I've noticed it's dropped in price ($129 at DSE atm), and wondering if anyone has any experiences with one? (I went in to my local DSE to have a look at one, but neither of the two stores I visited had a charged demo model I could play with)
I decided to give it a try any, and if you have properly formatted ebooks, it's actually not too bad (it displayed epubs and a couple of paperbook-sized pdfs perfectly). The screen quality was about what you'd expect from a $130 TFT device, usable, but definitely not e-ink. (I didn't try it outside, just inside under normal lighting)
The problem for me was the screen ratio; 16:9 is odd for an e-reader (i'm guessing it was re-purposed from portable dvd players), especially when you're trying to display a4-formatted pdfs (which constitutes a large proportion of my library). If it had been a standard 800x600 screen it would probably have been good enough for my purposes (although probably still a bit small for extended reading), but the 800x480 resolution (especially when zooming in keeps the left margin of the page lined up with the left edge of the screen, leaving some of the page contents out of view off the right side of the screen with no apparent way to centre the page) just didn't cut it - there was often 80-odd pixels unused above and below the document. And changing screen orientation to try enlarge text wasn't helped by the limited screen width, especially when you can only scroll down line by line, with no page up/down.
Also I found it couldn't be used when plugged into the pc to charge up - I don't know if it behaved the same way with an AC-USB adapter.
Basically I found it to be a competent (albeit very no-frills) device, but it was too limited by the 16:9 screen ratio for my needs (and the charging behaviour might have left it useless between the battery draining and it recharging). Fortunately DSE was fine with me returning it, so I wasn't left out of pocket by the experience.
My wife bought me the MiGear eBook reader. It would be a nice toy for its price (nice pdf reading, color screen, no DRM,) but unfortunately there seems to be something wrong with the charging circuit and battery life. After charging it for 6 hours with a wall charger the level was halfway and never could charge it from my MacBook (in Windows and Linux the charge process only starts when you unmount the volume). Baterry didn't last long with normal usage.
Fortunately I was able to return it to DSE, now looking for a decent reader :)
I work at dse and I must say, they sell very well and my store has had none returned. But I have played on it myself and would prefer an iPad or some other reader preferably a touch screen. To be honest though , for $129 it's a good buy
I got one of these last week. The problems with charging have affected me also and the battery life doesn't seem anywhere near as long as claimed. The unit uses too much USB power for many laptops in charge mode so I made up my own 1.5 amp USB Wall wart and lead to charge it. At first it went into a sort of "Charging mode" but now it just turns on. This obviously means that the charge time is greatly extended. However as another poster says it looks as though it cannot be used while under charge. This is a pity as in many situations it could be run rather like a laptop on mains power. I also found that while the reader worked fine on .rtf files it would not run .html at all. BTW on the web there is a site run by the manufacturer, which has a full set of upgrade software drivers for this unit. Has anyone else tried these? I haven't installed them yet, but the softare did not seem to run under XP pro anything like it was specified in the .pdf file that accompanied it. So unless I hear different it will be goping back next week. FYI at DSE, just because items are defective, it does not necessarily mean that they will be returned. I still do some servicing and it is amazing how LAZY people are at getting their money back on defective items. Crite40
kiwired23: The problem for me was the screen ratio; 16:9 is odd for an e-reader (i'm guessing it was re-purposed from portable dvd players), especially when you're trying to display a4-formatted pdfs (which constitutes a large proportion of my library). If it had been a standard 800x600 screen it would probably have been good enough for my purposes (although probably still a bit small for extended reading), but the 800x480 resolution (especially when zooming in keeps the left margin of the page lined up with the left edge of the screen, leaving some of the page contents out of view off the right side of the screen with no apparent way to centre the page) just didn't cut it - there was often 80-odd pixels unused above and below the document. And changing screen orientation to try enlarge text wasn't helped by the limited screen width, especially when you can only scroll down line by line, with no page up/down.
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You should try Briss, a free application that "trims and repaginates PDFs" for reading on digital devices.
Briss is a cross-platform Java app that allows you to crop, trim, and repaginate PDF documents for cleaner reading on a portable device. The UI should seem friendly enough to anyone who has ever cropped a photo. Briss looks for repetitive structures, and identifies existing pages. It then asks you to select (using a free-hand rectangle tool) the parts of the document to keep. You can even choose different parts for even and odd pages, or split two pages that are in a single image (the result of placing a book face down on a scanner). This will help make legible images out of those that would otherwise be impossible to read on smaller screens
I bought the MiGear but took it back unopened, as at the time I bought it (about a week and a half ago) it was still priced at $160 and I figured I could get the Kobo (1st gen) from Whitcoulls for $40 extra: worth paying the bit extra because it has an e-ink screen etc. So I did exactly that: bought it at Whitcoulls for $199. Am pretty happy with the Kobo.
Being that the MiGear is the lower price now, I think it might be worth buying, especially if you were going someplace where you didn't want to take your more expensive reader.
Got one of these last week because I found the screen clearer than my Eken M001 for reading.
Pretty reasonable device! When charging via PC, just go into explorer and eject the drive so it's usable while charging or get a USB wall plug. Works for me.
Only issues I have are with the stupid backlight settings... "5, 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds" and "always on" are your options... I'm a quick reader, but I don't always finish a page in under 30 secs, especially when I'm tired, and I don't want the screen to stay on if I fall asleep. A minute would be fine! I wish it could be switched off while charging, not just the backlight, and if it IS off, the moment you plug it in, it boots! And the auto shutdown or sleep timers need to be setup after every boot.
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