Stash e-book reader for $129 at Officeworks (Australia)

[AprilHare]

This caught my attention:
Stash W950 eBook Reader - Includes a colour screen, is compact, lightweight and boasts a long battery life
STW950EBK
$129

Specifications:

* Display: 5" TFT LCD
* Built-In Memory: 2GB
* External Memory: SD/SDHC up to 16GB
* Battery Life:
* ~ eBook up to 7 hours
* ~ eBook & music up to 5 hours
* Resolution: 800 x 480
* Digital File Formats:
* eBook: ASCII,UNICODE TXT,LRC,PDB,PDF,HTML,FB2,EPUB,WTXT
* Music: MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC, WAV, OGG
* Image: JPEG, BMP,GIF
* Video: RM, AVI, RMVB, 3GP, FLV, MP4, DAT, VOB,, MPG, MPEG, MKV, MOV
* Preloaded with 100 free books
* 12 months manufacturer's warranty

[TooOld]

I just saw that as well in my email from OW. Might have to pop into our local store on Saturday and have a look. I was thinking about getting the Kobo but I dont have a store here to get a look and have a hands on.

I will check out the Stash Sat and come back here, looks interesting. It doesnt have an Eink screen though, so may not be ideal for reading :-(

[TooOld]

I wonder what the big difference is between the other two Pico readers there?? Their specs look the same but one is $238 and one is $297 ????

The $238 one looks good -


Features

Specifications:

* Display: 6" E-Ink 8 grey level
* Built-In Memory: 2GB
* External Memory: Micro SD, up to 16GB
* Battery Life:
* ~ eBook 4000 pages (up to 20 hours)
* ~ eBook & music up to 7 hours
* Resolution: 800 x 600
* Digital File Formats:
* eBook: ASCII,UNICODE TXT,LRC,PDB,PDF,HTML,FB2,EPUB,WTXT
* Music: MP3, WMA, APE, FLAC, AAC
* Image: JPEG, BMP
* Preloaded with 100 free books
* 12 months manufacturer's warranty

[Solicitous]

Spec wise they look the same, though the red one has different styled buttons at the bottom and buttons up the right hand side.

I seriously wonder how good the W950 is as a reader, anyone know? Anyone have a look at it and make an educated synopsis?

[TooOld]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Spec wise they look the same, though the red one has different styled buttons at the bottom and buttons up the right hand side.

I seriously wonder how good the W950 is as a reader, anyone know? Anyone have a look at it and make an educated synopsis?

I see it doesnt have the Eink screen, but the lower priced pico does. There is a guy on Whirlpool who has bought the stash and said he would post comment on the following thread -

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...51&p=-1#bottom

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by TooOld

I just saw that as well in my email from OW. Might have to pop into our local store on Saturday and have a look. I was thinking about getting the Kobo but I dont have a store here to get a look and have a hands on.

I will check out the Stash Sat and come back here, looks interesting. It doesnt have an Eink screen though, so may not be ideal for reading :-(

The link is:
http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail...hnology/eBooks

I'll go into the Launceston OfficeWorks tomorrow on the off chance that they have them, and let you know.

But 5 hours memory life is not too appealing.

Regards, Alex

[TooOld]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

The link is:
http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail...hnology/eBooks

I'll go into the Launceston OfficeWorks tomorrow on the off chance that they have them, and let you know.

But 5 hours memory life is not too appealing.

Regards, Alex

Yeah, thats why Im looking more at the lower priced Pico more than the stash it says 4000 page turns.

[PKFFW]

I"m assuming the Pico is a rebrand of something? Anyone know what?

Cheers,
PKFFW

[AlexBell]

All three are in the Launceston OfficeWorks, so it should be in any other branch.

I wasn't at all impressed.
- Compared to my ECO Reader and Cybook Gen 3 the page change is noticeably slower, and the whole screen seems to go black
- It cannot read any DRM'd files
- So far as I and the salesman could tell all the free books are .txt files, and are double spaced
- I could not see any mention of folders, font family change, or font size change
- It does not have a case, or a brochure. In fact the salesmen were quite miffed that they were expected to sell it without having been given any information about it, and they said the website was very poor - I forgot to ask what website.

On the other hand there was a mention of zoom in the onboard manual, and it is very light.

Regards, Alex

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

I"m assuming the Pico is a rebrand of something? Anyone know what?

Cheers,
PKFFW

I have the OEM of the Pico 6001 (I think). Mine came from Gajah.

[ThomasC]

I bought one of these Stash W950 ebook readers (similar to the Delstar Openbook in US I think) from OfficeWorks last week and, for the money ($A129, or ~$US110), I think it's great.

I've downloaded quite a few Epub freebies from the place recommended on the box, http://www.ebookmart.com.au and so far they all seem to come across very well. They do sometimes miss a letter at the end of a line every few pages, but this is no big deal. Even my Kindle does this with sometimes with some freebie books.

I'm not sure why some are having backlighting problems. Mine seems very good, even at the 2nd from brightest setting and I have to turn it down a bit in a darkened room. For bright ouside light, the white letters on black background option works pretty good. Page turns are about twice as fast as my Kindle k2i.

The best features (and why I mainly bought it) is it's MP3 and Video player. It has 2gb internal memory and can take up to a 16gb standard SD card (I've currently got an 8gb card installed). Both of these features work very well (much better than my current irivers MP3 player). There is an experimental mp3 player on the Kindle but it's terrible.

I cannot see this replacing my Kindle k2i as a regular ebook reader but I'll probably pack it around on some trips to avoid packing both the k2i and a mp3 player. Also, I like that this can import (non-DRM) where my k2i cannot (without converting anyway).

Not a bad option for a first time E-book buyer who also wants to use the MP3/Vid features.

Anyway, just my $0.02 worth.

Edit; After playing with this unit a bit more and having lots of difficulties getting videos to play as well as trying to read poorly formatted ebooks, I returned this unit to OW today.