MP3 player 'eBooks'

I mentioned a few weeks ago that cheap generic MP3 players from China 
are now advertising 'eBook' capability, and having acquired one of these 
I thought I should describe it.

The device is slim and compact (about 5 x 7 cm) with an on-off switch on 
the base and an iPod-style control panel consisting of four buttons 
arranged around a central circular button. The screen takes up nearly 
half of the surface -- about 4 x 3 cm -- and I estimate it has about 200 
x 160 pixels. The manual has been written in Chinese and 'translated' 
into English with the aid of something like Babel Fish, with the result 
that it is completely unintelligible -- and I mean that quite literally. 
Luckily the controls are not hard to pick up with a bit of practice. It 
comes with a USB cable which makes it appear as a disk when plugged into 
a PC, and also recharges the built-in lithium battery. As well as eBooks 
and MP3s it can display pictures (most formats) and video files (a few 
formats) and acts as a voice recorder and FM radio. Mine has a 4 Gb 
capacity and cost me $AU40 on eBay. Battery life seems to be about 4 hours.

The eBook function is limited in the extreme. The user copies text files 
into one or more directories on the device via the USB cable. The user 
then puts the device into Text mode and can choose a default directory. 
Books in the directory can be 'played' (scrolled through) manually or 
automatically. There is also an option to delete any or all of the text 
files in the directory. Displaying a book brings it up on the screen in 
eight 16-character lines of monospaced ASCII characters with no 
hyphenation or word wrap -- words are just broken wherever the 16th 
character falls on the line, making it very unpleasant to read. In 
manual mode the user pages back and forth through the text with the 
Previous and Next buttons: in auto mode the page turns automatically at 
rates that can be adjusted from about twice per second to once every 
five seconds.

So this is not a reader one would choose if there was any alternative. 
But the biggest problems could be fixed with a firmware upgrade, and as 
an ancillary function, given everything else that it does, it's a 
worthwhile addition to a package that provides excellent value for 
money. I plan to reformat a couple of books into 16-character lines and 
keep them on there just in case of stalled trains or stuck lifts.

A couple of firmware upgrades and screen improvements down the track, 
and this could be the $30 eBook reader we all claim to be waiting for.

Jon.





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