TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Two weeks with an Astak 5"’ Category

By Chris Meadows

Photo Note: My auto-focus digital camera had a little trouble getting good shots of the screen; no matter what I do, the shots tend to turn out slightly off-focus. The shots may look blurry, but suffice it to say that’s a problem with my camera—in person, the reader is quite as crisp and clear as printed text.

I’ve had more time to play around with the Astak, and the bloom is off the rose. Yes, the e-ink screen is truly amazing, and far clearer than the touch-sensitive Sony reader’s. However, it has certain other problems.

In Praise of Astak

Before I start talking about the Astak’s shortcomings, I should mention that the company itself has some astoundingly good customer service. For one thing, they monitor the Astak forums on MobileRead and pop up to answer questions.

Whenever I have posted a technical question on the forum, I have almost immediately been emailed by an Astak representative with suggestions and offers of advice. Now, granted, I do not know whether this is their default behavior toward all users, or just because they know I’m reviewing their product. I’d like to think the former is true.

Another nice thing about the device itself is that the firmware is remarkably easy to upgrade. Just put the firmware file on an SD card, slide the card in, and reboot into upgrade mode using a combination of keypresses.

My only complaint in this regard is that the instructions I found for upgrading on their website were not entirely clear. One of the buttons to be pressed is mentioned as the “increase volume key”. I assumed that meant the rocker switch on the right—but after that did not work and I searched some more, I learned that those instructions only applied to the 6” Astak reader devices; for the 5”, you press the page-forward button left of the screen instead. Just a little confusing.

Now let’s talk about some of those shortcomings.

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By Chris Meadows

I have spent the last two weeks reading e-books on the Astak, and am ready to give my first impressions.

The Screen

First of all, the 800×600-resolution screen. I love the screen. Of course, it is probably the same screen that any non-touch-sensitive e-ink reader has, but compared to the Sony I tested before the difference is like night and day. The touch-sensitive Sony had a huge amount of glare—but on the Astak, the glare is not there.

The words are ink-on-paper clear; if the background is greyer than normal book-quality paper, it is not much darker than the newsprint on which daily papers are printed.

The screen is quite legible for reading, as the photo at left should show. Even (especially) in bright sunlight, it is readable without screen glare. Of course, it does lack the sidelighting of the Sony, but so do “real” books. If reading in the dark was really important to me, I would invest in a clip-on booklight for the snap-on case.

Page-turn time is about comparable to the Sony; it takes a second or two but is not an undue burden (unless you suddenly need to flip back 3 or 4 pages to reread something you missed; then it is a slight hassle but only slight).

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By Chris Meadows

A couple of weeks ago I got an evaluation copy of an Astak 5” e-book reader. I’ve been reading books on it over the last week, when I haven’t been busy doing other things, and I’m just about ready to start writing my reviews.

But first of all, here is the unboxing video I recorded the other day, in which I take it out of the box and take a first look at it. Enjoy.

By Chris Meadows

Last night, Paul Biba startled me with an offer: he had received a review unit of Astak’s 5” Pocket PRO EZ Reader, but did not have the time to review it. Did I want to?

Did I ever‽ This will make a great opportunity to compare this competing e-book reader to what I remember of the Sony. With that in mind, I am starting a new series of columns: Two weeks with an Astak 5”.

I actually expect to have this reader longer than two weeks—Paul believed it was mine to keep, though I will try not to get too attached to it just in case—but I think two weeks is an ample time to do all the reviewing I need, and the similar naming will keep the categories together in the list.

(Editor’s note: Chris will honestly review the Astak no matter what happens. But for journalistic reasons, we’ll figure out another way to reward his much-appreciated efforts. – D.R.)

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