PB 602/902 review

[repods]

it seems it has some problems with pdf reflow .. it freeze when reflow..

[Trantorx]

same problems were reported by me in the german part of the board

of 5 tested PDFs
and 5 Epubs (which btw all worked flawlessly on PRS505)

we had very often freezes 4 of each kind when zooming in, using reflow or switching pages.

it was really annoying.

[CalvinL]

is it readable if you don't zoom in??

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by CalvinL

is it readable if you don't zoom in??

That depends largely on the original size of the file, of course. Normal fiction is mostly readable without zoom.

By the way: We heard about occasional problems and those come mostly from badly formatted pdf. Mostly zoom and reflow work flawlessly. If there are problems, I would like to have a look at the files to find out where the problem lies.

[SkyDream]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

That depends largely on the original size of the file, of course. Normal fiction is mostly readable without zoom.

I do have a few RPG manuals range from 10-100 MB with pictures and tables.
Also a lot of Scientific American with lots of pictures and tables range from 6-8 MB. May any of them cause problems due to size and number of pictures ?

I will use my Sony 650 for reading normal fiction but want a bigger screen for the technical PDFs. That's the main reason i ordered a 903. Having problems with big PDFs or PDFs with lots of pictures and tables would really hurt me.

[repods]

hey guys the first videoreview is available:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hia4fQijY-o

[SkyDream]

seems to be just another retailers video...skipped it

[Passepartout]

Originally Posted by SkyDream

seems to be just another retailers video...skipped it

1+

Have reinstall my review (add the PDF-review-file that I have write at the same time, try to undelete some of the pictures.
Review again here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=107683

The PDF-file here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...4&d=1290841783

The pictures:



First pictures with 11W Energy-saving lamp (60W old normal lamps) without using any thing of flash - only nightmode, a tripod and my DSLR.
Second pictures with daylight, 11 am in cloudy november day, the windows are comple a wall are on the left side from the reader.

Why I made it readable again?
Made it only for the community. Not for any other. Made your self minds about it.
I for me know now, the first (second, last before pearl etc.) generation of e-ink displays are not for me.

Try it again with pearl displays. When I be happy with it, I will write a new review.

I have 2700°K lamps in my room, make a change on the JPG to cold than you have this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

[twoflower]

My first impressions of 902 after two days of usage.

Positive
1. The document rendering capabilities of PB902 are good. I have tried many files from my personal library - mostly OCRed and scanned PDF, CHM, EPUB, DJVU and HTML files - and each one is readable. Even the scanned PDFs/DJVUs are readable on the device and the G-sensor works with them - in the landscape mode it zooms fine. When I zoom so much that the text is wider than the device, I still don't know to navigate through the text, but that's probably because I haven't read the manual yet. And this scenario (text line wider than the device) is not suitable for continuous reading anyway. If I read a two-column PDF, I can set the zoom mode to count with this layout (number of columns can be adjusted from 2 to 5) so that the reader presents me the first columns first and as I reach its end, it automatically jumps to beginning of the second column. Very convenient.

2. The device itself feels solid and the buttons response nicely (I am not talking about the speed now).

3. WiFi is working, as I just found out at home. WPA2-PSK on my router doesn't seem to be a problem. Anyway, I haven't found the browser yet so I only tested connecting to Bookland.

4. The included Text-to-speech and vocabularies work fine. I tried EN-CS vocabulary and has been satisfied.

Negative

1. I can see the previous contents under the current contents on the display. Is this a property of all eInk devices? Sometimes it is quite obvious, sometimes hardly noticeable.

EDIT: As mtravellerh pointed out, this can be minimized by setting the "Appearance -> Full page update" option to "Always".

2. The software is far from perfect. In particular, it has some redrawing issues. For example, when I was testing the music player and tried to open a book while the music was playing, the reader got really confused and only restarting it helped.

3. I connected to Bookland several times, but after loading the page and pressing some of the navigation buttons, it gets unresponsive. Luckily, the "return" button works and I can get out of Bookland back to main menu.

4. When you want to use the vocabulary, the navigation for the particular word on a page is very slow (mainly the navigation in between the lines, within the line it is faster).

Note taking in PDF
First to make this clear - the device almost surely does not allow making regular PDF annotations. The notes here, if I understand it right, are just portions of text from the document. If you want to make a note in a document, you select the region of text it should span and that's it. Then, you can review the notes you created from the main menu where they are organized under the respective books. Anyway, I was not able to create a note in the PDF file. I tried it, selected the text region, but I could not find the note in the menu then (the book was not listed there at all). Then I tried to create a note in an EPUB file and this time it was ok.

About the brightness and contrast
The display is gray, the font is not really black BUT for me, it is okay. Indeed, this is not the biggest concern for me, personally. I compared the device with Kindle DX (the first generation, unfortunately) and I could not see any remarkable difference. The fonts could have sharper edges, but maybe this can be fixed and again, it does not make the documents unreadable, at least for me.

----

If you want to test the rendering of some documents you have, feel free to send me the files (or put them right in this thread) and I can take the photos for you.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by twoflower

My first impressions of 902 after two days of usage.

Positive
1. The document rendering capabilities of PB902 are good. I have tried many files from my personal library - mostly OCRed and scanned PDF, CHM, EPUB, DJVU and HTML files - and each one is readable. Even the scanned PDFs/DJVUs are readable on the device and the G-sensor works with them - in the landscape mode it zooms fine. When I zoom so much that the text is wider than the device, I still don't know to navigate through the text, but that's probably because I haven't read the manual yet. And this scenario (text line wider than the device) is not suitable for continuous reading anyway. If I read a two-column PDF, I can set the zoom mode to count with this layout (number of columns can be adjusted from 2 to 5) so that the reader presents me the first columns first and as I reach its end, it automatically jumps to beginning of the second column. Very convenient.

2. The device itself feels solid and the buttons response nicely (I am not talking about the speed now).

3. WiFi is working, as I just found out at home. WPA2-PSK on my router doesn't seem to be a problem. Anyway, I haven't found the browser yet so I only tested connecting to Bookland.

4. The included Text-to-speech and vocabularies work fine. I tried EN-CS vocabulary and has been satisfied.

Negative

1. I can see the previous contents under the current contents on the display. Is this a property of all eInk devices? Sometimes it is quite obvious, sometimes hardly noticeable.

2. The software is far from perfect. In particular, it has some redrawing issues. For example, when I was testing the music player and tried to open a book while the music was playing, the reader got really confused and only restarting it helped.

3. I connected to Bookland several times, but after loading the page and pressing some of the navigation buttons, it gets unresponsive. Luckily, the "return" button works and I can get out of Bookland back to main menu.

4. When you want to use the vocabulary, the navigation for the particular word on a page is very slow (mainly the navigation in between the lines, within the line it is faster).

Note taking in PDF
First to make this clear - the device almost surely does not allow making regular PDF annotations. The notes here, if I understand it right, are just portions of text from the document. If you want to make a note in a document, you select the region of text it should span and that's it. Then, you can review the notes you created from the main menu where they are organized under the respective books. Anyway, I was not able to create a note in the PDF file. I tried it, selected the text region, but I could not find the note in the menu then (the book was not listed there at all). Then I tried to create a note in an EPUB file and this time it was ok.

About the brightness and contrast
The display is gray, the font is not really black BUT for me, it is okay. Indeed, this is not the biggest concern for me, personally. I compared the device with Kindle DX (the first generation, unfortunately) and I could not see any remarkable difference. The fonts could have sharper edges, but maybe this can be fixed and again, it does not make the documents unreadable, at least for me.

----

If you want to test the rendering of some documents you have, feel free to send me the files (or put them right in this thread) and I can take the photos for you.

Thanks for the review. i think you made a fine point for the good and for the negative. Please do not forget that we are constantly updating our software.

Tip @ 1: Under configuration, you can force the device to redraw the page completely after every page turns. This slows the reader down some (not really much) but you lose all the ghosting.

[twoflower]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

Thanks for the review. i think you made a fine point for the good and for the negative. Please do not forget that we are constantly updating our software.

Tip @ 1: Under configuration, you can force the device to redraw the page completely after every page turns. This slows the reader down some (not really much) but you lose all the ghosting.

Thank you for the tip. I set the "Full page update" to "always" and seems to help, but some slight ghosting is still there. However, it doesn't bother much, really.

Next thing which doesn't seem working is the "At startup, open" option which I set to "Last open book", but I always get main menu after starting the device.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by twoflower

Thank you for the tip. I set the "Full page update" to "always" and seems to help, but some slight ghosting is still there. However, it doesn't bother much, really.

Next thing which doesn't seem working is the "At startup, open" option which I set to "Last open book", but I always get main menu after starting the device.

I'll check that and report that as a bug if a general problem.

[Trantorx]

btw both problems: ghosting and not working start up with "Last open book"

were appearing at my test too.

i was just too annoyed by the lamp light problem so i forgot to mention it too.

[Passepartout]

Originally Posted by twoflower

About the brightness and contrast
The display is gray, the font is not really black BUT for me, it is okay. Indeed, this is not the biggest concern for me, personally. I compared the device with Kindle DX (the first generation, unfortunately) and I could not see any remarkable difference. The fonts could have sharper edges, but maybe this can be fixed and again, it does not make the documents unreadable, at least for me.

Can you make some pictures with a compare of your Kindle DX (without pearl) and your pocketbook device please - but without using the flash of the digicam?
And other questions - what do you pay for your Kindle DX and when do you buy it?

In low light is the most complex for both. When you have use nightmode with your camera and do not make it with own hand - use the timer and a tripod or something like that (books, cushion - do the same). Than you could make with all digicams good pictures - the only difference between DSLR and compact is that the compact have more noise on this pictures.

[bogdaniosif]

Originally Posted by twoflower

Note taking in PDF
First to make this clear - the device almost surely does not allow making regular PDF annotations. The notes here, if I understand it right, are just portions of text from the document. If you want to make a note in a document, you select the region of text it should span and that's it. Then, you can review the notes you created from the main menu where they are organized under the respective books. Anyway, I was not able to create a note in the PDF file. I tried it, selected the text region, but I could not find the note in the menu then (the book was not listed there at all). Then I tried to create a note in an EPUB file and this time it was ok.

Thank you very much for this information. I've been waiting for it for months.

I'm very disappointed that PDF annotations are not possible on the 902 because this means that they're also missing from the 903 and this pretty much makes the 903 pointless when compared with the 902 (3G can be added to the 902 with MiFi and the 903 touchscreen is useless when you can't make annotations properly, so why pay more?).

The worst of it all is how the Pocketbook company hid this major point of interest from prospective customers. This makes them unworthy of trust in my book, especially when they sell the Kool-Aid of future magical firmware versions.

I'm surprised by the ghosting problem. Do you think you can catch it in a picture?

Again, thanks for finally providing this info.