A PDA guy reviews the 5" Pocket PRO

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Good thinking! Have you managed to do that with a DRM'd ePub file purchased from another vendor?

DRM is evil (and my USB port on my main PC does not work with the PEz)

Calibre can not reformat DRM'd versions

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by theducks

DRM is evil (and my USB port on my main PC does not work with the PEz)

Calibre can not reformat DRM'd versions

Yeah, that's a shame... since so many ePub e-books are DRM'd, you can't adjust the margins on books you've bought.

[LoganK]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Yeah, that's a shame... since so many ePub e-books are DRM'd, you can't adjust the margins on books you've bought.

I'll have to play around with these encrypted ePub files since it isn't necessary to take away margin controls. Each file within an ePub is encrypted independently so the CSS (or XPGT) file could be left in the clear for user adjustment. The easiest way to check this would be to peak into the encryption.xml file.

If Adobe's ePub output tools don't have cleartext stylesheets by default, maybe we should set to convincing them to change? Commercial ePubs are a lot more attractive if we can modify fonts, text size, and margins...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by LoganK

I'll have to play around with these encrypted ePub files since it isn't necessary to take away margin controls. Each file within an ePub is encrypted independently so the CSS (or XPGT) file could be left in the clear for user adjustment. The easiest way to check this would be to peak into the encryption.xml file.

If Adobe's ePub output tools don't have cleartext stylesheets by default, maybe we should set to convincing them to change? Commercial ePubs are a lot more attractive if we can modify fonts, text size, and margins...

I believe Adobe has a method of overriding CSS in all eBooks, even DRM'd ones but this is not implemented on mobile devices.

Dale

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I admit, the one thing I wish the ePub app had was a progress indicator (because simply providing a page indicator doesn't tell you much, when you don't know how many pages are there). The ghosted page numbers on the side were odd, and I wasn't nuts about the way they obscured some words, but I git used to it. Still, Adobe should kill that feature, it just plain sucks.

If you just press the Menu/OK button you will see the progress indicator as a page/number of pages. Press again to get rid of it. For me this is adequate, I don't need to see it on every page and I prefer to have the extra text available on the page and extra space for images. YMMV.

Dale

[Laine]

Thanks for this tip. What a dummy I feel for not noticing before. I have actually used the menu to go to the last page to see how many pages left.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, there you go... something I probably would have found if I'd spent more time reading the manual!

[Dr. Drib]

An excellent review, Steve, and thank you.

You wrote an honest appraisal of the positive and negative aspects of what I feel is a very viable Reader

My Pocket Pro arrived to my mailing address in the States. Now I'm just waiting to get it!


Don

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Well, there you go... something I probably would have found if I'd spent more time reading the manual!

Review the manual.

Better yet, Don't, because it is fairly weak on the "tip" department.

[bjrnfrdnnd]

As the title implies,
does this reader has a search function that works on all formats,
and maybe a dictionary that helps to look up words?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by bjrnfrdnnd

As the title implies,
does this reader has a search function that works on all formats,
and maybe a dictionary that helps to look up words?

It has a search function but not in all formats. It does not have a dictionary yet.

Dale

[Toeknee]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I did encounter an occasional problem with the unit seemingly “locking up” during operation, usually when a book was being open, and often within the first few pages (the cover, TOC or setup/copyright info). Embarrassingly, I showed the device to two people, and it managed to lock up on the cover of two different books as soon as they tried it! (Not the best way to demo something… sorry, Bob!) In both cases, turning the Astak off, then back on, allowed the book to be read beyond the point of lockup. There is also a reset button on the back of the unit, but I only used it once. Based on the instructions, this lockup is a known issue, but obviously not considered serious. I know it didn’t bother me much, it just meant an occasional extra minute spent rebooting the reader.


One thing I didn’t love was that, upon turning on the Pocket PRO, I had to work my way through a menu to find the book I was reading—and with one of the books that was five pages into the menu, scrolling to the fifth menu page, then selecting the book, and waiting for it to load, took 45 seconds, what I’d consider a tedious wait. It would be nice if the device just opened to the book being read as soon as you turned it on, and saved you the trouble of that menu-diving.

Excellent review, however I do have some comments:

I have found that holding the BACK button unfreezes my PEZ whenever it locks like that. It is much faster than powering off and back on. I have also found that some formats lock up more than others.

As for the powering on issue, I never turn mine off. I just lock the keyboard by tapping the power button. When I want to read again, I just tap the power button again and the screen goes on immediately and exactly where I left off. I still get over a week of battery life using this approach, which is quite acceptable to me.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The ghosted page numbers on the side were odd, and I wasn't nuts about the way they obscured some words, but I git used to it.

So THATs what they are - I noticed those little numbers and didn't twig to what they were...

[geneven]

You said something about this being considered state-of-the-art TTS; I didn't understand what you were referring to. The main factor in quality of TTS is the voice; like in a person, a well-educated voice pronounces most words correctly and has an appealing accent. Like with a person, you know something about that particular person if you know the person's name. For example, I like the Kindle's female voice; her name is Samantha. I am familiar with her because I bought her voice to use on my Windows computers.

Were you referring to the voice, or something else as being state of the art?

[CharlieBird]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Although I realize not everyone’s eyes are like mine, I honestly believe that a great many people who do not like to read on LCD screens have never learned how to properly set them for their eyes’ comfort level. Learning how to adjust these settings has made a world of difference for me, and I think it would be more than enough to make many other people comfortable with LCD reading.

Steve, I do like reading on LCD screens and while it's fairly obvious about brightness, I wonder if you could go into a little detail about adjusting other settings for reading?

I frequently read at night and hate messing w/the light for the Pocket PRO.
d

Good review BTW. I agree right down the line. I'm liking my PP more every day and it has replaced my faithful old DT375 for listening to BBC podcasts while I'm working outside. Fortunately I get great battery life and it's never once locked up.