (encyclopedias) available. I will put them together for you tomorrow (too busy privately today)

[skydive]

PARKHER; yes, i think is just to get use to it.

Originally Posted by parkher

Now that there are two pdf viewers, it is an improvement. The new pdf viewer actually reacts to the side zoom buttons even without re-flowing. But the issue remains: margins, margins margins! Where are they after some zooming?

skydive,
actually, the keyboard is pretty good. What else can be done without the touchscreen or without dedicated keyboard keys/buttons?
Here at least, you can navigate to any letter by pressing buttons only 1,2, or 3 times, never more.
3 letters - 1 button, 12 letters - 2 buttons, 12 letters (including apostrophe) - 3 buttons.
And then, one more button to enter it, but it is always the same button, so does not really count.
I guess, it should be possible to get used to it pretty quickly and type words without looking and without even thinking about what buttons you press. Your fingers will remember for you. If you will be typing with it a lot, of course.

I also would like to appeal to PocketBook here:
what about supporting usb and/or BlueTooth keyboards?
In one of the next firmwares? But after you fix the margin issues - give us some margins on 9.7" screens! Make it different than with 6", we can afford it.
First of all, in pdfviewer, but also give us freedom to set our own much wider margins in FBReader as well.

[athan00]

Hi,
sorry if this question has been asked again. I m new in this forum. I have decided to buy Pocketbook 902 or 903. I m not sure yet since I got the following questions (and so I need your help/advise here please):
1. Does 902 screen glare?
2. The 903 screen that is touchscreen as well does it glare? I m asking generally and comparable to 902 screen.
3. Also is the touchscreen really useful and worth the money?

Thanks for your time and help

Athan