Hands-on with 'PocketBook A 10' eReader

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having won the “Product of the Year” award at the International Consumer Electronics & Photo Expo in Moscow last year, PocketBook A10 eReader has been in the limelight. Here are some interesting details about the product and why it fetched top spot as an eReader among other tablets and gizmos:

Technical specifications of PocketBook A10:

The PocketBook A10 comes with the following tech specs:

• 1GHz central processing unit,
• 10” touchscreen display,
• 1024x768 pixels resolution with HD clarity,
• 512MG random access memory (RAM),
• 4GB storage capacity,
• 32GB microSD extendable memory card,
• Inbuilt 3G Internet access capability,
• Wi-Fi capability,
• 2MP front facing webcam with in-built mike,
• Less than 700 gms weight,
• USB port and data cable,
• 6600mAh battery that lasts for more than 8 hours with non-stop use.

Despite newer Android versions like Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich, the PocketBook A10 works on Android Gingerbread 2.3. The device comes with a big selection of pre-loaded apps along with access to more than 60,000 apps, including eBooks from Google Play. It has e-reader applications like Kindle, Kobo and Nook. The touchscreen eBooks widget will give you direct access to almost 100
books, all free of cost. Additionally, access to Android Market will widen a reader’s choice of apps and eBooks.

What makes the PocketBook A10 special is the fact that you can customize your books and documents to improve your reading experience. Functions like scrolling and page turn can be done with shortcut buttons. When you want to wade through a lot of technical information, this is a real boon. Other tasks like zoom in/out, settings, back and home also make navigation easier.

What you can do with PocketBook A10 when you want a break from reading. The multimedia and gaming experience with 3D graphics display is probably the reason why PocketBook A10 seems more like a tablet than an exclusive eReader. With Wi-Fi and 3G Internet connectivity online gaming can be a life-like experience. The music, video and games can be downloaded very quickly. The RAM is more than sufficient to make high quality audio and video playback a pleasant experience.

For music lovers, the PocketBook supports two file formats:

• mp3
• wav.

The gaming and video buffs can enjoy HD picture quality and clear sound effects with file formats
like:

• mkv,
• avi,
• mp4.

Despite access to Google Play store, excellent battery life, innumerable apps and compact lightweight design, this device does have its downside. Some readers may not like the touchscreen navigation as they are more comfortable with the traditional shortcut buttons of a keyboard. To learn new methods of operation to read books may seem tedious.

Not having the latest dual-core processing of latest Android operating systems, the PocketBook A10 is bound to show speed problems. Also, Android Gingerbread 2.3 is reportedly not slated for any upgrades in the future. This could cause problems with some newer apps and raise compatibility issues in the future.

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How to add a cover to an EPUB / PDF / MOBI book

EPUB, PDF and Kindlle MOBI books converted from other formats or downloaded from torrent sites are sometimes cover-missing, which inevitably makes the whole eBook-reading journey less satisfactory. Take it easy. Here I will explain how to add a cover to an EPUB / PDF / MOBI book with free Calibre.

And here is a guide post focus on change Kindle book's cover image.

1. Download and install Calibre on your computer.

2. Launch Calibre and drag & drop your cover-missing books to it.

3. Select a book and click “Edit metadata” on top menu bar.

4. Select “Download cover” on the following window. Calibre will auto search for the EPUB (PDF / MOBI) cover online. You can edit book title, author, etc on this window as well.

5. Click to select a cover from the search results and click “OK”.

6. The cover will get updated at once. Click “OK”.

7. Go back to the main panel, you will find the cover added to the EPUB book accordingly.

If you have got a cover on your computer, you can also select “Browse” on “Edit Metadata” screen to add cover.

The cover will be added as well. Click “OK” to go back to the main screen.

Covers have been added to the EPUB and PDF books.

However, things are not done yet!

As long as you select one eBook and click “Click to open” on the right hand side to check the cover-added EPUB / PDF book, you will find the cover is missing still!

I noticed this problem when I tried to check the result by deleting the original version from Calbre and adding the newly generated EPUB and PDF to it. To my surprise, the covers of both files were missing still. The covers haven't been integrated to both eBooks!

Then how to successfully add a cover to an EPUB / PDF / MOBI eBook?

It’s easy. Just one more step.

When finishing adding covers to EPUB / PDF / MOBI books, don’t forget to select the title and convert the book to its original format again. For example, if the original is PDF, convert it to PDF again after adding a cover to it.

Set the “Output format” as PDF (according to the original) and click “OK” to convert.

When the status in the lower right corner turns to “0”, the conversion is done.


Click “Click to open” to get the converted book (PDF), you will find both the converted PDF and the original one with “original” chars added to the file name under the output folder.

Add the newly created book (PDF) to Calibre and check again (with all originals deleted from Calibre). You will find the cover has been successfully added to the PDF book this time.

Now, two steps to add a cover to an EPUB/PDF/MOBI eBook by yourself: Edit metadataand convert to its original format. Drop a comment below if you have any problem.

Goodbye, eBook-lending sites

I am sad about this title, but that seems to be the fact. Those famous eBook-lending sites are doomed to be taken over, from Lendle to eBookFling, ending in a depauperate way. Now let’s check those previously popular eBook lending / borrowing sites (3rd-party).

Lendle

I was immensely excited the first time I used lendle, which enabled me to get a loaned Kindle book very promptly. Kindle device is not required here. Users can request books as long as they have Kindle reading apps installed and owned at least one Kindle book. I tried with a free Kindle book, and it’s all right. However, lendle announced to look for buyers last May and was said to be purchased at a 6-figure price. I checked it the other day but failed to loan any book. It exclusively recommends Kindle books to users now.

BookLending.com

One merit of BookLending is that readers can request to loan books without owning or lending any Kindle book. If you have ever lent books to others, apparently, it will be sooner to get your request accepted. However, most people cannot figure out how this site actually works. It is also uncertain that whether or not it is affiliated with Amazon Kindle.

eBookFling

Unlike the first two eBook-lending sites, eBookFling supports both Kindle and Nook titles. Launched in 2011, eBookFling once aimed to offer a better lending community with better service than its peers by monitoring the trade process. However, it was reported days ago, that eBookFling was being up for sale in the market.

So what is left? Search for free books online in vain (mostly), or go to eBook store.       

3 Ways E-Books Will Help Save Serious Money In the Near Future

With 1 in 6 Americans owning e-readers—and over half the population owning a smartphone—the odds are that if you’re reading this, you’re already familiar with e-books. Whether or not you’re a fan, most people still appreciate saving a few bucks off the hardcover price, as well as the lack of shipping cost. But those kinds of discounts are just the beginning of what e-books will do in the upcoming years. Here are 3 ways that e-books will introduce significant savings to consumers and the public in general:

College Textbooks

If you’ve been through college in the last decade—or sent a child through it—you understand how expensive textbooks are. Up until recently, college textbooks had an established market with limited competition, leaving a student few options other than spending $300-600 a semester on books. You could always hunt for used books online, but the high turnover rate of book editions meant that you’d probably end up with an outdated version. Additionally, many professors have their own books published through University presses, then require these books as course materials, which formerly meant that the only way to acquire the book was through a regional college bookstore.

While the textbook market is still pretty controlled, it’s expanding a little each year, and e-books are gradually worming their way into the competition. A few years from now, it may well be impossible for a college press to justify a $200 tab for a book just because they’re the sole publisher, especially when that content can be re-created endlessly for e-readers, without violating the copyright details.

Public Libraries

The mark of a civilized nation has always been an availability of knowledge to the public, and for the longest time our libraries were the only source of this. The Internet has obviously changed things forever, but public libraries still play a crucial role in providing professionally published, copyrighted books at no charge. Unfortunately, some of the first budgets to get cut in economically uncertain times are the ones that support libraries.

E-books allow authors and publishers to donate authorized content free of charge, content that doesn’t require a building to be stored in, or the expensive resources needed to maintain hardcopy collections. Over time, this will save millions of tax dollars in maintaining public libraries, while making the availability of content stored within the library archives limitless.

Traditional Mass Market Fiction And Non Fiction

It’s no secret that the times have changed for book publishers and retail sellers. When massive chains like Borders shut their doors, it casts a looming shadow on all brick-and-mortar bookstores, from your favorite independent place all the way to Barnes & Noble. While this is certainly a scary time for traditional book sellers, the one group that will benefit will be the average reader. Traditional book prices are built around a system of printing, binding, distribution, and sale in a costly retail space. When most books become electronic as a primary medium, rather than a supplement to a hardcover and paperback release, expect those prices to permanently drop.

Most of these changes will be gradual, but we’re already seeing the effects today. The future of books will clearly be in digital form, with hardcopies becoming a niche market for collectors and avid readers. While that will signal the end of an era for many retail publishers and sellers, it will keep reading alive—and affordable—as our culture dives head first into a new technological age.

John is a tech blogger who will still loves going to Barnes & Noble, even though he uses his Kindle and iPhone every day. He writes for such companies as Protect Your Bubble, an insurer of every kind of gadget that can display an e-book, including smartphones, tablets, and e-readers.

Bookeen Cybook Odyssey HD Frontlight eReader - Review

The Bookeen Cybook Odyssey HD Frontlight is a state-of-the-art e-Reader that comes with an integrated light. It has a powerful accelerometer that automatically detects the point of orientation of the neighboring device. You can flip through the pages effortlessly using the capacitive touchscreen or use the buttons located on either side of the device to swipe the pages. The dual-feature gives you a flexible option to operate the device your preferred way, which could prove to be handy especially when you are at work wearing gloves.

The other nifty additions to the e-Reader include:

• A MicroSD card slot – which lets you add up to 32GB extra data
• A Menu button
• A Power button

The Integrated light

Now… let’s talk about the special feature – that is, the integrated light. The manufacturer says that it is primarily designed to provide light support in the dark, so it is not to be used frequently. The light’s default brightness level is at 50% which is not essentially good for the eyes. The screen turns a bit yellowish and looks dull when the light is turned off. However, it provides great illumination in the dark and in dim-lighted areas. This makes it a perfect eReader for people who like to read when they are travelling or those who like to read in bed light. As we were using it, we felt that the brightness was okay on the eyes when it was set at a low intensity level. The 758x1024 pixel resolution on the screen is sharp – we found it very effective when drawing in dim light.

Accelerometer

Similar to what was present in the previous Odyssey versions, this one too is comprised of an accelerometer which automatically oriented itself when the eReader is rotated in various directions. However, we found the accelerometer point to wrong directions a couple of times when rotated swiftly. It also remained stuck temporarily when kept in landscape mode. We just changed the pointer manually and made sure it came back to the right point of orientation again.

The essential inclusions

The Bookeen Cybook Odyssey HD Frontlight eReader comes with an all-encompassing web browser and a built-in WiFi. So it’s easy to create an account from the eReader and access the branded eBook store. Also, there is a capacitive touchscreen and a nice on-screen keyboard that makes operations smoother and easier.

User-friendly features

Most of the Bookeen ebooks are in French and are priced in Euros, so you will need to do most of your shopping from some other medium and later transfer it to your eReader. This isn’t really difficult though. When connected to the computer, the eReader looks like a bulk storage device on which you can easily drag-drop DRM-free eBooks. The eReader is capable of handling multiple formats such as PDFs, TXT, FB2 and HTML. We tried loading heavy PDF files and were pleased to see that the file loaded much quicker than we imagined.

Apart from the orientation issue, we didn’t really find anything annoying about the Bookeen Cybook Odyssey HD Frontlight eReader. Our ratings for the first-of-its-kind eReader would be a 4 on 5!

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Will the $59.99 Kobo Mini eReader be your pick?

You may have heard of the 5-inch eReader, Kobo Mini, but failed to pay attention to it. This lightweight title is being offered at a price of $59.99 for the upcoming Valentine’s Day (from Jan. 25th to Feb. 14th 2013) despite its marginally cheaper price of $49.99 before Christmas in 2012.

Compared to the well-known Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo Mini comes at a cheaper price and smaller size. If you are living outside of US, it may be a better option, together with Sony eReaders, since standard EPUB eBooks(including Adobe DRM-protected PDF books) are well supported on Kobo instead of Kindle devices.

Technical Specs of Kobo Mini

Details

Here is Kobo Mini eReader review (video) from Good e-Reader.

If you are interested in an eReader with Glowlight, check this Kindle Paperwhite vs. Kobo Glo (video).

3 Important Reminders About E-Books

By 2013, even the most traditional of avid readers has been exposed to the digital revolution of the e-book. Whether you’ve bravely embraced the new literary medium or are still partial to the spine and dust jacket world of tangibility, you’ve had the time to scope out several different e-readers and form an opinion on where you stand. If you’re still unconvinced that the e-book is one of the best chances that the written word has to survive into the 21st century, here are 3 quick reminders to help persuade you into checking them out:

E-books Are More Durable Than Hardcopies

The first time you heard about an e-book, you probably wondered why you’d want to pay the full price of a novel for what is essentially a text file, something that could be lost in the shuffle as easily as any Word document or PDF that’s been buried in the depths of your hard drive. But in an age where every e-book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble is permanently stored in your online account with that company, you never have to worry about losing a couple dozen books at once if you accidentally drop your suitcase on the unsuspecting screen of your e-reader. Just register a new device with your account, and every book you’ve ever purchased is available in moments, like a Noah’s Ark full of John Grisham thrillers.

This kind of protection is unprecedented for bibliophiles, who in the past didn’t have the option of re-downloading their library of hardcovers if the moving company sent their boxes to Alaska by mistake, or if uncaring hands broke the bindings on every paperback on the shelf.

E-books Are Always The Same Size

This is something that you might not think would bother you, but after you’ve read your first 4 or 5 books on an e-reader, you may find it a little awkward or irritating that so many books—especially those in a series—come in a variety of sizes. You may have picked up the mass market paperback of Game of Thrones in a grocery store, gotten hooked, then gone to Barnes & Noble to get A Clash Of Kings and found that they only have the larger, bulkier trade paperback, or only the hardcover. You don’t want to wait until you can find one in the same size as the first book, so you end up with a series of books that look severely mismatched on your shelf, like you sent one of your kids to private school and the rest had to survive downtown with the public.

A comfortable e-reader gives you everything in the same size and dimension, and you never have to worry about lugging around an 800-page behemoth that you didn’t actually want in hardcover.

E-books Offer A Positive Form of Instant Gratification

Most of the things in our culture that are instantly available aren’t really good for you—fast food and reality television are within reach 24 hours a day, but make them too much of a habit and your body and mind will start to suffer for it. E-books, on the other hand, take advantage of your momentary desires, but won’t leave you feeling burned out afterward.

If you read a sample chapter of something on Amazon during the commercials for CSI, you may find yourself intrigued enough to want the whole book. But when you finally have some free time later in the week to hit up a bookstore or order a paperback online, you’ve forgotten all about that fleeting literary urge. With an e-book, you can start reading past that sample chapter in moments, and take advantage of that momentum to discover a book that you may have never gotten around to otherwise. Let’s face it: it takes quite a bit of effort to read a book these days, so you have to stoke that fire with whatever tools are available.

If you’re dead set against the approaching digital tide, than these points probably won’t offer anything new to convince you. But if you’re on the fence about e-books and e-readers, then you owe it to yourself to take advantage of this incredible new medium. You’ll read more, you’ll ultimately save a bit of money, and you’ll have a personal library at your fingertips anywhere in the world.

John is a tech blogger who cherishes every moment with his Kindle. He writes for a variety of companies, including gadget insurer protectyourbubble.com, who can help protect your e-reader from theft and damage.