Cool new models from Pocketbook!!

[Yar-PocketBooker]

Originally Posted by SkyDream

The german pocketbook thread contains some words from PocketBook about price ranges.
Look <here>.

As usual, US prices will be slightly different from EU prices

[rogue_librarian]

But of course. Europeans are used to 1 € = 1 $ after all.

[SkyDream]

Originally Posted by Yar-PocketBooker

As usual, US prices will be slightly different from EU prices

Sure.
Just a hint about the range.

[brainycat]

Originally Posted by acanthicus

looks like they were made for right handed readers... or one handed readers.

Agreed! What good is an accelerometer without buttons on at least three sides?

[Dulin's Books]

you rotate the device to have the buttons where you want them , lft/right/top/bottom. PocketBook 360

[krish]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

you rotate the device to have the buttons where you want them , lft/right/top/bottom. PocketBook 360

PB 360 is a compact size and the buttons are symettrical. One doesn't feel the odd hand/finger movements even if the unit is rotated to any orientation.
But all these new models are bigger and also have the joy stick type button on bottom right side. It is not a convienient design for all users to rotate in any orientation and use.
I personally like the 302 design with left and right side buttons, centre button. I would rather say it is one of the plus for pocketbook considering also their firmware to easily configure these buttons to whatever action we want to use.
As other users mentioned in other threads, it is also not, we always use one hand. It is much convienient to have buttons on both sides.

Considering the present broad bezel design, it would have been easier to include the left side buttons. It is not clear what was the reason for PB to remove the left buttons. Did they listen to users / some PB design engineer's innovation / their manufacturer Foxconn's option which they had to accept.

[capidamonte]

It's me-too-ism.

Have you noticed how much modern devices look either like a Sony, a Kindle or an iPad? Over and over again, designers all over the planet do the same thing someone else did. The PB360 at least ripped off a good design and added an excellent feature (the cover).

Boring.

[Logseman]

Originally Posted by capidamonte

It's me-too-ism.

Have you noticed how much modern devices look either like a Sony, a Kindle or an iPad? Over and over again, designers all over the planet do the same thing someone else did. The PB360 at least ripped off a good design and added an excellent feature (the cover).

Boring.

If the Pocketbook 360 sold as much as the Kindle, people would be imitating the PB360's design. Creativity is quite hampered for mass-produced articles.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by capidamonte

It's me-too-ism.

Have you noticed how much modern devices look either like a Sony, a Kindle or an iPad? Over and over again, designers all over the planet do the same thing someone else did. The PB360 at least ripped off a good design and added an excellent feature (the cover).

Boring.

It's a function of which product is *perceived* as the industry leader.
When Sony was the *Big Name* everybody did rows of buttons and 4-way control pads. (Need we name them?)
Once Kindle took over, everybody moved to side-mounted paging buttons (good) and alphanumeric keyboards (way bad).

Sony came out with touchscreens, everybody does touchscreen even when their software can't do anything particularly useful with then.

Hardly a day doesn't go by that a China-sourced generic Kindle-wannabee isn't "introduced" somewhere on the planet. Which is good in that ebook readers are spreading to all corners but bad in that the Kindle design makes sense for connected readers with an attached bookstore, a browser, and growing social reading features but not much at all for generic ADE readers.

Now it seems were in for a horde of iPad-inspired rounded-corner, curved rear panel, wide-bezel designs. Again, they make sense on a heavy-all-screen product like iPad to provide a place to hold the things, but less so on light, one-handed devices.

The phrase "what were they thinking" tends to come to mind.
Or, maybe, "how much time did they spend on it"?
There are known principles for ergonomic product design that explain why some products work better than others, why some product dimensions feel good in the hand while others feel awkward, why some screen sizes work better than others.

If I had to guess, I'd say too much thought is going into what the product does and not enough thought is going into *how* the product is going to be used. Too much into competitors and not enough about the user. Somewhere along the way somebody forgot Pocketbook aspires to be an industry leader and not just a close follower.

Which is where the PB360 is such an anomalous product; it is a near-perfect combination of size, shape, balance, controls, and software that effectively vanishes in your hand when you're reading. It loses a few points by the stiffness and noise of the wing flaps (floating buttons would've been better) but it gains them right back with the inspired cover and back panel design.

Given that PBG has now shown two succesor waves of products after the 360 it is starting to look like the magic of 360 was more of a happy accident than willful intent. Which is sad; the 360 design embodies an ergonomic philosophy of compact one-handed use that few other products offer and which, sadly, the new Pro line has abandoned.

Doesn't meant they may not be good products; everything suggests they are likely to be very good.
But *Great* products?
Not so sure about that.
Hopefully their virtues will outweigh their looks, but first impressions matter. And the ergonomics of those controls...
(sigh)

[capidamonte]

I personally find touchscreens useful. I grew up on the REB1100 (what, 10 years ahead of its time?). Touchscreen, wing buttons, great design. Not the greatest firmware, largely because of the usual corporate, sociopathic bent for world domination, but okay. Had bookmarks, dictionaries, highlighting and notes. Bookmarking with a touchscreen is great for proofreading a book that you're editing.

PB360 was based on its design, added the awesome cover, lost the ability to prop itself up in landscape mode. At least it stole its design from something that worked.

The designers for these companies are being told to mimic these designs. Or they're phoning it in. These are ugly in any rotation but their basic portrait presentation. That giant bezel at the bottom with the archaic Sony d-pad -- that is lazy design, probably where the battery is. Or everything was sacrificed for "thinness" -- which is equally stupid. Having something you can actually wrap your fingers around is not a problem, it's a benefit.

As you say, no thought is being spent on how to actually use the things. Right-hand-centric, with an easily-hit second set of buttons under the ball of your thumb. Imagine the awkwardness of holding one of these things in your left hand, in portrait mode while trying to push the d-pad to change the page? Or landscape mode? No better.

Who would hold a book (or anything) by its corner? The alternate use-cases of one-handed manipulation seem to be ignored again and again -- I can imagine a manager spending two minutes with the product, holding it in his hands and playing with the buttons and calling it good, but never actually using the thing in real life. Worse, it was all done to Marketing's requirements: "sexy" "sleek" "futuristic"

The REB1100 was even designed to be held primarily in your left hand! (At least if you go by the screen printing -- it was functionally hand-agnostic.) That's how a right-handed user would use it, while drinking coffee, etc. Button right under the thumb, genius. I could even push the back wing-button with the ball of my thumb.

These ridiculous designs are being made as movie-props -- the movies in their heads of how a "sexy" spokes-model should use it in the commercial or something.

With Apple products, how the thing works marries pretty well with how the thing looks and handles. That's why there are fanbois. There is something to love there. The PB360 has some of that magic. The rest of these things are utterly undistinctive.

Boring. I hope the rumors of the Jetbook-Mini are true.

[Mickey330]

Heh.

I've got nothing much beyond what fjtorres and capidamonte have said. Awesome points about e-readers & their development.

Truthfully, I thought Pocketbook "got it" with the PB302 and the PB360; ergonomic readers that could easily be used in either hand (comfortably). But, with the PB302 going away, all that's left is the PB360 - and who knows what Pocketbook will do to "improve" it.

I'm glad I have a PB360. As fjtorres said, "the 360 design embodies an ergonomic philosophy of compact one-handed use that few other products offer..."

But I know that eventually, I am going to have to replace my PB360 (a long time from now, thank you very much & knock on wood). If Pocketbook global does not have a PB360 available (with page turning buttons on one portrait side of the device plus an accelerometer) OR a device with page forward/back buttons on both portrait sides - then I'll not buy another Pocketbook.

At this rate, I'm just hoping that if (when?) I have to get a new e-reader, there will still be something available with page forward/back buttons on both sides.

Bah. Now I'm just grumpy about all this...

Marilyn

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Mickey330

At this rate, I'm just hoping that if (when?) I have to get a new e-reader, there will still be something available with page forward/back buttons on both sides.

Bah. Now I'm just grumpy about all this...

Marilyn

No need to be grumpy.
There *are* some outfits doing usage-based design.

If nothing else, the K3 has the paging buttons on both sides.
(Early reports say the buttons are both silent and reasonably soft.)

And if it ever shows up, the Jetbook Mini looks like a rainbow-hued clone of the PB360.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=jetbook+mini
The firmware of the Jetbooks is minimalist and less flexible than the PB firmware but their readers are among the cheapest on the market and not too bad. (I have a couple of cousins happy with theirs.)

Also, check this one:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95723
I like how those folks think. If they gave the center button a rocker ring...

The problem is likely going to be finding products with mature/stable/flexible firmware *and* good design. The software side is the *hard* work which is why its disappointing to see hardware design get in the way and detract from the usability of the product.

Oh, well; if the upcoming 5xx series moves away from the PB360 design I'll just order up one of the last PB360s as insurance.

[Logseman]

The thread's title sounds rather ironic right now, given the last opinions

[fjtorres]

Oh, I dunno...
The models may still be cool.
Just because some of us have concerns about ergonomics doesn't mean *everybody* does. In fact, looking at the ergonomics of a lot of the products on the market one might think the majority of consumers don't value ergonomics very much. For a lot of products (and I'm not just talking readers) the bulk of the learning curve is in how to hold the darn things without killing yourself.
Or the signal.

[Mr. Dalliard]

902 screens better be Pearl (I don't see why e-ink manufacturers would be producing anything else from now on anyway) and the price under $400, or I'm going DXG. I'd possibly entertain over $400 if the screens had a plastic, rather than a glass, substrate.