Opus First impressions of the Opus

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Mmm, i'm pretty sure i DO have bookmarks for ePub. I'll check. (OK, i stand corrected, it was an html)

And a small things, beware with folders. I switched back to normal view, and the opus refused to start, as there is now too many files on my sd card.

Did you try PDFs already? Are you okay with the quality? I'm not. ePUB is fine though.
Because of the small screen, I'd like to use zoom for having more lines. But very quickly, the PDFs "fade out", the letters simply get "too thin" and look "faded".

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Can you access your SD card in ADE? I see mine (tried quite a few cards) in Windows explorer. I even can read the books which I've copied manually to the card. But I can't see the card in ADE, so can't copy within ADE (still can copy to internal memory in ADE of course). SAUD experiences similar problems with SD cards.
Plus: My Opus hung himself for a few minutes about 5 times last night. Only with SD card in place. Without SD card it seems stable.

I'm using an adapter for the SD card. I don't uses ADE. Only to buy and de-drm e-books. Ade's not a bad software, but not realy linux prof.

I'll have a look if i start windows at some point

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Did you try PDFs already? Are you okay with the quality? I'm not. ePUB is fine though.
Because of the small screen, I'd like to use zoom for having more lines. But very quickly, the PDFs "fade out", the letters simply get "too thin" and look "faded".

I tried a bit of pdf, didn't looked too bad. What do you mean by "fade out" ?

[Soc-psychologist]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Really? I can confirm nice quality for ePUB. But PDF, I find substantially inferior to the 6" units. I've described it in PDF as "fading out". The letters in smaller zooming levels simply seem too small.

Well the accelerometer makes the pdf-reading quite bearable especially with the autozoom option on for width. I read mostly scientific articles with it, and I do not need to see the whole page while reading. So yeah, really, accelerometer makes it a lot more ergonomic for pdf-reading. Although, I would really like to have the option to choose from reflow to non-reflow view. Both in my Gen3 and in my Opus, now that I think of it, it really really is the only thing missing (for me) feature wise.

--Michael

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I tried a bit of pdf, didn't looked too bad. What do you mean by "fade out" ?

By "fading out" I mean, it looks like a printed page, where the inkjet slowly runs out of ink.
It kind of looses its outline.
My explanation: PDF is zoomed, not reflowed. At some stage, the letters simply get "too thin" and look like "the printer ran out of ink".
So I've got 2 options:
a.) Only using a few lines per page, not using the "critical zooms". But therefor the display really is too small. Reminds me of the good old times when reading on Pocket PCs. Back then it was okay, but when I compare Opus to 6" units....
b.) I use the zoom feature to bring more lines on the page. Quickly it "fades out" and simply doesn't look good anymore. You still can read it though.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Soc-psychologist

Well the accelerometer makes the pdf-reading quite bearable especially with the autozoom option on for width. I read mostly scientific articles with it, and I do not need to see the whole page while reading. So yeah, really, accelerometer makes it a lot more ergonomic for pdf-reading. Although, I would really like to have the option to choose from reflow to non-reflow view. Both in my Gen3 and in my Opus, now that I think of it, it really really is the only thing missing (for me) feature wise.

--Michael

I agree. When switching to landscape view and not showing the entire page, of course it's working nicely.
But if I see the results of ePUB and compare to the less convincing PDFs, I'd like to see significant improvement here.
I'd like to choose a letter size, which is at the edge of readability. As many lines as possible. in ePUB I can do that. PDF looses it's "charm" way earlier.
It's absolutely explainable because of zooming instead of reflowing.
But why? Why do they have reflow for ePUB, but not for PDF?

[Soc-psychologist]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I agree. When switching to landscape view and not showing the entire page, of course it's working nicely.
But if I see the results of ePUB and compare to the less convincing PDFs, I'd like to see significant improvement here.

Agreed, there are improvements needed ergonomy-wise I'd love to see as well (like the possibility to fine tune the zoom and the possibility to go over 100% etc.). And yes, the reflow ability of the Cooler is a nice way of looking at the .pdf-files. Then again, Cooler users can not look at the pdf-files in a picturesque mode at all. The ability to choose between reflow and non-reflow would be great.

--Michael

[EowynCarter]

But why? Why do they have reflow for ePUB, but not for PDF?

Pdf it a format meant for display and printng. re-flowing with it is more of an hack. ePubs, or mobi, are e-book format, that where created with the possibility to reflow in mind. That don't have hard written page numbers for one thing.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Soc-psychologist

Agreed, there are improvements needed ergonomy-wise I'd love to see as well (like the possibility to fine tune the zoom and the possibility to go over 100% etc.). And yes, the reflow ability of the Cooler is a nice way of looking at the .pdf-files. Then again, Cooler users can not look at the pdf-files in a picturesque mode at all. The ability to choose between reflow and non-reflow would be great.

--Michael

So what do you use? Fit width and switch to landscape via accelerometer?
If you switch back to portrait, you can see what I mean by "fading out".
Letters "f" and "h" for example loose their outline, they "fade out". That's totally explainable. But still, it just doesn't look good.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Pdf it a format meant for display and printng. re-flowing with it is more of an hack. ePubs, or mobi, are e-book format, that where created with the possibility to reflow in mind.

..but still lot of the other readers do reflow for PDF as well. May not be the best eBook format. But when as they've decided to implement it and as the display IS small...

[Soc-psychologist]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

So what do you use? Fit width and switch to landscape via accelerometer?
If you switch back to portrait, you can see what I mean by "fading out".
Letters "f" and "h" for example loose their outline, they "fade out". That's totally explainable. But still, it just doesn't look good.

No, I take use of the accelerometer nearly all the time. When there are pictures and tables that need to be looked at in certain way I tilt the machine. When there are two columns or more I switch back to portrait mode etc. At present I am reading a .pdf-formatted book. Settings are "Fit width" and zoom is at 66%. I can see all the letters quite clearly. The whole page does not fit to the screen but it really does no bother me. It was the same thing with Gen3 (same book actually).

If on the other hand, I happen to press the menu button and then decide that there was nothing I needed after all, then the screen seems like it has been printed by a printer running low on ink. The menu leaves a faded bar of letters behind. No biggy either.

--Michael

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

..but still lot of the other readers do reflow for PDF as well. May not be the best eBook format. But when as they've decided to implement it and as the display IS small...

Yeah, but even with relfow, reading pdf on a 6" or 5" will still be crap. Well, text pdf would probably be ok. but i'm afraid of serious mess with tables and such.
Pdf is meant to fixed. That what is was though though for. What you see is you get. Re-flowing goes againt everything pdf was made for.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Yeah, but even with relfow, reading pdf on a 6" or 5" will still be crap. Well, text pdf would probably be ok. but i'm afraid of serious mess with tables and such.
Pdf is meant to fixed. That what is was though though for. What you see is you get. Re-flowing goes againt everything pdf was made for.

Okay, that makes sense. That's the reason why i like the zooming feature of iRex iLiad that much.
They layout remains intact, but I can "explode" whatever area I want to full screen.

[K-Thom]

Re-flowing goes againt everything pdf was made for.

Truer words were seldomly spoken! If just anyone could tell this to Adobe, since they promote reflow as a highlight for reading pdf on small devices ...

I myself won't blame this on Bookeen or any other company. They try their best to fix the mess created by Adobe by complying their customers' need for pdf support on devices simply too small to handle most files properly.

[JSWolf]

Does Bookeen know that they've named the Opus after a cartoon penguin?