Frankfurt Book Fair: jetBook mini

[TotallyEpic]

Am I the only one that finds it cheap looking?

Looks like it would be a cool eReader for a kid though.

[MR. Pockets]

Nope. I would buy it if I could justify getting a second so soon. But I can't. Now if it was $75...

That thing is small!

[mrscoach]

Epic, yes, I think it looks cheap. I already said the red one looks like an etch-a-sketch, and they all look like children's toys.

[macminer]

Just one thought: in many countries a "cheap" looking device is the only one that's worth carrying around. If something looks cool, trendy and pro, it will quickly attract thieves or muggers...

[LuBiB]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Same here. The lack of basic support for at least epub and pdf would be a great negative point...

if you use Calibre and convert any ePub book to TXT it reads pretty well so i think its not that big of an issue, especially figuring that for $99 bucks ur saving a lot!

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by LuBiB

if you use Calibre and convert any ePub book to TXT it reads pretty well so i think its not that big of an issue, especially figuring that for $99 bucks ur saving a lot!

Of course, if you do that, you loose any formatting that can't be supported by txt, like italics and bold.

The fact that they support .fb2 suggests that the device should be capable of supporting epub. I have already emailed Ectaco and told them I thought they would loose a lot of sales by not supporting ePub on the device itself and that suggesting that someone use third party software (no matter how good) to convert to .fb2 or .txt was not really supporting those other formats.

--
Bill

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by LuBiB

if you use Calibre and convert any ePub book to TXT it reads pretty well so i think its not that big of an issue, especially figuring that for $99 bucks ur saving a lot!

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Of course, if you do that, you loose any formatting that can't be supported by txt, like italics and bold.

My point exactly. Txt is the worst format for a book as you'll lose all layout. I've no idea how smart Calibre is, but a lot of formatting is in stylesheets (at least, in my epubs) and that includes italics and bold, but also indentation, small-caps, larger fonts, smaller fonts, padding, etc.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I really can't see a reader which appears to offer no support for commercial eBook formats being a success.

Not sure why you would think it doesn't support them. According to the website it supports the following:

"Support for LIT, MOBI, EPUB, HTML, PRC, RTF, PDB, PDF via Calibre conversion to TXT and FB2"

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by akira28

Not sure why you would think it doesn't support them. According to the website it supports the following:

"Support for LIT, MOBI, EPUB, HTML, PRC, RTF, PDB, PDF via Calibre conversion to TXT and FB2"

You are joking right?

--
Bill

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by akira28

Not sure why you would think it doesn't support them. According to the website it supports the following:

"Support for LIT, MOBI, EPUB, HTML, PRC, RTF, PDB, PDF via Calibre conversion to TXT and FB2"

It supports TXT and FB2. Nothing more.

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

It supports TXT and FB2. Nothing more.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but because the way it was listed it made it appear to me that PDF's are the only format that needed converting. If you are correct I can't understand why Ectaco wouldn't put the same software in it that they have for the other Jetbooks. Perhaps they didn't want to incorporate the extra expense of adding an Adobe Mobile license.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by akira28

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but because the way it was listed it made it appear to me that PDF's are the only format that needed converting.

akira, that was my initial interpretation as well. However, discussions on the Ectaco board and the video made by Ectaco's Jerry indicate that Sweetpea is correct. Jerry wrote, "I don't know of any plans to expand the format support beyond the FB2 and TXT formats."

http://www.ectaco.com/posts/list/20081.page

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by akira28

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but because the way it was listed it made it appear to me that PDF's are the only format that needed converting. If you are correct I can't understand why Ectaco wouldn't put the same software in it that they have for the other Jetbooks. Perhaps they didn't want to incorporate the extra expense of adding an Adobe Mobile license.

They only would have needed to license adobe Mobile if they wanted to support DRM. The firmware on my existing Jetbook uses FB reader so it supports quite a few formats quite well.

That being said, I suspect that the limited format support is because they probably pared the processor and memory of the unit down to increase battery life. Not a bad trade off... if they had chosen ePub instead of .fb2. If you are planning on reading mostly PG books, you probably loose nothing. If you want to read newer works though, you have to depend on well Calibre supports .fb2 (its my understanding, maybe mistaken that .fb2 support while functional, is not a super high priority for Calibre).

--
Bill

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

They only would have needed to license adobe Mobile if they wanted to support DRM. The firmware on my existing Jetbook uses FB reader so it supports quite a few formats quite well.

That being said, I suspect that the limited format support is because they probably pared the processor and memory of the unit down to increase battery life. Not a bad trade off... if they had chosen ePub instead of .fb2. If you are planning on reading mostly PG books, you probably loose nothing. If you want to read newer works though, you have to depend on well Calibre supports .fb2 (its my understanding, maybe mistaken that .fb2 support while functional, is not a super high priority for Calibre).

--
Bill

Indeed. Epub would have been a much better choice than FB2, which, as far as I know, is primarily used in Russia. At least, I've never heard of it before I came to this forum... (and I've been in the ebook scene for a long time...)