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Slick eReader

Ellen Hage — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:18:10 +0000

This week Big Lots! started selling the Slick eReader for $89.99. The store in my area had plenty, but then again I got there early on Sunday morning. The ad in the paper doesn’t reveal any real specs so here they are as listed on the reader’s box:

7” Color display
2gb internal memory
SD Card slot for additional storage
Supports ePub and PDF files
Plays music, video, and pictures
Auto switching from landscape to portrait view
Support for Borders eBooks and Adobe Digital Editions

Included in the box:

The eReader (of course)
Cover
USB cable
AC Charger
Headphones
User Guide

The packaging itself is nothing to write home about so I will skip that description. The reader looks heavier than it is and is built quite solidly. The front looks like a brushed metal, but it plastic. In spite of that it doesn’t look or feel like a cheap reader. Page turning can be done using the side buttons that are clearly labeled or by using the navigation button on the bottom. The included cover is black as expected and the device is held in place by brackets. While the cover is plain, I think it is a nice plus to be included.

In order to get your books on the device you have to connect the reader to your PC or Mac. From there you have to install the Border’s Desktop software. All instructions on getting started are explain in detail in the User Guide along with pictures. This I liked. I hate when the user guide is installed on the reader. Since the reader is not Wifi, all book transfers must be done via your computer. The desktop app does have a sync-to-reader button. This works fine for Borders, but the guide does not specify how to add your own files or Adobe Digital Editions to the reader. I don’t have any ADE files so I could not test that part, but I would think that you would just follow Adobe instructions. I did load some of my ePubs to the device simply through copy and paste. I placed them in a folder and the reader did show them in the library.

Just to see what would happen, I also connected the reader to Kobo Desktop app. As soon as it connected there was an option to sync my reader. I now have the books I bought from their site on my Slick. Nice to know, huh?

Since the reader is quite simple, it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. The user guide does get you started, but it excludes some things that I feel are important. For example, bookmarks. I didn’t see it in the guide and while playing with the reader I hit the ok button and then the bookmark option pop up! I can’t say too much about the battery life, since I’ve only had it a few days. I’ve charged it once and it still has a few bars left.

There are some gripes I have about the reader. They aren’t major, but I can see it as a deterrent for some:

Display: It is not as clear as some other lower end LCD devices. The only comparison I can think of is the old-school REB1200 color reader. But it is clear enough for an enjoyable reading experience. The autorotation is really sensitive. There sould be a way to lock the screen.

Margins: They can’t be adjusted by users. I prefer small margins to get more words on the page. It is not a lot of white space, but I would be happier if I could fine tune it a bit.

Fonts: There are only 3 choices. The largest setting is really huge, and the medium is okay, but I wish there was something in between. There are no font choices. Fonts seem to be dependent on the book. This also affects the font sizes. I see the most difference in the ePubs that I have added. So there is no real consistency in the appearance of pages from book to book.

Library: All books show as a generic book until you open the book. Then it appears with the cover art.

So much of this can be fixed with a firmware update. Will we get one? I hope so. The SlickUSA website has been updated and the reader is now showing. The user guide is available for download. Other than that no other info like specs are on the site.

Overall, I like this reader. For the price you can’t go wrong.

Jetbook Update coming April 2nd

Ellen Hage — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:19:48 +0000

I really enjoy my using my Jetbook. Now I will have more to enjoy. Ectaco is adding support for Epub and Mobipocket. While it will not be supporting Mobi DRM, this is still great news. I think a drawback for some folks it that the Jetbook only supported txt and pdf files. Their last update added support for fb2. Maybe if the Jetbook gains a bigger user base it will support DRM titles. Personally, I would rather see ereader support. I like that I can read their books on more than just four devices.

I got this news from Mobileread. I tried to find the original source over at Ectaco, but I couldn’t. I would think that when the upgrade is available you’d find it here.

Also, someone wrote a comment here asking how to get their titles onto the reader. All you have to do is plug in your reader to your PC with the included USB cable. It will recognize your reader as a storage drive. Just drag and drop your books in the books folder. For more details you can download the manual here.

So if you are thinking about buying a Jetbook you can get one from Neweggfor 199.00 plus free shipping. The only color listed is graphite. Don’t forget that the Jetbook is not an e-ink reader.

Peek review update

Ellen Hage — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:31:47 +0000

This has been a rough week. The kids went back to school from their Spring Break, I had an assignment due for the Web Design class I am taking, and nothing seemed to go right. I had planned to post my review on the Peek earlier this week. Instead, I decided to upgrade the firmware to the new Pronto version 1.09 so that I could review the new features etc. Great plan, but I messed up. I ended up bricking my device and had to send it in today to get it fixed.

What is great is the technical support that the Peek folks have. They are so nice and they actually answer emails. I did have to send it back at my own expense, but I feel that is fair. From what I have read on their discussion board the turnaround is really quick. I got an email from Gabe at GetPeek and somehow my misfortune has made me Peekster of the month. I feel special. I never have won a thing in my life, but today I did. It has brought some peace to my hectic week.

My advice right now is that although you may not want to send in your Peek to have them upgrade it, you may want to at least consider it for right now. Upgrading is not for the faint of heart, but I do believe that the folks at Peek are working on that. Believe it or not I actually miss my gadget and can’t wait to get it back so I can continue being a Crash Test Pilot. I found this site between trying to get my Lost spoiler fix: Peek has an application page. There aren’t a lot, but I am sure that will change. What interested me was the RSS feed capabilities. That was one of the main things that I used on my Nokia N800. I no longer use my Nokia for RSS feeds since I am not privy to hot spots. Not so with the always on Peek network. I look forward to having that feature.

I’ve been Peeked

Ellen Hage — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:03:16 +0000

About two weeks ago I was strolling through Target and noticed that the Peek email device had dropped to $49.99. I can’t say that I need to have constant email service, but it would be nice. So I decided to take a chance and buy it. This is how I rationalized my purchase:

· I am getting rid of my iPhone and the whole too-expensive-for-what-I-am-getting parasitical cell phone bill.

· The Peek requires no contract and the $20 a month is a lot better than what I am paying for my cell phone now.

· Since there is no contract, I can quit and return anytime that I want. In these rough economic times, this can really save me some money and still feel connected.

· Peek is adding text messaging features

· I can have Daily Lit sent to my Peek and actually really read a book via email. I tried doing on my Nokia N800 and it didn’t work out well for me.

· It was on sale and I could resist. It’s been awhile since I bought a gadget on a whim.

To make sure I can stop service whenever I want, I got a pre-paid debit card. It works great and is even listed as a suggestion on the Peek support site. I also went to their Peek Boutique page and bought an upgrade cable. Set up was almost instantaneous. The unit I bought had v1.04 and their newest firmware is 1.08. Upgrading to the newest firmware was much more tedious. Much of that was my fault. So now I am up and running and have been trying out my new toy. So far I don’t really see too many differences in the two versions other than more keypad shortcuts.

Tomorrow, I plan to post my review of the unit in light of the newest Peek being available. For right now I do want to point out something that I read on their discussion board today. Even if you buy or already own the first gen Peek you will be able to upgrade to the same features as the Peek Pronto for free. I believe the only differences are that the new gen device will have a softer keypad, push email, and being able to receive email from three more different accounts.

If you are interested in one, check out your local Target. I hear that in some places it is as low as $35.00

Finally the Sony update is a go

Ellen Hage — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:14:16 +0000

After trying a combination of things to no avail, I finally de-bricked my Sony reader. I feel really silly, but off all the things I changed from computers to types of resets, I never changed the USB cord. I kept thinking that was the problem, but since the cord worked with my other gadgets, I dismissed the thought. Well, finally I did take out one the zillion new cords I have around and it worked. So the moral to the story is to keep your cool, and follow your first instinct in troubleshooting. Chances are it is not the device. Thanks to all you who wrote in trying to help me. I should be ashamed of myself.

Ectaco Jetbook review

Ellen Hage — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:24:23 +0000

Earlier this month my husband and I went on our first cruise. In my effort to pack lightly I only took one tech gadget with me and of course that was an e-book reader. I wanted something small, light, but with enough screen space. I decided to take me latest acquisition the Jetbook. Here’s my take on the reader along with some photos:

What in the box: Besides the reader itself, you get a neoprene pouch that has a Velcro closure. The case has what feels like a hard, but flexible plastic sheet for added protection. I also got an AC adapter, and USB cord. A Windows CD (by Livingsoft) with phrase books, flashcards, and dictionaries is included. No software for the reader is included or needed.

TIP: On the reader there is a pdf with a listing of places to download free books. Some I have never come across and plan to check them out.

Features:

This reader is small as well as thin. I have taken a picture of it next to the Ebookman and Sony reader to give some perspective. Still, the screen size is really nice at 5 inches. For me the screen was the biggest selling point. The reader measures in at 6″ x 4.25″ x 3/8″. It easily fits in any of my purses and weighs only 7.5 ounces. Like most e-book readers these days, the Jetbook has MP3 capabilities. All of the features in this section are user friendly. I loaded one song and one podcast to test it out. Barry White sounds pretty good, but not as good as hearing it on my iPod. The spoken word is a lot better. I listened to TWIT (Leo LaPorte). One of the features of the device is that you listen while you read. This could be great for kids who are beginning to read. You could add the audio of the book so that he/she could read along. I see children books with CDs in the dollar stores all the time. Of course this could work for adults too. You could listen to your book while driving (using a FM transmitter) and then later pick it back up and read when you can. Of course you would have to find your place if you don’t stop at the end of a chapter. Settings include return to Playlist, the ability to turn off the LCD, Playmodes, Background Music, and Hot Keys. I saw no way to bookmark, but you can pause but when I returned to what I was listening to it went back to the beginning instead of where I left off. I doubt if I ever will use the audio with any frequency. The reader only accepts up to a 2gb SD card. That is more than enough for simple text, but audio books can eat up space quick.

There is also a picture viewer, but to me that makes no sense. The reader is not color and the reader is text only. So why a picture viewer when I can’t include the book cover, photos, and drawings in my book? The sample picture included looked like a pdf converted to jpg. It was hard to read, but I could zoom and then pan across and down. This may be useful to some. I was thinking of converting some of my craft patterns to jpg images for a easy reference when traveling outside the house.

In the user setting you can set language, dictionary, volume, fonts (Ariel and Verdana), auto power off, and auto page turn. Auto page turns can be set to never, 5 seconds, and 10 second increments up to one minute.

Battery life: I am charging the reader about once a week. I suggest actually turning the unit off if you are not coming back to it with a day or so. Standby drains the battery and in two days of the Jetbook in standby I got a low bat warning. I haven’t tested the battery for audio in background or simple audio listening. Turning of the LCD when listening should prolong battery life.

Durability: The reader feels solid in my hands. The housing is plastic, but not flimsy in the least. I have dropped the reader a few times from a few feet and it seems ok. I think the Jetbook should hold up to normal use.

Loading text: This is easy. Just drag and drop. I made additional folders for easier file management. You can chose to list books by author or title. Don’t worry this choice can be changed any time.

TIP: When adding titles rename them as follows:

Author_Name#Title_of_Book

So it will look like this: Herman_ Melville#Moby_Dick_or_The_White_Whale

I am not the best when reformatting books for a reader. I want to read and if I took the time to really clean up text, I doubt if I would ever get around to the book. So there are times that there is a lot of space between words and breaks in the middle of a sentence. With that said I think my books looked better on the Jetbook than other readers I have, even after I change the font size. I found that changing the alignment setting from left to justify works nicely. I like reading in portrait mode, but there is a button that lets you change orientation. I like that better than having to go into settings. There are only two rotation choices: 0 degrees and 90 degrees. The landscape mode at 90 degrees is harder for me to hold and keep from pressing the numbers along side by mistake. Page turning is different and I wish that I could change the setting on the slider and buttons. If there is a way I haven’t found it yet. My only other problem is that sometimes I get it mixed up with the settings button that is directly above rotation. There is also a button that lets you zoom without going into the menu.

Pros:

Dictionary: I love the dictionary included. All I have to do is press the menu button, then select dictionary. This highlights the first word on the page and then all you have to do is to navigate using the jog pad to the word you want and press ok. It was almost like have my Rocket book back, but without the touch screen.

Screen: I was worried that the screen would be green like the Ebookman or Kolin reader. I was worried for nothing. In regular light reading is great, but the brighter the better. In the Sun the screen is better than e-ink, but then again I am not a real big fan of e-ink. Page turns are so much quicker which really enhances my reading experience. I am glad that someone out there is creating alternative devices.

File Management: Users can manage both internal and external memory. I can delete books, create folders, copy books from one folder to another, and rename files.

Choice of font size: There are six choices from 12 to 32. So for people with vision disabilities this is a plus.

Page turning: There are three ways to turn pages in addition to auto page turn. There is a slide bar on the left, a toggle button on the bottom left, and a jog pad on the bottom right.

Cons:

No html, doc, rtf format support. But there is hope via this site message:

It seems that JetBook does not support some e-book formats, why is that?
We are working on additional e-book format support, but at the same time we have found that 90% of free sources (sources containing almost every needed book on Internet) use either TXT or DOC format.

No way to add additional fonts

No backlight. This is an LCD screen not e-ink so this was doable. I read this on their website:

On/off/standby Switch: This button depends on how long you push the button. This took some time for me to catch on to and sometimes I put the device in standby when I want it off. So it can take me a few tries to get the device to turn on when I come back to it.

Why is there no backlight in JetBook?
We deliberately removed the backlight from JetBook’s original specification after a lengthy consultation with ophthalmologists in the US. We were advised that if we wanted to make JetBook closer to a sense of a regular book, we should not use any backlight. Similar to a computer monitor, if you read by looking at a source of light your eyes get tired within 1-2 hours and you need a longer rest to recover. As for a regular paper book, we all read in reflected light where the eyes do not get tired (if you get tired just switch the font to a next, larger size and you may continue to enjoy your reading). This is the main reason why the backlight was not implemented. Next month we will offer you a clip on light that will allow reading under limited light conditions without getting your eyes strained. Shouldn’t I be the one to chose?

Final Thoughts: This is one of the easiest-to-use e-book readers I have come across. There are cons to the reader, but I wouldn’t let that be a show stopper. I think that the Jetbook is excellent as a second reader and compliments the on-the-go person. Too bad that the price tag is $349, but you can easily buy it for $50 off. Simply click on “Learn about Discounts” and fill in what you would like to pay for the reader. I entered $280, but their only counter offer was $299. So I took it. Now I wish I had waited because the reader comes in two more colors now: White and Grey. One of the reason why I never bought the newest Cybook is that I wanted the reader in white. I also noticed that Ectaco has a English/Chinese reader (M218B) in white. The M218B has the extra bonus of HTML format support. So would I buy again? Certainly. I have been really happy using the device to for my summer reading.

Here’s my Cover Solution. It is a photo brag book. I found it at an outlet type store and the photo pages were gone. I got it cause it looked like I could use it one day with wither a PDA or e-book.

My husband likes the Kindle

admin — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:00:44 +0000

I borrowed my wife’s Kindle to read a book (The Shack by William P. Young) that is of interest to both us. I was given rudimentary operation instructions. It is an easy machine to operate. Turn it on and it works. I am sure that there are things that I need to know to optimize my reading experience, but it passed my first impression test.

In the first few minutes I was so immersed in reading that I absent mindedly attempted to turn the page by reaching up with my thumb and index finger and separating the page to turn it. That was when I realized that using the Kindle is a great reading experience. It is easily held in one hand or with a cover like my wife uses. This cover allows the brain to think that it is reading a real paper book. The print is very clear. The size of the print is adjustable, but my wife’s settings were sufficient for my purposes.

The only negative is really a small point and I am not sure if it was my anticipation of the next page or if the Kindle was slow to go to the next page. It does change easily but I would like it to turn quicker but one cannot have everything.

Kirk (CW) Hage

Sony update is a no-go on my reader

Ellen Hage — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:44:55 +0000

I am still in shock. I tried updating my Sony reader and instead of new features I ended up with a bricked device. I don’t know why. So I called Sony support and they were nice and the tech guy I had spoken with transferred me to escalated tech support. Since I bought my reader in October the 90 day warranty has expired. That means that I would have to pay the labor to get my reader fixed. He told me that he would try to get authorization from his supervisor to waive that fee. Unfortunately I was out when he called and my husband simply told him that I was out. So, I will call again today when they open to follow up on this. Meanwhile I have tried a hard reset, soft reset, uninstall drivers, software, you name it to get this to work. I have never hacked my reader, and I can’t remember an update on any device going South like this. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I really don’t want to send my reader in. I got mine engraved and something tells me that I won’t get mine back, but instead a refurbished reader. Maybe I’ll hit the message boards and see if I can unbrick my device.

Sony reader updates

Ellen Hage — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:01:13 +0000

I have been out of the net for awhile, but I am now back and hopefully I will be able to dedicate more time to this blog. I am sorry that I have not been posting as much as I had hoped when I started this website. I have a couple of reviews I am working on and I hope to have my first one up within the next few days.

Meanwhile, it looks like things are heating up in the e-book stratosphere. Today, I just downloaded Sony’s update. I haven’t had a chance yet to update the device, but will report back once I do either tomorrow or Saturday. The update notice popped up when I opened the library software. Mobileread has all the info on the new features. Here are the highlights:

Supports secure and non-secure e-books in the EPUB format
Supports DRM Adobe eBooks
Adds the capability to reflow standard text-based PDF files
The update does not work with the original Sony reader (PRS-500)

Then, in one of the comments I read that Sony now has a digital book cover with light (pictured). The light looks really promising. The cost is $69, a bit steep, but when I think about all the inadequate book lights I have bought in the past, this could be considered a bargain. It’s even a better deal when you consider that you can pay 40 dollars for a Sony reader cover alone. It will certainly enable users to read at night and I think should break a strong barrier to sales. From what I can tell the light cannot be used with any of the covers you may have already bought. So you will have to use it with the cover it comes with. That’s a downer since the lighted cover comes in black only. Also it will add almost 8.5 ounces in weight to your reader. At any rate, we are getting updates, new accessories, access to more books and that is great.

Sony Portable Reader (Refurb) for $204.99

Ellen Hage — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:21:22 +0000

Overstock has the Sony Reader available for just under 205 dollars. The reader’s model number is PRS-500U2, which is Sony’s first generation e-book reader and is a refurbished device. Yes it is a refurb, but I would let that stop me from getting if I was in the market for a reader. In fact you can get a two-year extended warranty for $29.99. It doesn’t cover accidental damage to the screen from what I read, but it does cover common mechanical or electrical failures, including normal wear and tear as well as a no-lemon guarantee. The good thing is that now those who have been hesitant about trying an e-ink device or any e-book reader can join in on the fun at a cheaper price.