Archive for February, 2010
Bebook Neo Review– Update 4 comments
I’ve come to like the Neo ereader, although it is a bit hard to go back to the smaller screen after using the DR800SG. Function wise, the Neo is comparably a very capable ereader – it is too bad we can’t do some sort of ereader mind meld. I had hoped to do some videos this weekend of the controls and maybe of the PDF handling on the Neo.
The control scheme on the Neo is quite good; you can even adjust the font size with a single click of the control rings. PDF’s can be zoomed and panned. And what’s more the Neo will remember your zoom setting between page turns on PDF’s, so there is no more tedious resetting of your zoom level from page to page.
Yes, I planned to update my Neo ereader reports and shoot some video this weekend. Unfortunately…
I have cracked the Neo’s screen.
I’m sure you too have had a few of those “OMG, I can’t believe I just did that please God let me wake up now I know this is just a bad dream” kind of moments before. Well … welcome to my latest bad toon.
I am currently waiting to hear back from Bebook with an RMA and the cost of replacing the screen.
My wife is not a happy camper.
“Camping??? What you talking about camping for? We don’t have any money left for camping! Maybe you better go camping in 
the backyard for a while!”
Looking at things from the “Well, the aquarium is still half full” point of view as I slowly and methodically begin banging my head against the wall, I reflect on how I can now check out Bebook’s customer service.
‘And stop banging your head on that wall – we just had it painted!!”
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Irex DR800SG Ereader Update – First Impressions no comments
I love reading books on the DR800SG. The e-ink screen with its 16 grayscales and 768 x 1024 resolution is gorgeous. I also find that I much prefer reading on the 8.1 – inch screen to the usual 5 – 6 inch ereader screens. The larger screen does add a little width to the device though, which may impact portability for some.
I am also a fan of the minimalist design of the DR800SG ereader which does not waste space and which is devoted to and complements the display screen. I hope other designers of new ereaders will take a close look at Irex’s design choices here and maybe stand on Irex’s shoulders, as Steve Jobs would say. The DR800SG definitely has some qualities worth emulating. I would like to see some more ereaders with this screen size format for one thing. That being said however, the DR800SG’s design as executed does lead to some control awkwardness that I think could have been avoided by Irex.
Page turning and menu navigation are accomplished via the flipbar on the left
side of the bezel and the Menu button underneath it. If you hold the flipbar to one side for a longer period it will turn five pages at a time instead of just one.
To use the DR800SG with one hand you will need to hold your ereader in your left hand and use thumb power to turn pages. This works fine, unless you want to shift hands for awhile. This control scheme will also not work if you are left handed and want to hold the ereader in your right hand so you can have your left hand free. Adding a couple of small page turning buttons on the right bezel might have impacted the aesthetics of this ereader, but it would also have greatly increased its functionality.
You can navigate through most menus and make selections without the stylus by using the flipbar and menu button, but sometimes it does feel a bit awkward. Since there is no docking bay for the stylus on the ereader it is good to be able to do as much as possible without it.
Unlike most ereaders that come with a stylus, you cannot turn pages with a swipe or touch of the stylus on the edge of the screen. There are a couple of small arrows at the very bottom of the screen (you can just see them at the bottom of the picture) you can touch with the stylus for page turns, but they are quite small and inconvenient. It feels as though the Wacom digitizer is minimally implemented at best.
There’s Not Enough “There” There
The DR800SG has five four different font sizes to choose from, but only one font style. The
pic shows the largest font size, which is about 3/16 inch height for capital letters. You can also set the page margins from 0 to 1/2 inch.
The search function so far seems to work quite well. You will need to use the stylus for this. It would have been nice if Irex had added a Go To Page function as well.
You are able to sort through your library or documents by Name (title), Author, Date Added or Recently Added. It is also possible to delete content from the ereader itself without connecting to a computer, which is nice.
With its larger screen, Wacom digitizer and $400 price tag you would assume that Irex is targeting users who need to handle a lot of PDF or other documents with this ereader. Judging by what is missing you would be making a wrong assumption. There are no annotation, note taking or even highlighting functions. Bookmarking is as good as it gets. It kind of makes you wonder why Irex bothered to use Wacom technology on the DR800SG at all. At the moment it seems like the digitizer is wasted.
PDF zooming is unavailable on the DR800SG as well. Even viewing a PDF in landscape mode does not seem to achieve any magnification – you just get the same size doc with very wide margins. With PDF’s made up only of text you may be able to enlarge the font as long as there are no graphs, schematics or tables, etc.
So far my take is that the DR800SG is a wonderful ereader for general book reading. But is that enough to justify paying $400 for it – especially in view of all of the soon to be released competition? True, Irex will hopefully have a firmware update soon that will add some of the missing functionality to their new ereader, but I can not recommend buying one based on that expectation/speculation alone.
If there were a dictionary on this ereader it would probably have a picture of the DR800SG next to half-baked.
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Irex DR800SG Unboxing no comments
I just received one of the Irex DR800SG ereaders from Best Buy. I hesitated to order this one as quite frankly, it just does not seem as compelling as it would have been if released four months ago as originally announced by
Irex. There does still seem to be quite a bit of interest in Irex’s newest and greatest ereader though, so here it is.
As you can see in the photos, inside the box is a wall charger, USB cable, slipcover, quick start guide and of course the DR800SG ereader itself. And a loose stylus. That’s right, the stylus does not have a storage slot in the body of the ereader . There is a place to put it into the sleeve. We will have to be careful not to let the stylus become a chew toy for the household zoo as a new EMR stylus would have to be ordered from Irex (or perhaps another supplier) for $24 and up depending on the model.
I’m also wondering if this will affect the battery life? The Bebook Neo, which also has a Wacom digitizer, senses when the stylus is in its slot and turns the digitizer off to extend the battery charge. Not sure how much effect this will have. I have not seen any estimated battery life numbers for the DR800SG; Irex just says things like their new ereader has “longer battery life”.
I have just been able to play around with the Irex for a few minutes while I
get it charging, so I only have a few first impressions to give so far. The Dr800SG is a handsome ereader and I do like the larger screen. The 8-inch screen feels more like viewing an actual book page. Text looks very nice and I think the e-ink screen is enhanced by the color Irex chose for the bezel.
I’ve also been able to conduct a small test of Irex’s customer service already. When I got home last night the package was waiting for me so right away I opened it up so I could get the DR800SG charging. Unfortunately it seemed DOA and would not charge. Nothing I did seemed to help. Thinking to myself that things were already off to a lovely start indeed, I tried calling the Irex customer service number shown on the startup guide. As it was already 10 PM here on the West Coast I did not really expect to find anyone home. In fact, after only about a minute and a half on hold a friendly CS person came online and got me sorted out. He had me reset the ereader while it was plugged in to the charger and everything was fine. I had tried the reset, but not with the reader plugged in.
I’m sure I would have been able to revive the Irex after more futzing around on my own, but it was encouraging to know customer service was there when I was in need. This is always a worry when purchasing a new device made and primarily (until now at least) marketed overseas.
I’ll be able to spend some more time with my newest friend this weekend and will have more to report – stay tuned.
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Free Kim Harrison eBook; British Library Classics Coming to Kindle Store no comments
Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, Book 1) by Kim Harrison (4 stars/288 reviews) is available free at the Kindle store and at the Barnes and Noble eBook Store. This is a fun series if you have not read it yet.
And speaking of free ebooks, the British Library recently announced that they will soon be making 65,000 classic titles available through the Kindle store as free
downloads. The collection includes many rare and hard to find titles. You will also be able to order POD copies if you so desire.
There is a new press release from the British Museum which I will quote a couple of paragraphs from below. You can also read the announcement in its entirety here.
Estimates suggest that roughly 35% to 40% of the British Library’s 19th century British printed collections are either unique, or at least inaccessible through other major libraries in the UK and abroad. This deal is a prime example of how the British Library is continuing to explore new technologies and innovative business models to improve access to its historic collections.
Covering the likes of Dickens, Austen, and Conan Doyle, the 65,000 titles also include a range of lesser know Victorian classics such as, A Strange Story by Edward Lytton, one of the period’s most popular novelists – now largely neglected, and The Story of a Modern Woman by Ella Hepworth Dixon, described as ‘the greatest unread novel of female struggle’. Through print on-demand with CreateSpace, part of the Amazon group of companies, readers will be able to have their very own copies of these previously rare and inaccessible titles now in the public domain, including some classic first editions, re-printed at an affordable price. Print-on-demand is both a convenient and economically viable way of making these collections available. In addition, Kindle owners will be able to download these titles for free.
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Bebook Neo Update: Wi-Fi and the eBook Store Portal no comments
One of the interesting features of the Neo ereader is its ebook store portal which is accessed through the wireless connection. Depending on what country you are in the portal will list different participating third party ebook stores from which you can use your wireless connection to purchase ebooks.
At the moment the Neo only uses the WPA wireless protocol rather than the more common WEP. I just got a chance to switch my cable modem to WPA so I can check out the wireless features of the Neo.
In the United States the participating stores that are listed in the ebook portal (Mybebook in the pic below) and from which you should be able to wirelessly download ebooks are:
- eBookMall
- Project Gutenberg
- eBooks.com
- Barnes & Noble
In addition to shopping for ebooks, you also have access to Wikipedia and Google – from which you can browse the Web, check your email, etc. As expected, the browser on the Neo is a bit clunky, but browsers on dedicated ereaders usually are.
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eBook Sales Jump 176% in 2009 no comments
The Association of American Publishers reports that ebook sales jumped 176.6% in 2009. Ebooks accounted for 3.3% of trade sales in 2009; up from 1.2% in 2008.
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Acer Suspending Ereader Plans no comments
The Taipei Times is reporting that Acer is suspending its plans to introduce an ereader, at least for now.
Acer chairman Wang Jeng-tang said that the ereader market is not big enough yet and has yet to come up with a proven business model.
Acer has prototypes of its planned ereader ready and was to launch the device this summer in European and Asian markets.
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Customizable Digital Textbooks & Some More Thoughts on Publishers vs eBooks 1 comment
In the NY Times Motoko Rich reports that Macmillan’s new DynamicBooks software will allow professors to edit and customize digital textbooks to suit their classes.
Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations.
Macmillan will start the program with 100 titles that students can purchase through CourseSmart, dynamicbooks.com or through college bookstores. The etextbook versions should be lower priced than the paper versions. Rich cites one example: “Psychology” has a list price of $134.29 and sells for $122.73 at Barnes & Noble. The DynamicBooks version will be $48.76.
The current model for paper textbooks has many students selling their used textbooks for about 50% of retail. The stores then resale the used textbooks for about 75% of the retail price of a new copy. This goes on for several years until a new edition is published. In essence, many students are renting their paper textbooks.
The publishers get nothing from these used book sales and this is one reason that paper textbook prices are so high. Publishers also control the market by periodically releasing new editions with differing page numbers, updated (hopefully) content, etc. There are no used textbook sales with digital versions, and the publishers and authors get their cut from every sale.
DynamicBooks sounds really promising. It shows that at least some at Macmillan “get it” about ebooks. Similar principles apply to all of the other books we read. If we buy a pbook we can give or loan it to a friend, sell it as used, or donate it to the library. Neither the publisher nor the author get any revenue when we dispose of our books in such ways. With ebooks all of this is gone. If you recommend a good ebook to your friend, that person will most likely have to buy their own copy if they want to read it.
In addition, if publishers and authors were to make all of their backlist and out of print titles available in digital format they could enjoy the benefits of the long tail effect. These older and sometimes esoteric titles may not sell as many units per title, but when added up together would surely amount to a substantial sum.
Readers tend to read more with ereaders, in many cases a lot more. Publishers should be able to make up the lower per title revenue from ebooks with increased sales volume, especially as more and more people move to reading digitally. This is not to mention the cost savings of distributing ebooks; such as no warehousing, no remainders, etc. We should not be expected to pay hardcover prices for our ebooks, and probably not even paperback prices in most cases.
In any case, ebooks and digital reading devices are the future of reading, and the publishers need to figure out how to adapt and thrive with the new technology rather than worrying about whether ebooks are going to impact the sales of hardcovers – because yes they will have an impact. Just as in the past other revolutionary publishing technology impacted the practitioners of the old ways. Seen any scribes lately?
If the publishing industry does not adapt they are going to find themselves much less necessary as digital publishing and reading make it much easier for authors to self-publish.
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OverDrive Announces Plans for 2010 no comments
In a press release OverDrive has announced some new digital content distribution services planned for 2010. The press release is quite long, so I will just quote a couple of paragraphs here. You can read the press release in its entirety here.
Interactive Media, DRM-Free eBooks, Periodicals, Streaming Audiobooks, Music, and Video to Join Digital Distributor’s Retail and Library Channels
CLEVELAND, OH–(Marketwire – 02/22/10) – OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), the leading global distributor of eBooks and audiobooks for libraries and retailers, announced today new services that will significantly expand its digital distribution network for copyrighted digital media. New digital book formats, streaming content services, and title discovery and fulfillment enhancements will be available in 2010, which will help OverDrive’s publishing partners, retailers, and libraries capitalize on accelerating market demand. During 2009, OverDrive achieved its fifth consecutive year of double digit growth and profitability by adding hundreds of retail, library, corporate, and school outlets for more than 1,000 publishers’ copyrighted eBooks, audiobooks, music and video in more than a dozen countries. Building on this momentum, OverDrive will introduce new services for 2010, including:
– Content Reserve® Plus: OverDrive’s global distribution platform will
integrate third party digital catalogs to add their eBooks, databases,
music, video, and enhanced multimedia content to OverDrive’s network of
retail and institutional accounts. In March, OverDrive will demonstrate
interactive educational eBook products including "read aloud" features
and DRM-free eBooks in "Open EPUB" and "Open PDF" formats at the Public
Library Association National Conference in Portland, Oregon. OverDrive
is now in negotiation with rights holders of databases, periodicals,
newspapers, music by the track, HD and mobile streaming video, and
reader apps to add their content to OverDrive’s current catalog of over
450,000 copyrighted digital titles.
– OverDrive Reciprocal®: OverDrive’s consolidated bookshelf service will
provide readers a single location for access, preferences, permission-
based contact from publishers and authors across numerous eBook formats,
audiobooks, interactive titles, subscriptions, and suppliers of premium
media. Reciprocal will provide single sign-on (SSO) eCommerce and
membership card support to dozens of eBookstores, libraries, and user
accounts. As a certified Payment Card International (PCI) Level 1
compliant service center, OverDrive will provide SSO for multiple credit
card or debit payment methods from a single bookshelf and their
OverDrive Reciprocal Dashboard.
The read aloud features are necessary for those with vision impairments. Some libraries suspended buying Overdrive ebooks last year when an Adobe software update disabled text-to-speech.
Reciprocal sounds interesting as well, depending on how it is implemented.
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Bebook Neo Unboxing no comments
Imagine a tech company that not only gets its new gadget out by the
announced date but even manages to fill the preorders a week early. This is what Bebook has done with the Neo ereader, which I received a couple of days ago.
As you can see in the pic, the Neo comes with a USB cable and quick start guide. No sleeve or cover. In fact Bebook does not yet have covers for the Neo. I suspect that nook covers might fit the Neo as the two ereaders are almost the same size, but I have not been able to try that out yet.
I like the Neo, but I have had a couple of problems. First of all, I have not yet been able to make my wireless network available to it so I have so far been
unable to use the Wi-Fi. This is disappointing as one of the interesting features of the Neo is the ebook store portal. I also have a problem with Adobe Digital Editions and have not yet been able to read a book with ADE DRM. More on that later.
Some things I like so far:
- The ereader itself seems to be well built and feels very solid; comes with a 24 month guarantee.
- When you zoom in on PDF documents your zoom is maintained when you turn pages – you don’t have to zoom in again for each page as you do with some other ereaders. There is a panning function as well.
- The Wacom – based display gives you some of the benefits of a touchscreen without sacrificing display quality.
- Both Onyx – which manufacturers the hardware – and Bebook are working to add features. The latest firmware from Onyx has been successfully installed on the Neo, and presumably the Neo firmware from Bebook will also work on the Onyx Boox 60 when it is available for download. If you prefer one firmware over another you should be able to choose.
Everything on the Neo ereader does not work perfectly yet. Unlike the nook, which when released by Barnes & Noble felt barely functional to me, the Neo is quite usable and just feels like most of the foundations of the features are in place but some of them need to be fleshed out more or further refined. Some of the problem areas I’ve found so far:
- The dictionary function needs lots of work.
- Annotation feature is not yet fully implemented. You can highlight, and on PDF documents you can do freehand drawing and notes. There is also a notepad feature where you can draw and write.
There are also a couple of features that may not appeal to some:
- No page turning buttons on the sides of the ereader. The control ring at the bottom is used instead. It works fine for me, even when reading in bed while holding the Neo with one hand, but side buttons would add convenience if you want to change position. You can also use the stylus to do a page turning swipe.
- Some do not like using a stylus. For me the stylus is much better than the screen glare associated with other types of touchscreens.
Overall I like the Neo ereader so far and think that it will be a keeper for me. My biggest problem right now is getting Adobe Digital Editions to work.
When I connected the Neo to my computer ADE asked if I wanted to activate it. I clicked yes and the program seemed to do the activation. There were certainly no error messages telling me that the activation process had been unsuccessful. However, when I tried to open a book with DRM by ADE the Neo was unable to open it. So I reconnected and Adobe asked me again if I wanted to activate the ereader. I went through this process several times, tried deleting the book and reinstalling it with the same result. Then Adobe spit out the “too many activations” error. So I had to submit a service ticket to Adobe and am waiting for them to reset my counter so that I can try again.
When looking at Adobe’s DE forums I find a number of people there with the same problem with various brands of ereaders or with their computers. Many are irate because they are waiting a long time for Adobe to fix their problem by resetting their account and cannot access books they have paid for in the meantime. This is DRM hell of the worst possible kind. Adobe really needs to get this straightened out. One poster even asks if Adobe works for Amazon and gets rewarded for converting people into Kindle buyers.
