09:15 PM by pilotbob in E-Book General | News

Wall Street Journal is scooping B&N's Tuesday announcement.

The 'Nook' color eBook reader will soon be available.

Check out the WSJ article via Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/b...-for-259-says/

Discussion is here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59811

06:45 PM by pilotbob in E-Book General | News

A dual screen reader based on Android OS...

Spring Design today announced Alex™, the first e-book based on Google Android featuring full browser capabilities and patented dual screen interaction technology, the Duet Navigator™.

Alex is the first Google Android-based e-book device to provide full Internet browsing over Wi-Fi or mobile networks such as 3G, EVDO/CDMA and GSM. With its dual-screen, multi-access capability, it provides the entire Web universe as a handy reference library, prompting users to delve into its vast information base to complement, clarify or enhance what they are reading. Alex is the first truly mobile wireless e-book device that gives users their own personalized library on the go, whenever and wherever they need it.

via Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/19/s...ased-e-reader/

Read the press release from Spring Design here:
http://www.springdesign.com/resource/jsp/

Join the discussion here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59761

06:39 PM by jankovicgood in E-Book General | News

update

01:11 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

I'm in an unfortunate position with this review. My device died a few days ago, so I'm going to have to work from memory and the notes I posted before. I've already contacted Onyx on this issue, and they believe they know the cause. They'll be sending me instructions on how to fix it.

General Impressions

The Boox is a tablet about the same height and weight as an original Kindle. On the upper left edge is a slot for the stylus. On the left edge is a switch to enable the Wifi. On the bottom edge is the volume buttons, power switch, USB, headphones, and SD card slot.

On the front of the Boox is the 6” touchscreen and below that is a circular button panel. At first glance it looks like there are 5 buttons: Next, Previous, Menu, Back, and OK (recessed in the center). The silver ring (which at first glance looks decorative) is actually a direction pad (up, down, left, right). I wish it was more obvious, but I'm glad it's there because it can be used to navigate the menus. This means you don't have to use the stylus and the Wacom screen won't be drawing power, which should extend the battery life.

I like the position of the buttons. Because of the balance of the device, I found I could comfortably hold it in one hand and keep my thumb next to the Next button. I also like the recessed OK button. It made the direction pad really easy to use. When I used it I had remarkably few mistaken button presses.

Navigation

First and foremost, it supports folders and it has several display options. You can show thumbnails, a list, or or details (title, last read, rating, etc). The thumbnail view isn't as good as it could be; the cover of a book isn't shown. You can sort the contents by name, file type, size, rating, and last read. You can also reverse a sort by switching from ascending to descending order.

One subtle detail that I liked was the tabs along the top of the screen while I'm navigating in the folders. The tabs show the parent folders of the current folder, and they are selectable.

Menu

It looks like somebody put some real thought into the menu design. In general, the menu has 4 or 5 icons on the left, and 4 along the bottom. The rest of the menu changes depending on which of the icons you select. Also, the icons on the left vary based on book type. For example, you can't sketch in Epub, so that option isn't shown. I found the names of the menu options to be self explanatory: annotations, font, font family*, encoding*, layout**, zooming**, and tools. The icons on the bottom of the menu are consistent across book type: rotate screen, turn screen refresh on/off, play music, and close book.

* only in FBReader
**only in PDFs and images

Wifi

I couldn't establish a connection with any of the networks I usually use. At this point it's not a big loss because the Boox doesn't have a full browser. You're limited to Google, Wikipedia, and Onyx. I would bet it's possible to search for a site in Google and navigate to it. I'm disappointed, though, because I was hoping to be able to download ebooks from the device.

General Ebook

Highlighting, bookmarks, and links work in all formats. There is an external menu for bookmarks and annotations. However, the search and dictionary functions never worked for me. I find this particularly puzzling because these features worked in the review over on MobRead. Also, and this is the biggie, the back button doesn't work at all. (It should act similar to the back button of a web browser.) I've already told Onyx, and the back button should be fixed in a coming firmware update.

Epub

The Boox supports Adobe DRMed Epub. I'm at something of a loss on how to describe the Epub abilities (other than it had 5 font sizes). Back when each device read a different format I could discuss in what way one is better than another. There were valid apples to oranges comparisons I could make. Now, Adobe DE is running on so many devices that it would be like comparing Red Delicious to Red Delicious. At the very least, I can say that its ability to display Epub is as good as the Cybook Opus.

FBReader

I like how Onyx added FBReader, but they haven't added all the features yet. Right now, the only options I have are the font size, bold, italics, and font choice. It doesn't have options like line and paragraph spacing, margins, and indentation. For the most part, I don't care. FBReader is quite usable in its current state.

PDFs

It's quite good, and in some ways it's better than Sony Touch Edition. But (and this is not a point against the Boox), it's still a 6” screen. A standard 8.5x11 PDF won't work very well on it.

The Boox shows 5 font levels (Onyx is going to change the menu labels). What it actually has is a zoom mode and a reflow mode. The zoom mode is impressive. Besides the expected zoom options (page size, fit to height, fit to width, and the fractional zoom from 75% to 400%), I can also use the stylus to select part of the image to zoom in on. While in the zoom mode I can also sketch on the PDF with the same options the image viewer.

The Boox can reflow a PDF at 4 different font sizes. It's very good, so good that I dug out some of my more complicated PDFs and gave it a stress test. The PDFs I used were technical papers with graphs, equations, and multiple columns. The text displayed fine, but the graphs and equations were dropped. I'm not entirely convinced that this is the fault of the Boox. When I tried to copy parts of the PDF on my PC, I was unable to select the graphs and equations. They do not appear to be in the PDF as text or as separate images. Rather, they appear to be part of a page image.

Internal links work, and it accepts the external TOC that you sometimes see with PDFs.

As I use the PDF viewer more I finally understood what I thought was a bug was in fact a design decision. User defined settings (font size, screen flash, etc) are not set on the device level. They're set for each ebook. Given the diverse range of formats (PDF, Epub, Mobipocket) this was the right choice. Even setting it by format would be bad because PDFs alone vary too much.

Images

When I had a chance, I compared the image abilities of the Opus and the Boox. I picked the Opus over my original Kindle because I had thought the Opus had 8 level gray scale. I'm wrong; it's actually four. The Boox has 8 level, so the fact that the images look better on it was a foregone conclusion. But it's worth noting that the Boox is noticeably faster at refreshing the screen. You would think that it's at a disadvantage it has more gray scale levels, and yet it's faster.

The Boox has surprisingly good sketching ability. I can draw on an image in 5 line thicknesses in black and _white_. I can also erase a sketch by simply touching part of it with the stylus while in the eraser mode. The lag between moving the stylus and the image changing looks to be that of a screen refresh. It doesn't refresh the image after the sketch is done; instead it changes a few pixels at a time as I draw. Very nice. The changes to an image are stored in a separate (.sketch) file.

I have to say that I'm impressed by the general quality of the image viewer. I think it's good enough that I can use it as a notepad. The only feature it needs is the ability to export a new image.

Pros
It has Adobe Epub, reflowable PDFs, (nearly complete) FBReader, and a good image viewer. I didn't get a chance to test the MP3 player. The touch screen is Wacom, which means it's actually behind the Eink screen instead of in front.

Cons
The touchscreen requires a special stylus. It only has a 4 day battery life. And it's rather expensive. I never did get the Wifi, search, or dictionary to work.

11:38 AM by pilotbob in E-Book General | News

The Ectaco Jetbook Lite, recently shown off at the Frankfurt Book Fair, will be targeted at $149 retail. Similar to the original Jetbook but with replaceable AA batteries and support for Barnes & Nobel DRM (eReader) eBooks.

Please continue the discussion and view more pics and video here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59668

11:32 AM by zacheryjensen in E-Book General | News

Plastic Logic is finally giving their long-hyped reader an identity and most importantly, a firm date for release of concrete specifications.

I heard of this by way of Engadget, but Plastic Logic also has a site dedicated to what will be called the QUE. They will have a site dedicated to delivering content to the QUE which will be "powered" by Barnes & Noble's store.

Basically it's everything we've already known, except now we also know it is black, and it's called a "proReader" to emphasize the target market of professionals. I am distinctly in this market with regards to eReaders so I'm pretty excited.

I can't wait to learn more, especially a price. At least January 7, 2010 isn't very far away.

09:15 PM by Patricia in Miscellaneous | Announcements

It's less than a week to go!

Forum member nigeldb is hosting the Melbourne meet-up at his home in North Balwyn. It's on Sunday 25 October, from 2pm to 4pm.

The details are in this thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...128#post629128
Do contact nigel for more details.

Do remember to take some pictures, nigeldb!

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Have something interesting to say about e-books or mobile computing? Join our forums and share your view on topics like the ones discussed at MobileRead this past week...

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Kindle Geographic Restrictions On US Website - Against US Buyers
• Google plans 'buy anywhere, read anywhere' offer
• txtr launch on the Book-Fair in Frankfurt

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources

• Contest: Title a book, win $3,000 -- ENDS 10/21/09

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• November 2009 Book Club Nominations