Friday, August 21, 2009

A careful and detailed look at the Astak Pocket PRO











This is a round-up of the features on the EZ Reader Pocket PRO by Astak. A lot of new (to this Astak forum) people will come here and may not know much about the device!The Astak EZ Reader Pocket PRO is brand new... yet not so new too. There is an Astak 6 inch EZ Reader Basic that has been out about 10 months around the world... with a million sold. The Pocket PRO is essentially an EZ Reader Basic on Steroids! The inner workings and the tactile feel are the same and very well proven... but it becomes now smaller, lighter, more full featured, and exceedingly powerful on the 5 inch Pocket PRO! I call the Pocket PRO a landmark device because nothing else on the market really comes close.First off is the improvement to the electronic guts of the device! The heart and soul of any eBook Reader is centered around the controller and the processor. The speed of bringing up a book and speed of turning pages... all are a matter of the controller and processor. The Pocket PRO has the new Epson high-speed controller and a 400MHz processor (about double what the competition has in most cases).Second, we loaded Adobe Digital Editions on the Pocket PRO. Now, the Pocket PRO already displayed 12 formats and 20 languages. Those formats include: pdf, doc, jpg/bmp, txt, mp3, pdb, html, lit, and prc. What does this mean? It means the Pocket PRO is a true Open Format device!! You can go to hundreds of websites and download books and they should display just fine. It also means that you are NOT tied to one website or one format which limits where and what you can download... and allows you to shop for the best price! The Adobe Digital Editions gives you epub and pdf reflow in a secure format that allows you to download the very latest copyrighted (DRM) titles!The Pocket PRO uses E-Ink technology. That means that it should get about 8,000 page turns to a single charge when all you are doing is reading. It also means no eye strain!The Pocket PRO has MP3 stereo. Many others leave this off their device and that is a shame. Still others have MP3... but you can either read OR play... not both. The Pocket PRO allows you to play your music while reading!The Pocket PRO has Text-To-Speech... meaning it reads to you and advances the pages automatically when in that mode. It even has a tiny external speaker for this purpose... or you can use the 3.5mm headphone jack (the standard size)!You also get: 8 levels of grey scale for far better display of pictures or illustrations, a user-replaceable rechargeable battery, an SD card that supports up to 16GB (roughly more than 10,000 eBooks and a ton of music), bookmarking, and three levels of font size and different font choices! If you have poor eyesight... this will help a lot! Further, it displays both vertically or horizontally (wide sreen sideways). It also has both left and right page advance buttons and a Scroll Wheel!Lastly, the Pocket PRO comes in six beautiful colors! Express yourself! OH, here is a plus... in the box is a great crush-resistant case with magnetic clasp (a $39-$59 extra with other brands), ear buds, AC charger, USB cable, and a wrist leash!Now, you get all of this for roughly $199 (limited time) with a one year parts and labor warranty and Astak's now-famous USA customer support and techncial support!! This is a great bargain!Go to http://www.theezreader.com/ to find out more, choose your colors, and buy it!!