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!!
Nice product - really gives the incumbents (Sony and Amazon) a good run for the money. What's the shipping to Canada like?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone measured the page turn time? I.e., the time between when you press the "next page" button and when the next page is completely shown.
ReplyDeleteHello all:
ReplyDeleteHere is my two cents about sony prs-300, prs-600, and EZreader 6".
I have a lot of documentations in MS word 97. I eliminated Amazon Kindle immediately because Kindle can not handle MS word, and I will never send my sensitive documentations to Amazon for file conversion. So, I tested Sony PRS-600 ereader, 6" screen. I wasn't happy with it because PRS-600 converted MS word to RTF. Well, all the tables in my documentations disappear. That mean all the columns messed together in one mix up text. I tried to put up with it. Then, it can not read the pdf because all the texts were micro small. So, I did not use any pdf file. Then, the screen reflected light, and it was driving me nut because my butt hurt so bad for adjusting and accomodating to the glare. So, I tested the PRS-300 ereader. The screen is much better. The screen has white background with no glare. But I wasn't happy because the small 5" screen is small, and It can not read MS word. Then, I found out about Astak EZreader. I would prefer to buy the 5" fast processor, but I had to settle for the slow 6" processor. Sight... Why can't Astak provide a 8.5 x 11 screen with a fast processor! The slow page turn really ticked me off, but I tried to live with it because Astak 6" EZreader is the best reader I could find after one month of testing and looking. At least I should be thankful that some one made an ereader that could read MS word. Astak Ezreader really read MS word with out hidden conversion to text file. Sony ereader really did a miss leading advertising on MS word format. I will keep this EZreader for now until the big screen come out. Sony library did not offer enough current ebooks. I really like the big ebook selections at Amazon, but I just don't like to be in Amazon format prison.
Sorry for the long post. I have never heard of Astak ereader any where. So I want people to know that Astak Ezreader is an option. At least for me, EZreader is great for my need.
Note: If you want to buy epub or pdf DRM version, you need to download adobe digital edition, and let ADE controls your buying, downloading, and transfer file to your Astak Ezreader. I was quite a pain when I first started. When I first bought my ebook and hit download button, it gave me .acsm (what is this?) You need to right click this .acsm file and open with ADE program. ADE read .acsm file and automatically download the real epub/pdf file for you. Then you hook your ezreader to computer. ADE recognized your reader and you need to hit authorize device button.
That is my 2 cents.