Delstar OpenBook at Walgreens

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I've contacted your company a couple times now. Can you provide an email address that you are actually paying attention to?

Two days now, and no response.

[Scott_T]

The epubs I tried I made using calibre from different sources. They all worked on my sony 500 with no problems.

[pendragginp]

Would it be possible to just strip this and put a different firmware on?

[pendragginp]

It's a nice little thing as far as feel and handling goes; it's just that it's nutz.

[Highroller]

My guess is there is something in the epub files it doesnt have a remote idea how to handle so after a while it reboots. According to where in the epub it hits this item is where it reboots. Scott said 3 different epubs rebooted the device at different points in the epub.

[Highroller]

Originally Posted by pendragginp

Would it be possible to just strip this and put a different firmware on?

Take a pretty good hacker. Only devices I have heard of where you can cross firmwares is like the libre/jetbook where the hardware is exactly the same but the firmware is different. Finding another device that uses exactly the same hardware as the delstar reader would probably be a good trick and it would only help if it had better firmware. And then there is the minor problem of loading some other kind of firmware on it would void any warrenty delstar gives. Not that I have heard of it having any warrenty. Right now the only warrenty anyone is really concerned about is the 30 day one from Walgreens.

But yeah I would love to be able to load windows ce on it. Then you could load several different kinds of reader software...

[pendragginp]

Originally Posted by Highroller

Take a pretty good hacker. Only devices I have heard of where you can cross firmwares is like the libre/jetbook where the hardware is exactly the same but the firmware is different. Finding another device that uses exactly the same hardware as the delstar reader would probably be a good trick and it would only help if it had better firmware. And then there is the minor problem of loading some other kind of firmware on it would void any warrenty delstar gives. Not that I have heard of it having any warrenty. Right now the only warrenty anyone is really concerned about is the 30 day one from Walgreens.

But yeah I would love to be able to load windows ce on it. Then you could load several different kinds of reader software...

Oh, I see. =}

[Marlonsarmiento]

Originally Posted by pendragginp

Would it be possible to just strip this and put a different firmware on?

I'm sure the there will be a linux distro sooner or later.

[Vienna01]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Have you looked at the Pocketbook 360? I think it meats all the above... oh, I think it has 20 font sizes.

Have you looked at the ebook reader matrix on our Wiki?
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

BOb

Pilotbob,
Thanks for feedback. The reader matrix in the Wiki area confuses me. Too much information. I am 72 years old. That may be why it confuses me although I once made a living with software.

I will try the matrix again.

No I haven't look at the Pocketbook but I will now.

[lk2000]

Originally Posted by bryanzs

The Delstar was able to navigate my folders without a problem. I was able to successfully open the txt and (already included on the device) epub books, which contained no formatting (not surprisingly). PDFs are problematic - sometimes, once opened they aren't that responsive. One thing I've noticed, it seems like sometimes after I hit a key (like the zoom, or the power button to rotate), I have to hit another key before the zoom or rotate takes effect; but perhaps it's just a coincidence in the timing. But the biggest problem is that they are indeed rendered like images; there's no way to rotate them to landscape mode, and all you can do is zoom in and then scroll around on the page. It makes it impossible to actually read the PDF. When in non-zoomed, non-landscape mode, the PDF looks pretty enough, but it's way too tiny for me to read.

To be fair this is just because the screen size is 5 inch, isn't it? Common PDF files are for letter size paper of 8.5' x 11', the main text are around 6' wide and 9' long. If you want it to fit to a 5' screen you have to move around or shrink the size. since （as far as I know) PDF files are not supposed to reformat or wrap up the lines dynamically..

I'm actually mainly checking this item to read PDF files. I hope it can display various symbols and formulas in PDF correctly.

I like the company opening up to the forum (and potentially put itself on grill here) No-name company or not，that's good practice. I just placed my order --- yes, at the time I ordered it it's available at Walgreens.

[bryanzs]

Originally Posted by lk2000

To be fair this is just because the screen size is 5 inch, isn't it? Common PDF files are for letter size paper of 8.5' x 11', the main text are around 6' wide and 9' long. If you want it to fit to a 5' screen you have to move around or shrink the size. since （as far as I know) PDF files are not supposed to reformat or wrap up the lines dynamically..

Indeed, the 5" form factor is not ideal (to say the least) for displaying PDFs; the only way it can come close is by using the screen in landscape form, which is what the Delstar currently can't do.

I certainly don't expect it to display the full PDF page, at readable size, without requiring some scrolling; but if it could display in landscape, you could perhaps at least see the top 1/2 (or 1/4) of the PDF and then paginate through the rest. What the Delstar currently does, though, is require you to scroll both horizontally and vertically, and that's just not workable.

Some of the smaller ebook readers do reformat (or "reflow") PDFs, and I was hoping that the Delstar would be amongst them.

Of course, this raises the question of whether or not the Delstar will work for me even if they do get the firmware fixed; is a 5" ebook just the wrong form factor for me? As my wife pointed out, even if Delstar does fix the software, that won't make the unit any bigger...

[maretrud]

This is a copy of the e-mail I sent to Delstar the other day. I have been reading the posts in this forum with interest, and just wanted to add my two cents.:

"Thanks for posting the update for the OpenBook E-Reader on your website today. I got the firmware update installed today, and it fixed the problems I was having with the e-reader. However, your video instructions were not very clear. Someone posted written instructions at www.mobileread.com, and those were very helpful.

I am very happy the text now fills the entire screen on the e-reader with this update. I was able to read your user manual on the e-reader in pdf. I didn't try a doc file. Also, now all the features listed in the user manual are available. Also, I was getting some garbage characters before in some epub files (I think where they had italics or other formatting), and those are now gone and all the epub's I've tried are very readable.

There are many things I like about the OpenBook E-Reader:

--Its handy size. Not too big and not too small.
--The included leather cover is very nice and adds to the appearance.
--The screen is very readable, and can be read in dim light or the dark.
--Support for folders. I love that, and it's great for organizing your books, pictures, and music files.
--The picture viewer is very good.
--The battery has a long life. I get more than eight hours out of it.
--The price is great.
--It's very easy to load files on the E-Reader because you just copy them there as to a flashdrive.
--It's simple to use.
--It can take an SD card to expand the storage.
--The included list of websites to obtain books from is very helpful.

There are some improvements I would like to see, however:

--Support for images in epub files.
--Support for italics, heading styles, and bold fonts in epub files.
--Support for links in epub files, such as for a Table of Contents. This is very important to me.
--Longer time choices for blanking the screen. The longest choice is 30 sec., which is too short.

I hope you will be able to add these improvements in a future update; however, I am much happier with the OpenBook E-Reader after today's update and I'm sure I will enjoy it very much. I had considered returning it to Walgreens at first because I was so disappointed with it, but now I no longer want to return it after upgrading it."

Originally Posted by bryanzs

...is a 5" ebook just the wrong form factor for me? As my wife pointed out, even if Delstar does fix the software, that won't make the unit any bigger...

She has a good point. Of course everyone's eyes are different, but for me I would think a 7 inch screen in landscape mode with at least 800x600 px resolution is the bare minimum for viewing PDFs without having to zoom or scroll sideways. And even with that, if the PDF had multiple columns and/or very tiny fonts it might still be unreadable.

A couple things to look for in a reader is (1) PDF text reflow and (2) PDF cropping (where the reader software can crop out the wide margins or whitespace that are often in PDFs).

[bryanzs]

Originally Posted by jswinden

She has a good point. Of course everyone's eyes are different, but for me I would think a 7 inch screen in landscape mode with at least 800x600 px resolution is the bare minimum for viewing PDFs without having to zoom or scroll sideways. And even with that, if the PDF had multiple columns and/or very tiny fonts it might still be unreadable.

A couple things to look for in a reader is (1) PDF text reflow and (2) PDF cropping (where the reader software can crop out the wide margins or whitespace that are often in PDFs).

Yeah, so that's why I'm trolling the MR forums trying to find a 7" LCD device I think I'd be happy with 800x480, which is what most of the devices seem to have.

I'd like to find something that has a decent battery life, a nice screen, good ereading software, and either boots up fast or can be put into 'sleep' mode for long periods of time. The most reviewed devices here that seem to meet at least some of these goals are the JE100/JE200, W1060/A81, or the (not-yet-released) Archos 7 Home. (Anyone with any experience with these - will any of them come close???)

[Scott_T]

Just went to delstar page and they had a different firmware than the one I put on the other day on the ebook manual page so I thought I'd give it a try but now the firmware installer tool doesnt see my reader. woohoo!

edit:nevermind, figured it out. had to reinstall the tool while the reader was hooked up.
this firmware works better. still no formatting but the crashing is gone. I cant tell if this is an older version or a newer since they dont change version numbers.