Astak's 5-inch EZ Reader now shipping from Newegg
By Laura June 
posted October 1st 2009 11:50AM
posted October 1st 2009 11:50AM
[Via E-reader-Info]
posted October 1st 2009 11:50AM
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I'll wait for color screens.
Color is of very limited use for reading, unless you are looking at color-coded schematics or children's books.
Is there nothing this newegg can't do????
- memory card slot, mp3 player, more formats,
My wife's 505 has all that...
@Jay Evans
Actually these Jinke clones do support more formats then any of the Sony readers. Though this seems to come at a compromise in rendering quality for many of those. And Sony's own 5" model, the PRS-300, does indeed lack a memory card slot.
Still $100 too much.
And 50$ more than a similar Sony reader.
Yep. Just waiting for these things too be $99.99. This price, previously stated, too me; seems a good price point for a uni-tasker.
Got mine at preorder for $200.
So far, I love it!
Reads ANY format a threw at it, including compressed files (rar, zip). Natively!
Native PDF support from Adobe (Sony?)
Full, out of the box support for the foreign characters. (A point off from Sony for sure)
Screan is supereasy to read. Battery life, though less than advertized (PDF fault?), is still pretty decent.
Text-to-speech (!)
I like its smaller size (5"), with the same resolution as 6".
16 Gb SD swallowed ALL the thousands of books and reprints I have, including the huge reference ones. (Sony doesn't have one, right?)
I was thinking Sony 505 for a while, but I am really glad I waited for this little puppy (and I never considered Kindler - an overpriced propriatary junk).
My Sony 505 does PDF files. How does the Astak handle PDF text sizes? The Sony has 3 levels of text resizing on PDF files.
I'd rather use my Touch, which has a backlit color screen. I can easily hold it for long periods of time and get no eyestrain, despite the silly comments of Kindlers who think a backlit screen will irritate their eyes. Try reading a Kindle in the dark! Try reading a book on photography, in monochrome. Dumb products--all of them--monochrome and unlit screens are good for one thing--battery life. So what if the battery lasts for weeks? I could care less--I want color and I want a backlit screen. Period. Screw battery life.
Let me know how reading on your Touch is going for you after your 11th hour on an international flight with no power outlets. I'll still be reading on my Sony Reader for the entire flight, my three week vacation, the flight back, and another two weeks back at home all without having to plug it in. Your touch? Not so much.
get real, try reading on a backlit device for a year and tell me you don't have any eyestrain.
I can use my Kindle in the dark just fine - I use something called a "desk lamp." If that's not an option, I also have a clip-on LED book light that works for hundreds of hours on a couple of AAA batteries. And with either light source, the Kindle is easier on my eyes than a backlit LED. I also have a small tablet PC (Fujitsu P1630) but I prefer to read things on the Kindle.
By the way, how does your Touch work outdoors? During my recent vacation to the beach, I tried using the tablet PC on the porch and quickly gave up, and decided to read some good books on the Kindle instead.
It's much more common that there is too much ambient light to read rather than not enough. Even if I *could* read in the dark, I probably wouldn't (because it's bad for your eyes), and even if I did, it wouldn't be that often. Just saying...
These 5 inch ereader screens have more then double the screen space than in ipod/itouch. put them side by side to see that.
I do understand why people put them down though... Until you have actually seen an e-ink screen in the flesh, you have no idea how crisp and clean a screen can be. I've shown mine to several people that didn't understand it was a real screen until i clicked on "next page". (they assumed it was fake)
Also.. this unit has a lot more going for it over the sony reader
- memory card slot, mp3 player, more formats, more built in fonts, replaceable battery, it can read books to you in a crappy voice. Sony beat them to market by a month, so i bought the sony one.
A miniature Morgan Freeman, just for me?
$250 is far too cheap!
This article is wrong I think. Newegg says that this device has a 6 inch screen not 5. It also says 4 level grayscale not 8.
Regardless, this sounds pretty great to me. I love that it has an sd slot and not just built in memory. Also it reads a ton of formats, even rar/zip which sounds very handy. I wonder how well it could display comic books?
my mistake, astak makes both a 5 and 6 inch. Interestingtly the 5 inch reads more formats and has 8 level grayscale instead of 4 and is ten dollars cheaper. I think I'd probably still prefer the bigger screen though for 10 bucks.
Just be sure to carry around that charger everywhere you go!
My Touch weighs 3-7/8 oz and is easily cradled in my hand. I doubt you'll find a larger device as comfortable to hold for long periods of time. I suspect the larger devices will require the reader to set them on a surface, rather then hold them for an hour+
I've read numerous books on my Touch and so has my wife (on hers) and both of us vastly prefer the Touch experience to holding a heavy "real" book.
The EZ-reader is about the weight of a 1/2-inch thick paperback, and smaller. Do you honestly think that's too large and heavy to hold for an hour?
I am sure it is, since he obviously never read book. I am sure reading Moby Dick or War and Peace would crush his puny carpal tunnel (from yankin it) ridden wrists.
Out of interest, I just weighed my e-book reader. 11 ounces even. Including the nice padded comfy cover which folds open so it looks just like a book, and balances the whole device in my hand. And yes, I have held 11 ounces of e-book reader for hours on end. Read from the very nice 6 inch screen, and read several books on one charge. Imagine that.. I am able to hold a light device in my hand for an extended period.
Of course, I don't have your delicate feminine wrists, so my big rough male muscles obviously give me an unfair advantage.
Perhaps your confusion is from holding your touchpod in the air so everybody can see you have one. I can see how that would be hard work. . Reading a book is best done in a comfortable seated position, with the book resting on one's lap, or in one or both hands. Not prancing around like a demented ballerina, trying to make sure everybody can see how special you are...
"Sorry Dave, we can't do that." Mono-toned voice echos the ship you live on. "We don't like apples, Dave."
I got mine directly from them a few weeks ago for $200 and it came with a 1 GB SD card. I love it. It's a great entry-level eReader. I don't need wireless download or newpaper feed. I need tons of books in a small portable device that I can read for long periods of time without tiring. I read over 12 hours in one sitting with it, and my eyes never grow tired.
I'm very glad I bought this over a Kindle. Freaking overpriced proprietary junk.
12hours. Good for you! No s/ intended. People don't do read this much anymore. I applaud you greatly. +100 point.
@dave- neg1000
Pon, you SAT for 12 HOURS? Dude, you need to get out more.
I am sure you do that, plus, just from either you jack off sessions or your video game sessions. I doubt you have ever picked up a book in your life. I can read well over 12 hours in one sitting. It's called a good book. Something you probably never even heard of let alone read. What are you even doing on here? Obviously you don't read that much. And NO, the internet doesn't count.
Never read a book, eh? Well, lets see, one year I read 137 books...you are so clueless.
That's nice doesn't prove anything. I own well over 700 books but that doesn't prove anything. Cause I have read well over twenty times that in my lifetime. Yet still doesn't prove anything.
Secondly, you read a book every 2.66 days? Which at an average pace, you would need to read 1/3 the book everyday, which equates to about 12 hours a day. Given time to eat, shit, shower, and do other things to keep you alive and healthy. Yet you diss PonTelon for doing just that. I think your lying.
@Brdystyls @ Oct 1st 2009 6:16PM
"Secondly, you read a book every 2.66 days? Which at an average pace, you would need to read 1/3 the book everyday, which equates to about 12 hours a day."
Only one book every three days at 12 hours a day??? God you must be a pathetically slow reader. A 250 page novel is about 1.5 hours to read, a 500 pager is about 3 hours etc. I've read 3 to 5 novels a week since I was 9 years old, plus magazines (National Geographic, Discover, Popular Sci. etc etc), newspapers, textbooks and so on. I'm not that unusual. Both of my children read as much or more then I do and at least 15 to 20 of my friends do to.
Why, why would you compare it to Kindle? Is that because it's a paid article which needed to be favorable? How does it stack up against the $50 cheaper Sony PRS-300, that is the question.
sorry, who the hell is ASTAK and why is their logo so close to that of ASUS's?
Anyone... Anyone?
the logo is indeed similiar to asustek :)
hererga
interesting what your cat can do when you're away from the keyboard....
Competition is always good, but most important thing for me is to know what kind of DRM that reader supports. I hope it's not proprietary...
Speaking of reading on smaller screens (like iPod/Palm) I have no eyestrain from reading Touch for weeks. I've been reading eBooks books for over 8 years starting with B&W Handspring (battery lasted for weeks on that thing), then moving on to Palm M515 and even smaller screen on Treo650. I've read tons of books, no issues, no glasses, my eyesight still perfect (I'm 33). Yes battery won't last as long as on e-ink devices, but I recently took my Touch on a 15 hour flight (with 2 stops) to Hawaii and with help of little battery recharger it lasted me pretty much whole flight. I did take few breaks for naps, but also watched couple of videos. Screen size is really not as big an issue as most people think. You get used to in a couple of hours, and you can't beat portability of the reading device that fits in our pocket. I'd rather see Kindle and others with screen size of iPod Touch...
All right guys. Try something before you discount it.
I've been reading on my Tapwave Zodiac since I got it in 2003. It's backlit. NO eyestrain ever, so don't give me that crap about eyestrain from a backlit screen. My vision hasn't changed in all that time and I never get headaches or eyeaches from reading. There are times I'll spend more than eight hours reading in bed with the lights out.
Before owning a Zodiac, I used my Palm V. Guess what. It's backlit too. Almost everyone I know who bought a Zodiac still uses it for reading even though they've moved PIM functions over to something else (I have an HTC Touch linked to my Exchange server).
Also, I get about 14 hours of battery life using %50 brightness and autoscroll with a "screen full" every five seconds. That's SMOOTH scrolling text, no jumping like the old PDA's did. When I'm reading in bed with the lights out so the wife can sleep, I cut the brightness down to the minimum which I think is about %5. Full sunny day really only needs about %40. The Zodiac will fully charge in about two hours when not in use and a little over four when in use. If I do only night reading (lowest brightness possible) I get about 18 hours before needing to charge.
Backlighting is not that big of a power hog. Use freaking LEDs and side light it. Put a switch on there for when people don't need the light.
These things cost way too much are physically too big and need a built-in light. Plain and simple.
I loved my Zodiac 2. But man did they have quality problems. I preordered my first one which died 3 days after it arrived. They replaced it with another new one which lasted 6 weeks and the back light died. Third one never powered on at all. 4th one lasted about 3 moths. Nice unit if it had lasted. Sadly they went under. Not sure if it was because of lack of orders or their high failure rate which was infamous.