My previous devices for reading ebooks have been the Dell Axim x51v, HTC Advantage and the SmartQ7.
However, two dedicated ebook readers gained my attention in Australia that didn’t come with an outrageous price tag. The Kobo reader and the Ectaco JetBook Lite
.I very nearly caved in and went for the Kobo reader. I’m not an e-ink fan. I think it’s slow and hard to navigate through books because of that but the Kobo reader did get some reasonable reviews and was a good price at AUD$199.
Very, very nearly went the Kobo reader. But the Jetbook Lite won out in the end. All up the cost of the JetBook Lite was AUD$175, which is very pleasing. It didn’t come with a cover. The internal memory isn’t much, about 100mb. That’s ok if you have some sd cards lying around as it takes normal sized sd and sdhc cards up to 32gig.
It is not an e-ink device! Repeat! It is not an e-ink device! What it is is a transflective lcd screen. In grey scale so no coloured book covers, but that’s okay. And no backlight, bit disappointing but I knew that already. I was very impressed with the type on the screen. In fact when I started it up it looked like the screen had been typed on, weird feeling that was till I got used to it.
The JetBook Lite did win out over the Kobo reader mainly because it wasn’t e-ink I think. But also the placement of the page turner with the Kobo reader. It’s a big blue button on the bottom right hand side of the device. There is only the one way to turn pages and it could be awkward. They should of placed the button in the middle rather than on the right.
I had other niggles with the Kobo that I think will eventually be fixed with firmware upgrades. Such as sorting of a library of books, can’t do that right now on the Kobo.
Things that swayed me towards the Jetbook Lite is I can sort my books into folders. You can create folders for anything, genre, authors, miscellaneous anything you can think of. I’ve created folders for authors and then a folder for series for that author (if the author has series, most of mine do.) So a folder within a folder, only two deep, I have read if you go too deep with folders it can cause the device to hang when trying to open the book.
Page turning on the Jetbook Lite is instantaneous. There is no annoying flash between page turns, great for someone like me who sometimes goes flicking through books.
On that same note there are three ways to turn a page, a slider bar on the left hand side, push down for next page and up for page back. Two sets of buttons on the bottom of the screen so you can use with either hand.
This ereader also uses 4 AA batteries which can be rechargeable ones. I have some Sanyo Eneloop rechargeables. First go lasted about a week and I am happy with that rather than daily or every other day charging that I am used too. I didn’t time it but the manual states 20 hours of reading time using it which I think is quite reasonable. The batteries do cause a hump on the back, some people like this as it helps with the grip, others think it unbalances the device. I’m okay with it, doesn’t annoy me at all and I do like the convenience of just changing batteries rather than having to hook it up to recharge.
Even though my JetBook Lite didn’t come with a cover I found out about a promotion Ectaco were doing. All you had to do was upload a video and in 15 seconds or less state what you like best about your Jetbook Lite. They were giving free cases for doing this. Since a case cost around $50 I went for it and they sent me not only a case (that I like very much) but an earlight as well. Thanks Ectaco! Great promotion!
This is the 15 secs video I did: Ectaco JetBook Lite 15 Sec Review It’s not very good, bear in mind I’ve never done that before and I was using an older generation mobile phone so quality isn’t the best. Still Ectaco were nice enough to send a case and earlight out for it, very happy.
Both the Ectaco Jetbook Lite and the Kobo Reader are no frills devices. They are designed to read ebooks, not connect to the internet, play audio, etc, so if you’re after wireless maybe look at others such as the Sony or Kindle. This post was mainly about the Jetbook Lite, and has more detail about it because of my hands on view, but I felt I wanted to throw the Kobo reader in there because I very nearly got that one instead.
That’s it for this post about my new ebook reader, Ectaco JetBook Lite. I’ve also got a new widget displaying what I’m currently reading on the Jetbook Lite on the right hand side of this blog.
The JetBook Lite is available from Amazon at the same US price I paid for it from Ectaco Jbl-en Jetbook-lite Ereader
. Check it out! The Ectaco JetBook Lite is a great little device!Also check out my Ebook Readers Amazon store page (top menu) where there are a variety of Ebook Readers to look at and compare.
