0

By

Yes, I get it–why Laurent Picard has included uBook, not just Mobipocket and Boo Reader, on his Cybook. You should see Crime and Punishment on a ten-inch screen in double-column landscape mode. I can even read the smallest type of uBook’s five size-related choices. Forget about that with Mobipocket, even on the Cybook. The type would look too dot-matrixy. What’s more, with uBook, I can adjust the type size more precisely.

I’m hereby telling Laurent that he and David Jean at Gowerpoint (the uBook outfit) may want to do some cross promo. As I’ve said before, Cybook’s philosophy is the opposite of Gemstar’s–Laurent wants people to be able to read books exactly the way they want. And that’s also the philsophy of uBook.

The virtues of the rest of the gang

Mobipocket and Boo Reader have their own virtues–awesome aesthetics and ease of use in Mobipocket’s case, and usefulness for the vision-impaired in the case of Boo Reader and the related Boo Vision. But uBook has appeals of its own. I’ve tried uBook before on a PDA but could never before appreciate it to the extent I have on the Cybook.

The real torture test for the Cybook: As I’d expect, the Cybook doesn’t exactly do an instant pagination routine on War and Peace–a handy test novel, since it dwarfs the typical work in length. Took several minutes with uBook. But I could start in on the book even before full pagination happened, and, once it was done, I could almost instantly hop around. So what if the Cybook lacks the latest, speediest processor? Point is, it’s good enough for the job at hand. Speed of pagination, I can assure you, shouldn’t be a problem with your garden-variety 80,000-word book.

Related: The Cybook: A 10-inch color screen for Madame Bovary–and a $499 bargain for serious readers. I’ve squished some glitches and added a few more thoughts at the end. Also see New uBook can read eReader, Mobipocket, PDF, others.

 
0