What do you love/hate about your EZ Reader/BeBook?

[leandroide]

Originally Posted by Rique

@leandroide, your avatar made me realize I forgot to ask a very important question - how well does the EZ Reader get along with Macs? Thanks!

Yep... as AlfonsVH said, it is recognized as external unit and works well with a mac.

And for copying books to the reader, you always have the SD card.

L.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by smithno

I have tried all of the firmware out there and I am currently using the previous lbook. It has a good HTML reader and since all of the format shifting approaches leaves books in HTML, it is dang convenient to just stop at HTML and start reading!

I like my EZ Reader but it has a lot of limitations with HTML. These limitations are for raw HTML and all the html derived formats such as ePUB, CHM, HTML, LIT. The HTML is very basic, no italics, no bold, no sup, pre won't wrap, no CSS support, no href. There is table support but it doesn't deal with too wide a table very well. LIT has no toc support and page turns are really slow. Font sizes are not controllable directly and are too small IMHO. Hyphenation is terrible and no way to turn it off. Images in html type files are supported but there is no control over where they appear on a page and they may be split between pages. Forget accurate page numbers, particularly the last page.

I generally like the palmDOC file reader (no TOC support however) but the reading experience is ok except for hyphenation.

Book marks a limited to 5 except in mobipocket and if you change zoom the location of the bookmark will change.

Dale

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Rique

@slayda, do you have that flexibility with OI - or with the standard f/w? Do folk routinely switch back and forth between firmware versions?


-- Rique

That's with OI. It is relatively easy to switch back & forth & I did that while deciding which I prefered. Also like Wallcraft I tried the method of having a standard firmware and being able to switch into OI but did not like the instabilities I found. Others, Wallcraft in particular, seem to find it sufficiently stable.

There are some things I'd like added to OI such as dictionary support in FBreader, but it's OK as is & will maybe be improved soon.

[BBwizard]

Rique,

In answer to your question about remembering the last book position, I didn't see anyone mention that it will remember up to 8 books. It does so by keeping a folder called Recent Books (at the top of the folders list) and in that are the books in reverse reading order. So, if you power it off, it only takes 3 keystrokes to get back. One to power up, one to select Recent Books, and one to select the number of the book - usually #1.

If you are like me and read one at a time, it is easier to leave it turned completely on and with your current page displayed, and just pick it up and read. I use the cover it came with and don't even lock the keys. I have read two Mobipocket books (full length novels) in the 3 weeks since I bought my Astak EZ Reader (US version of Hanlin V3), and the battery now shows one bar down and 3 to go. I am purposely NOT charging it to see how long it lasts. I put the latest Astak firmware on (same as the Hanlin 2.02) and it really seems happy.

It is heaven compared to reading them on my old Axim PDA, even though it was a X51v with a VGA screen. And since I have several hundred Mobipocket books, it will be a long time before I need to explore the limitations of PDF, html, or RTF.

[IgnareAcademy]

Huge problem: after reading a few pages, I usually get sent back to the bookshelf. I tried many firmwares. Many users reported that problem, but the manufacturer and resellers do not care!
Some users suggest buying a genuine Nokia battery.

No problem with the OpenInkpot firmware, but it is very limited: no .doc, no mp3, basic PDF,...

*** EDIT ***

Problem solved with this new great firmware from Ukrania:
http://lbook.com.ua/downloads/V3upda...20090409-2.rar

*** 2nd EDIT ***

Well, I thought my problem was solved but I was just reading a book on the SD-card and suddenly sent back the the bookshelf of the built-in storage!
Which never happens with OpenInkpot.

***3rd EDIT ***

It seems that when the battery is full there are less crashes. And this new LBook firmware must draw less current, but not as little as OpenInkpot. So I definitely must buy a high-quality original Nokia battery...or wait for the next LBook firmware.

[manifestor]

I don't like the leather case, it scratched my new EZ reader too easily.

[IgnareAcademy]

Another thing I hate sometimes is when there is a picture in a book and it looks really horrible because of the only four shades of grey available.
My next reader will have 16 shades of grey, no less.

[egret17]

Weird, I've only had this happen twice - the books were both from the same ebook publisher and had some weird pdf formatting that was easily stripped out by converting it in calibre.