ECTACO jetBook eBook Reader
ECTACO are probably better know for their electronic hand held translators, but now they gone and released their very own reader; the jetBook eBook Reader.
The jetBook does not use an E-Ink screen, however, this does give it an advantage over all the other eBook readers that are currently out there; a crisp and very white screen! One of the issues people have with the current E-Ink (and VixPlex) standard is that the page contrast is not high enough – usually with E-Ink screens you have a light gray background displaying dark gray text, making low light reading a challenge.
Well, if you think this will be an issue then perhaps you would be better suited to a jetBook. These use a reflective monochrome LCD screen so that the background is nice and white, allowing the text to be read much easier.
[The jetBook has] an easy to scan high-resolution 5-inch display and a viewing angle close to 180°, it is fully customizable. Even readers who have difficulty seeing print books will benefit from its adjustable text size and font face. And weighing in at only 7.5 ounces, this handy device fits perfectly into the palm of your hand.
They go on to say that this “revolutionary display reflects light without the need for backlighting”, which according to reviews gives a similar reading experience to an E-Ink screen.
For me however, the most impressive feature of the jetBook is its ability to search and cross-reference the text using bookmarks making it a great choice for dictionaries – I’m not sure if this means you can do a word lookup from within a book. I’ll try to find out and post an update.
Another jetBook feature is that you can search the contents of your e-library and get a list of every instance found in the book’s content…how cool is that!
Now there is one rather big caveat; the only book formats that it can read are .txt and .pdf. If you aquire most of your books from Project Gutenberg then there really is no issue here and as the jetBook supports PDF then you can always download your bestsellers from eBook.com in the PDF format.
The ePub factor
According to David Rothman’s TeleRead blog, Dr Helen Hage says that ECTACO are working on the HTML issue. Will they then start working implementing the IDPF’s .epub format? Let’s hope they do because this format is really starting to take off and as its an open standard we are now starting to see many websites, both commercial and free, with ePub books.
Here’s is the official jetBook features list;
- Support for e-Book contents in Albanian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Faeroese, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian and other European languages
- Bookmarks and auto page turn functionality
- Adjustable font type and 6 different sizes
- Screen rotation support for both portrait & landscape modes
- Built-in MP3 player that supports background playback
- Support for .txt, .pdf, .jpg, .gif, .png and .bmp file formats
- SD card slot (up to 2 GB)
- Internal Li-ion polymer battery
- Battery: 20 hours of continuous, active use!
Where to buy the jetBook Online
Amazon and ECTACO.com – available in Burgundy, Gray and White.