I've got my hands on the elusive Panasonic Words Gear!

[igorsk]

Not "just", it was last week. It arrived at DankeDanke but they're kinda slow lately and didn't pack it for shipping yet...

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Not "just", it was last week. It arrived at DankeDanke but they're kinda slow lately and didn't pack it for shipping yet...

Looking forward to your review igorsk.

Do you read Korean? There is this page on the iRiver book reader I can't manage to get translated. This device is really attractive.

[hswang6802]

After i readede this article , i buy a wordsgear.
But...when i got it, i found that the wordsgear can't recognize my SD card
(i have tried toshiba, sandisk,panasonic)
It always show " please insert SD memory Card".
I had installed windows XP japanese edition.
But i still don't know how to get that software(my bookshelf, SD-epublish) work.

If anyone here ever had wordsgear, please share your experience.
Thank you very much

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by hswang6802

After i readede this article , i buy a wordsgear.
But...when i got it, i found that the wordsgear can't recognize my SD card
(i have tried toshiba, sandisk,panasonic)
It always show " please insert SD memory Card".
I had installed windows XP japanese edition.

How big are your SD cards?

One problem may be just what the Wordsgear supports. There are two versions of the SD card specification. V1.0 didn't support cards larger than 1GB. V2.0 supported larger cards. Larger cards now are normally SDHC designs, and not all devices support SDHC. The Wordsgear may be a device supporting V1 of the SD spec.

Get a card that is 1GB or smaller in size. Make sure you can read it in a card reader on your PC. If you can, try it on your Wordsgear.

If you can't, try formatting it in the reader on your PC. Cards up to 2GB will use FAT16. Cards larger than 2GB require FAT32.
______
Dennis

[hswang6802]

i have tried 128, 256, 512,1G,2g SD acrd, not SDHC
I also tried to format it to FAT or FAT32
All of them can't be recognized by my wordsgear.

Did i buy a damaged ones??

I am so depressed....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by hswang6802

i have tried 128, 256, 512,1G,2g SD acrd, not SDHC
I also tried to format it to FAT or FAT32
All of them can't be recognized by my wordsgear.

Did i buy a damaged ones??

I doubt all of those cards are damaged. It sounds more like a problem with the SD slot on the Wordsgear.

Some devices have the option to format a card in the device. Does the Wordsgear offer that choice?
_______
Dennis

[Azayzel]

Ok. I've been trying to help hswang6802 out over the past few days, but I've been busy enough I cannot check this forum daily. So here's a little rundown to get you into troubleshooting mode...

When you connect the WG to the computer, it must be plugged into a wall outlet and you also have to select "Connect to PC"

To get to that option, if you haven't found it already, you should change the language to English (unless you can read Japanese), this is located under the wrench icon. You need to swipe your thumb to the left when holding the device with the round end to your left for select.

Once both cables are connected and you select "Conn...," the device should show up as a SD-card device and Windows will read any card you thro into it. I'm using a 128MB in there now, but I used a 512MB previously, both SanDisk standard el' cheapo cards.

Once it's recognized you need to just poke and play around with the button in the My Bookshelf software you said you've already successfully installed.

Note: I just plugged mine in to test it and make sure Windows could see it without having to run the My Bookshelf software. Good luck & have fun experimenting with it!

[hswang6802]

"Once both cables are connected and you select "Conn...," the device should show up as a SD-card device and Windows will read any card you thro into it"

I have a serious problem...
My PC does show up as a SD card reader, but after i insert my SD-card into the device.
It still show no SD card.
In other words, my device didn't detect any SD card in original mode or PC connection mode.
MY SD card(not SDHC) are Toshiba 2G, Sandisk 1G, and brand new Panasonic 2G.
I can read these card in standard SD-card reader. But the software my bookshelf didn't detect my standard SD card reader nor the wordsgear SD card reader.

Does wordsgear detect a blank SD card or it can just read SD card with special directory?

I am very afraid that i bought a defective ones.

[hswang6802]

I have some pic to demostrate my condition, but how to upload?

[stasys]

Check the firmware version you gear has, if it is less than 2.0, update firmware. This problem is known to occur with 1.10

[Antartica]

I'm researching a bit more on the words gear (just for researching for now, I'm not planning on buying one, yet).

I've found a nice page with lots of photos (including side views showing it's ports):
http://ascii24.com/news/i/topi/artic...64978-000.html

For convenience I also attach them to this message ;-).

[stasys]

Yes, it is good device. The only minus is firmware - even switched off it eats battery in about three days. But I hope Igorsk will fix that.

[Antartica]

It seems that there are a bunch of MR's with this one :-).

So, I have some questions for all of you (hope somebody can answer some of them):

1. Can you put books in it from Mac or Linux?

2. The PDF plug-in installs in the PC application or in the device? If it's in the application, it would be worthless for a Linux user, nope?

3. Have you investigated what changes the PDF plugin does to the PDF so that it's viewable in the device? Feasibility of doing that with a home-grown app (in Mac/Linux)? (Ehm, can someone pass me a "original" PDF and it's processed version to anable me to analyse them? Thanks)

4. [S]About the video capabilities, anyone here has been able to view a video file in it?[/S] Ok, I've now read all the thread and 'ha seen that Azayzel managed to put videos in it. Do they look good?

And that is it for now. Thanks for your answers :-b.

[Azayzel]

Originally Posted by stasys

Check the firmware version you gear has, if it is less than 2.0, update firmware. This problem is known to occur with 1.10

Thanks for the info Stasys! I had no idea there were issues, though mine would occassionally forget it had a card in it. Nothing a quick pop-out and re-insert wouldn't fix. Guess I'll update mine too!

[brightiyz]

I have read all the reviews and am greatly interested in the Wordsgear however I found out about it just as they started to become discontinued. I was wondering if anyone knew where (if anywhere) one can still be located. I can pay retail (original sticker price) plus extra to find one new or negotiate a reasonable price on a good condition used. If someone could assist I would greatly appreciate it. I am already employing the services of dankedanke however I do not believe they will be of much use.