Color JetBook Color 2 Review

[Ansileran]

They both have some color bleed but it's more obvious on the jetbook because the background is darker. The glare looks quite annoying, especially if you need an external light often.

How bad is the Jetbook's usability? Honestly, the price (plus extra cost to get it in Europe) and the weight are already big deterrents so...

The M92 looks great and is much cheaper, but without color...

[Ansileran]

Another question: while looking up the jetbook, I found some references to the Hanvon C920. Are they the same?

[gamba66]

Originally Posted by Ansileran

Another question: while looking up the jetbook, I found some references to the Hanvon C920. Are they the same?

Not exactly, the c920 has a capacitive touchscreen and the software, even though also based on win ce 6.0, is supposed to be better from hanvon. the jetbook color 1 has the same screen as the c920 but the jetbook color 2 has a new triton 2 display and is glare instead of matte! If you believe an ectaco store worker from germany the difference between the displays is marginal (about 20 percent better contrast but the annoying grey stays the same)

after spending time on research about the jetbook color and ectaco I can only warn everyone to not buy from that company. They have a very dubious way of making business! Here are some things I found out:

1. They refuse to accept returns even though they are bound by law too (valentinka on this forum send it back and they refused the packet, only paypal helped) Once they sold the device to you, their service is done! there is another case on german amazon where someone send the jbc back to their company hq in New York and had to pay 60 euros in total for shipping. ectaco still refused to accept the return but paypal got him the money back (without shipping costs) also in another case, a device was broken and they only offered the damaged buyer to buy a new product cheaper

2. The jetbook color 1 (or 2) software, even with current updates is lacking very basic pdf features and if they are supported then only poorly. Also many people complain about the bad usability amd ghosting

3. The colors are ok in only in good lightning but the grey makes the readibility very bad, even the first eink vizplex screens are supposed to be better

Be careful what people say on this forum, it seems one of the only happy customers here are the users Kris and Lubib.

Coincidentally, Lubib lives in New York, where the ectaco company is located, now this wouldnt be suspicious.if he wouldnt be extremely enthusiastic about the JBC and knows about updates and news regarding the jbc earlier than everyone else... And Kris seems to be only posting in the ectaco areas and is also extremely happy with every ectaco.product!

[Ansileran]

Hmpf, so the tech is not quite there yet... It seems Hanvon discontinued the c920, at least there is no mention of any colour device this size on the Chinese website.

Thanks for the info!

[gamba66]

The Hanvon C920 should still be avaible in china but you shouldn't consider it even if the firmware is better. the display is simply too gray and dark!

Pocketbook is releasing the color lux, an 8 inch color reader with frontlight and touchscreen, at the end of june. The frontlight could help the bad readibility and also against the darkness/greyness od the screen. I think they are releasing it in such a small size because frontlight is too uneven on larger displays. PB is known for its very good software by the way!

Also Hanvon has the E920 Reader, its the same as the C920 but without the color.layer. It has a normal (and good) b/w pearl screen with 200 dpi (1600x1200). This one also has the capacitive touch

I am thinking about importing one.

[Ansileran]

The C920 isn't available on the Chinese Hanvon website, I checked. The display doesn't seem darker than my actual PRS-505 (very far from paper white ^^)... I've seen the E920, as you said, without color.

I'm looking for something to read my news papers and magazines on (among other things) so 8" is too small and no color is a deal breaker. I wouldn't mind (too much) a poor colour display / darker back ground if the device isn't too expensive. The price on the jetbook is way too high for this.

On the other hand, I find 9" readers too heavy so far (Sony's annouced 13" reader would be much lighter)... There is a saying in French that translates as "looking for the five legged sheep", I guess that's me ^^

[joblack]

Well, the JetBook Color 2 has two problems:

- glaring
- Windows CE with bad usability

At least the second point can be found on the e920 as well. On second thought I wouldn't recommend an e920 because of the same usability problems.

My recommendation for a big reader is still an Onyx M92 or a little bit cheaper Kindle DX. It has a smaller dpi resolution as most smaller e-ink readers but that wasn't a real problem for me.

The M92 has of course some usability problems for itself but in comparison to a lot of other readers they are almost not mentionable. ^^

[gamba66]

its true that the hanvon has windows ce too, but the firmware from the e/c920 is not the same as on the jetbook color! it is very different from the jetbook, it seems they are being coded individually from each company

in asian reviews the software actually gains positive feedback!

The JBC is a completely different design hardware and software-wise. Don't forget the E/C920 has a capacitive touch to (actually working without another additional touch layer) see Hanvon dual-touch

Maybe I am a bit enthusiastic about the Hanvon, but this is also because im considering getting it. I have to say I don't like that it looks the same as the JBC and has a windows ce (based) firmware too, but from the users who have actually bought it, they seem very happy with it also with the firmware

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Ansileran

How bad is the Jetbook's usability? Honestly, the price (plus extra cost to get it in Europe) and the weight are already big deterrents so...

The M92 looks great and is much cheaper, but without color...

Well, it's like using Windows CE somehow. It works but it's not so intuitive. I don't see a problem with the weight or the price (you can get a discount if you ask) but the glare screen is not so much fun. Some do like glare screens so it just might be just my preference.

[aandreimr]

I have had previously Sony PRS-300 (Image ok, too small), Sony PRS-900 (Acceptable size, horrible glare), Irex DR-800 (satisfying except for A4 .pdf).
The Ectaco screen is a little glossy, but is not annoying like that of Sony PRS-900. "White" is grayer compared with Irex, but black is MUCH DARKER.
Only after I have compared Irex with JetBook I realized that the "Irex black" is, in reality gray.
The resolution is awesome, clearly 1600x1200 for black.
I found-it easy and relaxing to read, even more relaxing that Irex.
Color is a nice feature if you are content with just a tint of. I am.
I looked at the screen under microscope and the white spaces between color cells are reduced, compared with JBC one.
Not much functionality for .pdf but not much needed, thanks to the enhanced resolutioin.
I will attach a photo; JBC2 made possible with ease reading all letters and ciphers. I don't know wich OTHER ereader is capable of displaying it.

[aandreimr]

Macro photos are not meant to be shoot from hand... still to show sub(color)pixel control of the display.

[aandreimr]

If you are interested, just tell me. I think that I will post some photos in full sunlight, tomorrow.

[aandreimr]

for yourselves. The visible part of the casing is black velvet.

As for the ease of reading, the explanation is that the eye is more "sensible" to "real" black. Black letters on gray background are more readable than gray letters on white background.
The "ghosting" is because I have not chosen "refresh EVERY page".

[Ansileran]

Wow, thanks aandreimr!

Colours aren't that great but it should be enough for my use. I'll just have to figure out if I can afford it right now...

[gamba66]

Thanks for the pictures aandreimr! Could you post a fullscreen picture of the color scale .pdf on the JBC 2? Sadly you only photographed the lower part.

It seems from your explanations the only good thing about the JBC2 is the Black and White Resolution of 1600x1200. The weak colors wouldn't distract me as much as the pattern of the color filter which kind of kills the high resolution from the E-Ink Pearl layer. If you want to read smaller text on the JBC2 you would always notice the 800x600 Color filter pattern when reading up-close

What kills the Jetbook Color 2 for me are the following factors though ordered in descending order from most major:

1. Ectaco has one of the worst customer services I have seen (doesn't accept returns, rarely answers e-mails and if then only if its in their interest) I also have first-hand experience with them so I am not just referring to the unhappy customers I have read about on amazon and such! It looks like they even had people on this forum to push the Jetbook sales!

2. The Display of the JBC 2 seems to have improved color rendering (about 20% ectaco says) but the background is still the same extreme gray plus they are now using a Glare screen instead of a matte one, probably to improve color rendering. Another minus is the pattern of the low-resolution color filter, this makes the Display only readable from certain distances.

3. The Jetbook Color 2 has a horrible and slow Firmware as it seems. PDF options are very limited, Zooming can only be done through trial and error (choosing from 100%, 150% etc.) Also annotating is an urban myth from Ectaco. Users have even reported that the landscape mode isn't working.. Besides that, ebook formats such as .epub aren't supported at all or with nearly no options. These are only examples, long-term Users probably find a million more non-working or missing options. Usability would get an F or at highest, E- probably

Also referring to your comparisons you say the Jetbook Color 2 has a darker black than the three devices you compared it to (Irex DR800, Sony PRS 300 and 900). As a matter of fact all of the devices have the first generation E-Ink Vizplex screen which makes a comparison pretty unrealistic. The jetbook color 2 actually has a second generation E-Ink Pearl display(beneath the third gen. triton 2 filter), such as the Onyx M92 which would be a realistic comparison. Plus you even mention the Vizplex Displays having a whiter background.

If you would compare the Onyx M92 with the Jetbook Color 2 Display the blacks would be the same but the background of the M92 alot whiter So actually the higher resolution and the good readibility from the pearl layer become worse with the color filter because of 2 Reasons:

1. The Background is alot grayer than even on the 1st Gen. Vizplex E-Ink Display.

2. The 800x600 rough pattern of the triton 2 layer overshadows the high resolution of the Pearl 1600x1200 layer, killing the readibility from up-close for example, when reading small-texts.

So after comparing all these factors it seems that the Jetbook Color 2 only advantage is Color, which is kind of killed by the fact that the Colors are extremely washed out plus the Color Filter has a very bad resolution for 9.7" resulting in a very rough pattern..

Why spend so much money on something so undeveloped with very limited options, slow and bad usability and mediocre readibility resulting from the color filter? I nearly bought this device myself, after extensive research, I decided it against it. Even if you have an unlimited budget this device wouldn't make any sense at all, do to the hardware and software being at a prototype level or worse.. And if you consider the Price of 500 Euro (or even 400 or 350 Euro) it doesn't make any sense at all!

Why not just get an Ipad 3/4 (which has a perfect 4:3 aspect ratio for PDFs, a high quality IPS-Display with good color representation and very good PDF Software) if you are into reading some technical PDFs with colors and for the rest use an Onyx M92 or something similiar? And if the glare distracts you use a matte screen protector, even the JBC 2 has glare though^^ A high resolution Tablet such as the Ipad 3/4 or Nexus 10 would probably be even better for the eyes.. And why use a stylus if its unresponsive and annotating isnt even really possible?