Archive for the ‘Bebook’ Category
BeBook announces new Club S ereader no comments
BeBook has announced that a newer version of its Club ereader, the Club S, will soon be available. 
Superficially the Club S appears to be identical to the Club, but this new model upgrades the display, speed and storage capabilities of its predecessor: The Club S will feature the current generation Pearl screen from E Ink Holdings and the 800 MHz Marvell 166E processor. The memory has been increased to 2GB and an SD card slot is available for more memory expansion. Oops . . . looks like somebody forgot to stir in some Wi-Fi.
Pricing TBA. BeBook will be showing the Club S ereader at the Libri.de booth at the IFA Consumer Electronics fair in Berlin which starts this Friday and runs through Sept 7.
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BeBook launches tablet no comments
BeBook has launched an LCD tablet powered by Android 2.2 (Froyo). 
The BeBook Live tablet sports a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen and Wi-Fi. Some of the other features:
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n); Bluetooth; USB 2.0; 1080 HDMI output
- CPU: 1GHz
- Display: 7-inch TFT LCD with 800 x 600 resolution; capacitive multitouch
- Memory: 4GB internal; microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
- Front facing 2MP camera
- Two speakers; headphone jack; microphone
- Accelerometer
- Dimensions: 140 x 202 x 11 mm (5.5 x 8 x .43 inches); Weight 426 grams (15 ounces)
The BeBook Live is currently up for pre-order at $279 and is expected to ship around the latter part of June. Presently BeBook’s new tablet is shown as not available for shipping to the US.
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BeBook Neo and Club get firmware updates no comments
BeBook has released updates for the Neo an Club ereaders. Some of the improvements:
- Increased battery life
- Support for file formats .CBR and CBZ (digital comics)
- Low battery indicator added
- Improved MS Office documents
- Improvements for zooming, font size, search and bookmarks
- On device copying and moving of files and folders
- Display of title and author if metadata is found
- Built-in dictionary
- External Adobe fonts can be used to improve PDF reader launch performance
- Support for games (no games included)
- Automatically reopen previous document
- Automatically create link to accessed websites
There are also almost 20 bug fixes. This is a pretty major update. Finally a built-in dictionary!
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New BeBook eReader no comments
BeBook has announced a new ereader it is calling the Club. While we don’t have official pricing yet, it appears that the Club will be a budget-priced ereader that will, like the BeBook 
Neo, will be based on Onyx BOOX hardware — this time the BOOX X60.
BeBook says that the Club will be “brilliantly affordable,” no doubt in order to better compete with the Kindle 3, which is much lower priced than the current flagship BeBook ereader, the Neo ($249), and is more feature rich, albeit without the touchscreen.
The Club will have a 6-inch e-ink screen with a resolution of 600 x 800 pixels and eight gray levels, but it will be the older Vizplex display rather than the newer and more contrasty Pearl display that is utilized by the latest generation Kindles (both 6-inch and DX) and the new Sony ereaders.
A wide range of file formats will be supported by the Club, as well as MP3s and the usual picture file formats. The bad news is that there is no wireless – you will need to use the USB cable to transfer content.
There is an SD card slot, which will let you expand on the internal memory of the Club. There is only 512MB of internal memory. BeBook’s (or perhaps Onyx’s) approach seems to to be to include less internal memory than other ebook readers (the Neo as well as the BeBook One and Mini all have 512MB) and rely on card slots to provide more memory for those readers who need it.
The relative dearth of internal memory means the added expense of purchasing the SD card, which you will probably need for installing updates, but it does give more flexibility to readers who have a lot of ebooks or documents. Amazon takes a different approach and eschews card slots — the Kindle 3 has around 3GB internal memory available to the user (holds approximately 3,500 ebooks), but has no card slot for expansion.
The battery life of the Club is said to be good for up to 12,000 page turns, which is quite good. Size wise, the club measures 196 x 121 x 10.6mm (7.72 x 4.73 x .42 inches) and weighs 289g (10.19 ounces). So the Club is a little taller, thicker and heavier than the Kindle 3.
The Boox hardware that the BeBook Club is based on is said to use a 532MHZ Freescale processor — same as the BeBook Neo ereader. The Neo is pretty fast, but to me the Kindle 3 seems slightly faster.
My take is that this could work for BeBook if they were to price the Club at a significantly lower price than the Kindle 3. If the Club is more expensive or even only a little lower than the Kindle 3 it just does not make sense. You are getting an older screen technology, no wireless and no Kindle Store.
We should not have to wait long for the Club as BeBook says that it will be available from their online store and other retailers within a couple of weeks.
Update: Charbax from ARMdevices has caught the Boox X60 on video at IFA 2010. It appears that Onyx has made the X60 drop proof to some extent. Hopefully this will make for a few less cracked screens.
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BeBook Neo in Alice in Wonderland Special Edition no comments
BeBook has entered into a promotional agreement 
with the Walt Disney company and will be releasing a special edition Neo ereader to celebrate the release of the Alice in Wonderland movie by Tim Burton on DVD.
The special edition Neo will come with a leather case, the Alice in Wonderland ebook and a poster and greeting cards. The limited edition Neo will have territorial restrictions and will not be available everywhere. The BeBook website will have details soon.
(via eReaders.nl)
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BeBook Neo Firmware Update Available no comments
BeBook has just announced that they have a new firmware update for the Neo. Some of the fixes are:
- Wi-Fi compatibility: Neo will now be able to connect with WEP/WPA/WPA2 encryption – formerly WEP was not supported.
- MP3 playback.
- Shortcut added to manually pull up the virtual keyboard.
- Power management improved.
- "Over the air" fulfillment of transactions using the (on device) Adobe Reader has been improved.
- Memory usage has been optimized.
- Touch screen response improved.
- Page turning speed improved.
- Java Script compatibility has been improved.
Too bad I have not got my Neo ereader back yet so that I can try this out. The update can be downloaded from BeBook’s Neo support section, where you will also find instructions on how to do the install.
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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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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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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.
£149.00
£109
