PRS-700 tips and tricks

[igorsk]

I don't have the device yet, but I'm reading the User's Guide and I thought it might be useful to note various little things which might be not obvious.

Shutting down the reader
To turn the Reader completely off, slide and hold the power switch for more than three seconds. Note that it takes much longer to start up the reader from such state than from sleep mode.

Muting the volume
To mute the volume, press and hold VOL- or VOL+ button. Press again to unmute.

Quick bookmark
To bookmark a page without going through the menus, double-tap the top right corner of the page.

Search for text from current page
If you want to search for one of the words shown on the current page, double-tap it before pressing Search button. If you want to search for a phrase, double-tap first word then drag without lifting the finger.

Flipping the pages
If you want to quickly flip many pages, drag the page to the right (or left) and hold your finger. The pages will keep flipping until you lift it.

Going back after following a link
If you tapped on a link and then want to return, you can't use the Back button since it will close the book and return you to the book list. Instead tap the page number in the status bar to show the Page jump panel, and tap the "Previous View" icon (clock with a leftward-pointing arrow).

Switching to thumbnail view
To show the book list as thumbnails of the covers instead of text table, press Option button and choose "Thumbnail" under "View".

Closing pop-up windows
Instead of trying to hit the X icon, you can use the Back button to close the pop-up windows.

Miscellaneous information.
When Power Management is activated (which is the default setting), the Reader goes into sleep mode after 60 minutes of inactivity. After 5 days of inactivity, it shuts down automatically. It will also shut down sooner it the battery level is low.
N.B. When playing music, Reader does not enter sleep mode automatically.

The "7500 pages" number.
There is a note in this manual: "Measured using a fully-charged battery and counting consecutive BBeB format page-turn at approx. 1 page per sec. Actual battery life may vary based on usage patterns and specific device".

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by igorsk

I don't have the device yet, but I'm reading the User's Guide and I thought it might be useful to note various little things which might be not obvious.


Quick bookmark
To bookmark a page without going through the menus, double-tap the top right corner of the page.

Flipping the pages
If you want to quickly flip many pages, drag the page to the right (or left) and hold your finger. The pages will keep flipping until you lift it.

I bookmark only by double tapping and it works well.

To flip pages fast the forward button works better for me - I tend to let go on the screen after the switch move, though if you *consciously* try, it works as above - but even better is the page cursor that appears in the options/go to page. Not as smooth as the 770/Ebk one, but quite good.

The back menu button is your friend as is sorting books by date, though I still miss having the list of the last 100 books accessed and the option to go to previous book in one move.

I have no idea why it's hard to implement the list of accessed books in a special internal memory "collection" that adds/changes the place of the book once you access it. That is one of the most useful features of the 770. Even the last 10-20 books would do. With the 700 as with the 500, I bookmark the last read page on any book I open, but then I have to spend some time "cleaning" the bookmarks once in a while...

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Flipping the pages
If you want to quickly flip many pages, drag the page to the right (or left) and hold your finger. The pages will keep flipping until you lift it.

I think this is the killer feature for research/reference books. Can you see each page as it goes buy. Would this be close enough to thumbing through a real book to be useful?

BOb

[sarah7700]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I think this is the killer feature for research/reference books. Can you see each page as it goes buy. Would this be close enough to thumbing through a real book to be useful?

BOb

The video at the end of this review had a part in it about the feature for flipping through pages fast http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=502

[Wetdogeared]

Originally Posted by sarah7700

The video at the end of this review had a part in it about the feature for flipping through pages fast http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=502

As seen in that video demo you can see the pages, but they do flip pretty fast (I don't think there's anyway to adjust speed). I think this would enable anyone to thumb though a book and look for clues like charts/graphs/headings that you didn't bookmark the first time through.

[sarah7700]

I think it's pretty amazing that it can flip through pages that fast without going black in between.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by sarah7700

I think it's pretty amazing that it can flip through pages that fast without going black in between.

Yes, this was impressive. And the search looked very useful to. I am tempted again to buy a 700...

[Jer]

Its very useful being able to flip through pages by holding your finger, just don't try cleaning the screen with a soft cloth while its turned on... *grins*

[astra]

Fast page flipping is impressive