Inkbook Prime - initial thoughts

[Elfwreck]

I've acquired a new Inkbook Prime, and I thought I'd give some initial thoughts/review notes.

I sent back the first one I ordered - it froze while trying to install updated software, and neither I nor Amazon's tech support could figure out how to get it to reboot. (Standard Android instructions for "hard reboot" do not work.) Arta Tech did not respond to email, and has no US phone number.

It's working with Android version 4.2.2. Kernel version says something about November 16, 2016.

I have not attempted to connect to the internet nor download new firmware. If that's going to brick the device like it did last time, I want to find out how it works first. I'm not sure I'm going to bother at all.

It says it has 8gb storage. It lies. It has 6gb storage. I am not concerned about this; I know that getting over 1gb of ebooks on a reader makes navigation nearly impossible - ereader software is not designed to let you choose between several hundred, much less several thousand, texts.

The light settings were very hard to find. The manual shows where the icon is - except there's no icon in that spot on my screen. Eventually, tinkering with the internet settings (not actually connecting, but finding out where they were) made a small "(i)" icon show up - that operates the light and the wifi connection. Light looks like it has settings going from "soft glow" to "medium glow" to "retina burn," and about 6 more above that. (Exaggeration. But "on" starts at 5%, and then there's 10% and every 10% up to 100%. At the brighter levels, I could use this for a booklight for other books.)

It doesn't seem to recognize chapters/bookmarks in ebooks. There are instructions ("Enter table of contents by pressing appropriate icon from pop-up menu") but I don't get a pop-up menu as shown in the tutorial.

Side buttons: Two on each side. The bottom one is "next page;" top one is "prev page." This is nicely intuitive for me; the bottom is the one I can reach easily. Screentouch also works for forward/back; center screen is "settings."

Library navigation is a nuisance; I don't see a way to sort by "new additions." I could be missing something; I'm still a bit overwhelmed.

Settings for font size are limited. They are: Small/starting default; medium; big; bigger; huge; humongous; and about eight larger sizes. (I'm probably exaggerating. All I remember is, I put the setting at the second box, and that was okay; the third was uncomfortably large, and there were several more boxes to go.)

Settings for choice of font face and leading only work on some epubs. I know about locking those features in the epub; this was weird, because some fanfic epubs from AO3 allow adjustable fonts, and some don't. Must have something to do with the author uploading from Word or via html-ized text. I have not dug into the epubs themselves to sort out the differences.

Have not tried mobi files yet.

Have tried both scanned and converted PDFs. They worked as expected (which is to say, they range from poor to useless), with bonus hassle that rotating the view shoves the PDF into fit-height on the small size; it doesn't have a "fit width" setting for PDFs.

Back of the case is not flat; it's got a curve-ish feel that would be nice if I were planning on holding it loose. Since I'm planning on making a case for it because there aren't any commercially available, the lack of flat back is a nuisance.

Would not recommend this to anyone who's not already fluent in e-ink readers. Settings are hard to find; the manual is a walkthrough process every time with no printable version, and most of the features are not explained. Other than that, it looks like a pleasant enough device.

[barryem]

It's pretty likely that the 6 gig you're seeing is the partition that's available for your use and that the device really has 8 gig installed and the rest is in another partition being used by Android.

I don't actually know this but I'd bet lunch on it.

Barry

[Elfwreck]

That's possible, and seems likely. However, nothing in the (very very sparse) documentation says anything about, "you will not have nor even see 8gb available for use."

Continued notes: Has the longest boot time of any portable electronic device I've ever used; the "wake up" from off/hibernate is slightly more than 30 seconds. (Opening from the regular sleep is the standard screen-flash time.)

I see no "recent uploads/recently added" listing, which means finding things is going to be a royal pain. The search/library options are Title (alphabetical), Author, and Recently Accessed. That one apparently has some arbitrary cutoff point, because it does not show all the content - I have 17 pages of Titles, but only 5 pages of Recently Access. All the content was loaded onto the device in the same session, and I have not opened more than a handful of them.

I see no way to set up bookshelves, tags, or categories. I'm hoping that "recently accessed" will adjust itself to "recently added" when I add new content.

It shows % done on books that have been read - but it seems to top out at 99%; I can't get it to mark a story "done/100%."

[JSWolf]

When a Reader has an amount of memory for storage, that storage space is also used for the system software. So you don't get the amount listed because some of that is used for the OS, software, and other files needed to run the system.

[tomsem]

I had an inkBook Prime for a few days but found it rather unpleasant and returned it for refund. Text looked washed out, performance was not good, third party apps don't generally look good (color schemes don't map etc.). Too many trade offs.

[Njall]

So, take this eReader off my Christmas list then?

[allnightreader]

I bought an inkbook prime and was initially thrilled with it.
Despite not having Google Play, I installed moonreader, fbreader, the Kindle app and managed my epub books with Calibre.

About about four weeks of use (lots of use I will admit), I noticed the microsd card slot -- located on the bottom -- began ejecting my card. Re-inserting it just made the problem worse.

Because ebooks are small and the device has over 5 gb of usable memory...I stopped using external storage.

I was once again happy with my inkbook prime... until two weeks ago when the top half of the screen was completely grayed out and the right side was garbled.

I have tried everything...from.rebooting, draining the battery, restarting, letting it "rest" and nothing.

I am now back to researching e-reader devices and debating whether to buy a Kindle in large part because of Amazon's return policy. Not ideal.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[JSWolf]

Canyou take a photo of your Inkbook? It sounds like it may be a broken screen. If it is, even Amazon won't take back a Kindle with a broken screen.

So buy the Reader you think will work best for you, not for the return policy.