So, I thought it might be useful to update on my progress with the Bebook. I have finished one novel on the device and I’m happy to report that it is a comfortable device to work with. Reading is easy, navigating is easy. In fact when you have to put the book down, whether you like it or not (!), you don’t lose your place. There’s no fumbling with bookmarks or worries about losing your page. You simply close the book and open it again when you’re ready to pick up where you left off. Simple. If you want to read something else for a while, the device remembers where you were in your previous book. You don’t need to find your page again, the device remembers it for you.

This makes picking up from where you left off to reading a simple and pleasurable task. In fact, you get back to reading with a minimum of fuss.

I’ve been reading on the bus, at lunchtime and in the evening before sleeping. The Bebook is great for all of these situations. A crowded bus is probably where the Bebook comes into its own. No fumbling with pages. You can read one-handed – one had with the Bebook and one hand holding onto the rails – something you need to do with Sydney’s bus drivers!

The Bebook has only crashed twice in the week. Not really sure why but a simple reset solves the problem. This interrupts your reading for about two minutes. All in all the Linux-based operating system is pretty robust.

If there is only one complaint it’s that the screen background is not a little whiter. I’ve found that reading by lamplight, such as reading in bed, can be a little difficult. The text appears a bit dim. The flip side of this is that in bright light or sunlight reading the Bebook is just fantastic. The text is crisp and easy to read. I guess it’s difficult making the screen look perfect in every light situation.

I may well get a purpose designed reading lamp to use for bed side reading.

Today I downloaded two new books to read and I can’t wait to get started on them. Downloading books has proved to be quite easy. I’m using DRM books with the Mobipocket format. It seems to work okay. There isn’t a huge selection of book in Australia but Dymocks sells on line and I’ve purchased some from eBooks.com.

If you’re thinking about getting a Bebook I’m pleased to say that week two of owning it is not making me regret the decision one bit. In fact I’m looking forward to more reading with it. Plus I’m saving on the purchase price of hard copy books. I’ve already saved about $35 with my first purchases.

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Bebook. Ordinary name but a most un-ordinary product. I received my Bebook last week and have been playing around for a few days with this intriguing device. Intriguing? Well maybe not in terms of its technical application and sophistication, but intriguing because of what it portends for the future of books and reading.

Why did I choose the Bebook as the first to review. Mainly the price. At AU$400 this is at a price point that the poorer geeks among us would be willing to pay. Competitors such as the Iliad and Sony’s offerings are priced seriously higher.

So what of the Bebook?The Bebook is delivered express post from Europe. It took about two days for mine to arrive. It comes in a neat package no larger that an A5 novel.  In the box is the device itself, a battery, a usb cord, headphones and instruction manual.

The Bebook itself sits within a leather cover and is light yet reasonably solid to the touch. It needs to be charged before use and you must do this via the usb cord plugged into your computer. In fact that’s the only way of charging the device short of using an (optional) adapter to plug in to the mains electricity. But to be honest, the charge of the device lasts so long that this isn’t really going to be an issue – this is not a device that you’ll need to charge every day or even every week. I’ve gone all week with the device and the indicator is still showing that it’s fully charged.

It has a fairly simple layout of buttons that works pretty well and enables you to navigate through the device easily. Most menu functions and files are only a few clicks away. On the left hand side of the book are the two arrow page turning buttons – these buttons are repeated at the bottom right of the device just near the OK and ‘Return’ buttons.

The navigation menu is reasonably intuitive and after a few uses you’ll be able to find your way around the device quickly.

At the bottom of the device are the usb and headphone jack, on the side of the device are two volume buttons and on top of the device is the master switch and the slot for an SD card.

The screen uses the new Vizplex E-ink film and is a really good resolutions. It is easy to read in most lighting conditions. What is amazing about the technology is that you can still see the image clearly in strong light or direct sunlight. In fact, the screen looks better when there is more light, such as under flourescent lights in an office situation or outside. My only concern is that in dimmer lighting situations the contrast between the ‘paper’ and the text is perhaps not as great as it could be.

This isn’t a huge problem and it can be easily be fixed by increasing the font size of whatever you’re reading. But with a good reading light the Bebook is great.

Part of the attraction of the Bebook was the range of formats that it will read. These include pdf, mobi, prc, epub, lit, txt, fb2, doc, html, rtf, djvu, wol, ppt, mbp, chm, bmp, jpg, png, gif, tif, rar, zip, and mp3. I have to confess I haven’t tried all of these  but pdf, mobi, lit and text all render very well.

It also reads fb2 files, which are a new open source ebook format. While there still isn’t a lot of books around in this format those that have been converted render extremely well using this format but I have to say the proprietory Mobipocket reader renders pretty well.

So all in all I’m enjoying the Bebook experience. If you want a reasonably priced ebook then give it a look.

Stay tuned for more updates as I continue to use this device.

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E-ink is a relatively new technology that delivers on the promise of an electronic equivalent for paper. E-ink is deployed in high resolution active matrix displays – these are commonly called electronic paper displays or EPDs. The thing that distinguishes e-ink from flat screen technologies that you find in desktop and laptop computers is that e-ink has no requirement for the image to be back lit. This means it consumes much less power and can be read in bright sunlight. For all intents and purposes it really does resemble paper – the only difference is it the page can be refreshed with new data – so it still needs electricity, but only to turn the page.

Early versions of e-ink paper suffered from very slow refresh rates and poor resolutions. Recent evolutions in the technology have vastly improved the time it takes for a page to refresh. I think the refresh rates now are similar to the time it takes to turn a page in a paper book.

The e-ink technology can be used in a range of devices and is produced up to an A4 page size. E-ink, through electronic paper displays is deployed most commonly in e-books. In e-books the EPD is combined with a simple operating system and flash storage to create a device capable of storing many e-book files in a piece of hardware no larger than a mid-size novel weighing no more that 100 grams or so.

The resolution of recent e-ink products means that text appears sharp and crisp on the screen and in certain lighting conditions is almost indistinguishable from normal paper.

For more information on e-ink you can visit the E Ink Corporation who explain it quite well.

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