LBook v3. Annual report

It has been almost a year since I got this device. During this time, 25 books were read, about 12,000 pages were turned over in small print, three or four firmware changed, but not a single problem was solved, except for a pair of interface ones (one controversial) in the latest firmware.

It’s not that I’m unhappy, you can use the book, but it’s a shame that a good thing doesn’t seem to get rid of its shortcomings, and Lbook v3 will be the last book of this manufacturer that I’ll deal with.

Inconsistency statements

The main disappointment came in the first month. The claimed from the very beginning 5000-8000 pages on one charge turned out to be lies. lBook sometimes does not hold and a half thousand. The peculiarity of its software (I don’t know which one) leads to the fact that the book self-discharges over time. If you don’t touch her for a long time, then she seems to be “reading” something there herself. In general, on vacation, with daily reading, the book required charging once a week and a half.
')

Hanging

The next big disappointment was that the book hangs. Not often, but not rarely, but systematically - once every 1-2 weeks. All freezes occur with the same operation - go to the next page. There are two types: "light epilepsy" - when the green light comes on and does not go out, nothing works, it is solved by soft reset, and there is also a "severe concussion" when the orange light is on, in this case even the on / off button does not work. It is necessary to drop the book with a clip (it is important to fasten the clip to the cover of the book so that it is always with you) or by removing the battery (then probably the screwdriver is included).

Well, the next shock (but rather a series of disappointments) is software, which seems to be changing, but apparently not in the right place. Because all the following problems stretch from the first version:

After freezes, the page is reset.

After an emergency reboot, the wrong page of the book on which the hang occurred is opened, and not even the one on which I left / logged in the last time from the file. Either the first one jumps out, or the one about it (and could not understand in which case it keeps the page iron). Excuse me dear software developers, but why don't you save the page with each page turning? Save to disk, and not in RAM as you do now. This would be a good solution for the next few years, until you find in which function you have endless recursion and finally eliminate it.

Charging will reset the page.

If you connect to the computer for charging (not to the outlet) while reading something, pressing any button will not only close the file (which is idiocy in itself) , but also cause the file to be opened after the very first page update: saving the page was repaired in the firmware dated February 27, but it continues to exit the file .

After freezes, the clock settings and bookmarks are reset.

Well, if not Christmas trees, sticks, even bookmarks are not eternal. I am silent about the time, which, it turns out, is lost every week. Time display can be turned off immediately to avoid misinformation. update: perhaps with bookmarks there was a glitch of a certain firmware, they say that no one else noticed this

No error warning

External situations can not be avoided: the iron can fail, something goes wrong, this is normal. It is not normal when the user finds out about this by a general inadequacy, and not from an error warning. In the case of faulty situations, the book does not contain any checks or protection, and as a result, it mows "under the fool." For example, if too large files (5MB) do not open, then all would be nothing if the book said, “I'm sorry, I'm imperfect and can't load so much.” But she tries to load about two or three minutes, then the process falls off and you stay on the list of books. Of course, I do not look at the screen all this time, and I wonder why I am again where I was. You have to run the book again and stare at the screen to understand that this is just the absence of a normal error handler.

The list of the last open books is limited to 8 pieces.

I want to quibble: this figure is the result of usability testing?

Unreasonable burning of resources

If you exit the open file and immediately re-open it, you will have to wait until the lbook re-renders all the pages into memory.
Dear, and maybe all the same you should not clear the memory immediately upon exit? Maybe it makes sense to give the user the opportunity to open a just-closed book without delay? It will save time and battery.

Non-optimized slowness

Similar to the previous paragraph. When the page is switched, it takes 1.5 seconds, first the green light comes on (reading from the disk), and then the screen is redrawn. Is it really impossible to preload the next page at the moment of switching? To start the next switch immediately with the drawing of the screen, and then (or at the same time) load and load the next one into memory. The same about the previous page, + 10th and 10th.

Interface misses

In the latest firmware, we worked on the interface, some places are good - the list of books is no longer a painted nesting doll, but a normal list (which could be called minimalistic, if it were not for the poor dies / curbs that the UI designer suffers from), but the visual division into chapters in the upper slider has disappeared (progress indicator when reading a book). As if neither the new designer nor the manager knew what it was. returned to the firmware from 9/04/09

Well, well, since the chapter separator at the top of the page was removed, then at least make it so that when you open the list of chapters (button "7"), page numbers would be written there. And so that the current chapter is highlighted. Of course, if there are chapters on several pages, then the list should open on the page with the current chapter. And so that the table of contents was not in the form of a file manager, when in order to see the list of chapters you need to go to the section (as in the catalog), and since in the ordinary book - all in one list, the subsections are repulsed with indents. In short, look at the table of contents of a normal book, and try to repeat one to one for a start. Improved in firmware from 9/04/09!

In general, the impression is that the project manager is managing the product blindly: “Sales have fallen? let's change something. " Please change where users need, do not change what YOU consider incomprehensible, wrong or ugly. Get feedback and listen to them. To do this, for starters, open the official forum.

findings

The list above is only bugs, shortcomings, lack of thought, the result of the lack of proper quality. As a modest UI-developer, I could name a bunch of ideas, tweaks and improvements, but I won't. The lBook is the pocket library. Comrade Zadryshchenko "for one year, almost nothing has been improved, except for the appearance of the site . In my opinion it makes no sense to wait for the manufacturer to fulfill desires when he does not fulfill even the obligations. The latest firmware pleased. It is evident that they listened and improved where they could. Thank.

For comparison, the list of competitors:

1. PocketBook 301 - apparently over the management thought intelligent specialist
2. Sony Reader - looks stylish, and more confidence in Sony. The truth does not support fb2, you need to convert them to a supported format. And they write that self-discharge is present, and the error also does not display
3. Some newcomer Orsio b731