Color jetBook Color Hand-On Review

[LuBiB]

Originally Posted by lorenzoens

Try this without reflowing: http://www.pnas.org/content/108/49/19569.full.pdf

i'll check this out later tn or tmrw and post up

[lorenzoens]

It was rhetoric, lil' LuBiB.

It' just obvious that you require to zoom in that document, as its text is already quite small in A4. And the 9,7" has less than a half the area of an A4.

You could still read it if you keep if near, or if you read only for 20 minutes instead of 2 hours. Real people are not used to read that way, especially on such a screen.

[Kris777]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

Do you actually see those vivid colors on the real e-ink screen ???

You can find real colors here

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by Kris777

You can find real colors here

I hope you do realize that I already read that thread

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

the only ereader i know of that reflows the pictures with the text is Pocketbook. they included that feature starting with their Pro series of devices and its limited to certain image formats. every other I have seen, and thats quite many, just leaves the images out of reflowed views.

reflow isn't "needed" so much as "desired" by some depending on use case and personal preference. even with very small text, decent zooming and panning can negate the need for reflow. especially I have found, in most of my use cases, if I can also rotate to landscape mode. column reading mode is especially helpful in that it preserves the formatting and embedded images but zooms the text up to readable size.

You're right in what you're saying, however, it would work more desirable on regular LCD screens. The reason people having reflow is because panning and page flipping does not happen very smooth on an e-ink screen.
Reading in landscape mode is ok, but if the text has 2 columns, you'll have to page down, and page up again to read the second column.

Zooming in you could have as much as 4 pageflips to read one single page.
On an LCD the transition is much smoother as there is no page flip delay.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

I hope you do realize that I already read that thread

or here.In fact the photo's on this link are the same as on the website, only the website is the original pictures, and my link has how it really looks like on the device.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

The reason people having reflow is because panning and page flipping does not happen very smooth on an e-ink screen.
Reading in landscape mode is ok, but if the text has 2 columns, you'll have to page down, and page up again to read the second column.

well "very smooth" is debatable and subjective. its done just as a page flip with Onyx for instance and for me its adequate. It very accurate too meaning in i put the pen on a spot in upper upper right and "pull" it to a spot on lower left thats where it goes, making it easy to know how far you "need" to pan .

Columns i feel should be read in Portrait with a column reading zoom mode. I cant believe nobody but PB has done this. If you have actually used it it makes pdf reading a breeze. the device cuts each page into top and bottom left and right and depending on font size and number of columns you might have a middle. the page buttons then move you through those sections. the sections are delineated with a fine dashed line that is not intrusive but helps direct your eye to where you left off reading. it really is brilliant, every ereader should adopt it. there is even a little indicator in the lower left corner that shows you where on the page you currently are looking

[ignacio ferrer]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Columns i feel should be read in Portrait with a column reading zoom mode. I cant believe nobody but PB has done this. If you have actually used it it makes pdf reading a breeze. the device cuts each page into top and bottom left and right and depending on font size and number of columns you might have a middle. the page buttons then move you through those sections. the sections are delineated with a fine dashed line that is not intrusive but helps direct your eye to where you left off reading. it really is brilliant, every ereader should adopt it. there is even a little indicator in the lower left corner that shows you where on the page you currently are looking

I think this could be done with software also, I mean preparing the PDF before reading.
I wonder what "a breeze" might be in your definition. I used a PB903 and even normal operations were rather slow(FW2.01). So they must have done significant improvements.

[Dulin's Books]

i mean easy not fast. they are eink based readers with a 532mHz processor.

they way it works makes it terrifically easy to read mutli-column pdfs DESPITE the hardware limitations. Thats why I would like to see that functionality adopted in other readers. I can take a mutli-columnn PDF , put it on the PB 360 and read it quite easily . thats a two generations old device with a 5" display.

yes , of course it is software. but it should be done by the device. the end user should NOT have to spend more time then is necessary just putting the pdf on the device to get good PDF readability

[oldchum62]

I've been following this thread for a while. Thank you all for sharing your information.
I have a question. The hanvon E920 and C920, which the jetbook color is based on can convert hand-written notes to text. On the hanvon site it says:
" In Memo mode, users can sketch freehand notes and save them as image files. In Notepad mode, users can convert handwritten input to text, which can be saved as a .txt file. "
Can the jetbook do this? If not, will it be in a future update?
I only ask because I can't type very quickly and it hurts my old hands to type. I think this feature would be extremely useful for many people.

oldchum

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by oldchum62

I've been following this thread for a while. Thank you all for sharing your information.
I have a question. The hanvon E920 and C920, which the jetbook color is based on can convert hand-written notes to text. On the hanvon site it says:
" In Memo mode, users can sketch freehand notes and save them as image files. In Notepad mode, users can convert handwritten input to text, which can be saved as a .txt file. "
Can the jetbook do this? If not, will it be in a future update?
I only ask because I can't type very quickly and it hurts my old hands to type. I think this feature would be extremely useful for many people.

oldchum

The jetBook Color only seems to use the hardware of the Hanvon devices (and not even all of that - no capacitive touch screen for us). The software appears to be unique to Ectaco, and no, it doesn't include handwriting to text at the moment. Whether it will in the future is entirely up to Ectaco, but I wouldn't buy the device based on hoping for it. But then I wouldn't buy any device based on a hope for something it might do in the future.

Andrew

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

... But then I wouldn't buy any device based on a hope for something it might do in the future.

Andrew

well most of those who bought the device after reading here did!
they all knew that there were promises for updates

[oldchum62]

Thank you Andy and PF4. I have been in two minds about buying it for a few weeks. I will be in China in early June and am thinking about buying the hanvon color reader, if it has come out by then. Some of the features on the jetbook sound amazing, though. The language learning software sounds good.
I would especially like to know more about the speed reading software bundled with the jetbook. For instance, which techniques does it use (chunking, eliminating subvocalization, fixation etc) and is the word speed adjustable? If so, to what range (200-1000 words per minute for example)?

[ProDigit]

Never a promise for handwrite recognition! That's a software pack you'd normally pay $30 in the store for!

So, no it does not, however, I perhaps will see some kind of paint brush-like program in the future on this device.

As far as typing, you can type with the stylus, there's an onscreen keyboard. Hopefully the device will support USB HUB and keyboard (I yet have to test this), so you can type straight from keyboard.
As far as I'm concerned, I think typing is less stressing to the hand than writing;but that'll be my personal opinion.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by oldchum62

...For instance, which techniques does it use (chunking, eliminating subvocalization, fixation etc) and is the word speed adjustable? If so, to what range (200-1000 words per minute for example)?

It's a TTS, it works like any other, a female voice both English and Spanish version. The English version works very similar to this link here,only a little brighter:
http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

The voice is about sounding the same as crystal; or even Lauren (but brighter), reading at the same speed, having the same accent and issues and tonality... TTS is non configurable.
If you select a block of text, or a page TTS will read like this.
If you select nothing, TTS will read the book, with an additional 1-2 seconds delay between sentences, which is kind of slow (kind of gives you a pause to ponder upon the sentence, or get annoyed with the slowness) but I think that might get updated soon!