The crack is in the upper left corner and all it had been doing was recharging before I picked it up again.

It might have been something I did earlier but reviewing my actions I can’t be sure.
I’m wondering if I may actually have flexed the case at some point and started the fracture.

Early iPod Nanos in pockets weren’t just scratched they were cracked. Apple made some fast changes and people learned to be a little more careful with them.
I think the Cybook case may need to be sturdier then it is now. It flexes, slightly, but that glass substrate doesn’t.

However in this instance it’s my turn to “eat crow”.
My Cybook screen fractured yesterday afternoon and it did so for no reason I can see.
It wasn’t dropped, it was in its case, it had been fine that morning.

The crack is in the upper left corner and all it had been doing was recharging before I picked it up again.

Making allowances for the fact that it’s almost out of warranty and that it has been used as a sample that would mean that something dinged the screen months ago and has only shown up now but I find that difficult to believe.

The comment about ipods is misleading - a $200 ipod getting scratched is not the same as a $500 ebook reader made out of thin glass and flexible plastic. There’s no internal frame, there’s no support and their answer is “oh well, too bad, pay us again.”

Now that the software runs on other (stronger, cheaper) units, I’m definitely done with boookeen.

the repair would have cost as much as a new unit, approx 180 us dollars plus shipping both ways.

Sorry Pam but glass can and does break for no freakin reason at times.

Now though you are staring at a fractured screen and ready to swear that it never left your bedside table.
OK, you won’t take it that far, but you’ve been really careful.

Just carrying the Cybook, in it’s cover, in your handbag/backpack won’t fracture the screen as long as there is nothing else in there that can’t harm it.
But if you’ve got other books, pens, etc. and/or you’re in the habit of tossing or kicking the the handbag/backpack around there’s a good chance that you will ding the Cybook indirectly and that’s enough to start a crack. The inevitable will follow in a few days or a week or two.

If you’re going to tote the Cybook under those conditions then buy a hard case so that the reader, along with it’s leather cover, can withstand the assault.
Your best protection though is just remembering that it’s an electronic device and that you have to think twice about things like table edges, other books, or plunking things down on it.

The Cybook I’m using now is an engineering sample from last summer. It’s still going strong and that is despite being loaned out and with lots of regular use so I’m pretty sure that Cybooks hold up well.
That said I can’t guarantee that I won’t drop it next week but if I do there won’t be any question as to what fractured the screen.

Pam

NAEB

“seems counter-intuitive to me. That sounds exactly like you suspect the Cybook could break on it’s own, simply by being placed inside a purse or bag.”

Uhhh…no. It’s a rare thing that will break “on its own” - almost certainly there is an outside agent or force involved. But, not always. Some of these failures could be due to an occasional flaw in the manufacturing process that creates an internal stress in the panel that at some point “just lets go”.

My point was that if one is going to carry it in a purse or bag they should be more cognizant of what else is in that bag and how they carry that bag or how they set it or toss it down. Thinner generally implies lesser resistance to deflection. Deflection beyond a certain limit means failure.

I’ve never seen or held a Cybook so I have no idea how rigid they are.

I have gently tried to flex my Kindle and it just won’t bend very easily. Though I was tempted I did avoid trying to find its actual breaking point

My wife and I both own iRex iLiads, and my wife came up with a rather clever way to protect them during use. She found a lap desk at a local bookshop that consists of a pillow with a plexiglass surface attached to the top by a pair of fabric strings. She removed the plexiglass and uses the strings to attach her iLiad to the pillow. If it should take a spill when she dozes off while reading or when one of our overly exuberant springer spaniels gets rambunctious, the iLiad stands a much better chance of survival.

We haven’t had a good “test case” as of yet (knock wood), but I’ll report back if we do.

However, I’ve broken a screen. I *DROPPED* it. Onto a hard tile floor. Without it being in a softcover. Since getting it repaired, I’ve kept it in its softcover and I don’t fumble it. Nor do I put it where it might get bent or knocked around by other objects. Yes, the Cybook is not MilSpec. It was designed to be affordable AND lightweight. For crying out loud, the thing is 0.3 inchs thick and weighs all of 6 ounces without its softcover. Unless Bookeen re-designed it to use titanium for its shell, it is bound to be less-than-robust. But doing so would shoot the price up to well over a $1,000 I would say.

And as almost all of these breakages probably occurred because someone didn’t handle it with the greatest of care, I would presume the hardware supplier for the Cybook charges Bookeen for each display repaired or replaced. So Bookeen HAS to pass that cost along.

I would suggest that anyone who expects to carry the Cybook outside the home should invest in some sort of hard case. One just large enough to hold the Cybook inside it’s softcover. Well, okay… I might suggest getting such a case that is deep enough so that a layer of thin foam might be placed above and below the Cybook.

For the record, I don’t recall performing any action which might have caused a breakage. On the other hand, I’ve lugged this device in a backpack laden with several other books in it, and probably tossed the backpack in the backseat of my car a few times. The whole time the device was inside the case.

Perhaps the damage could have been avoided with more care in handling. I don’t know. If e-ink devices are this fragile, perhaps we need more warning; it is not like a book; it is a piece of fragile breakable equipment which cannot be carried around casually.

I can’t imagine these things breaking on their own. The thinness of the Cybook would likely lead to less rigidity and thus would likely be more prone to flexing when stuck in a purse or bag.

seems counter-intuitive to me. That sounds exactly like you suspect the Cybook could break on it’s own, simply by being placed inside a purse or bag.

We have not had any reports of Cybook screens fracturing spontaneously and I’m still using an engineering sample that we got last summer and that has also been loaned out and the screen is fine( The firmware update before the last was another matter though. ).

Pam

NAEB

I always keep my Kindle in its cover and even with that providing at least a bit of added protection I’m quite careful how it is placed in my messenger bag and what might be pushing up against it (and I carry a LOT of stuff in my bag every day).