Mebook - my second e-book reader (????)

Mebook

Mebook is my ‘replacement’ of the turbo x e-reader that froze two times after its purchase. As noticed in my previous posts , the fist time froze in 14 months and the second time in only 9 months after the service replacement . The bad service from the customer service dept caused me a major problem by everyday printing my news from the net using facilities of our office. This way I was urged to everyday print at least 10-15 sheets of very condensed text

Luckily I have found a ‘fantastic’ as per most comments the model Mebook a supposedly “e-reader” with multimedia facilities. I have bought it last month via an Amazon seller called Fowlers for GBP 54 . instead  of  the more advsertised MOnster Bookshop (link to the mebooks page ) for GBP45 due to unknown restrictions made by Amazon's order confrmation  page

Here are the specifications from the Amazon's page

Technical Details

• Reader formats: TXT,FB2,PDF,PDB,EPUB,SKT,HTML etc. main format
• Audio formats: MP3,WMA,OGG,FLAC,WAV,AAC,APE etc.
• Video formats: MKV,AVI,RM,RMVB,VOB,DAT,MP4,FLV,3GP etc. 720P
• Image formats: JPG/BMP etc,background
• TF,Maximum 32GB supported

Fowlers were very prompt to receive the money and sending it immediately , saying they have an excellent shipment service. There was a 3 workdays delay due to Holy weeks in between. The orthodox Easter followed the catholic Eastern , and I received in Greek Holy Thursday instead of the Roman Holy Thursday

The package was too funny:

Most sellers from Amazon including the company use a good packing. IN a very contrast to them , Fowlers packed the box inside a big A3 envelope , inside protected with air bullets . Even too funny was that they put only my address as recipients address !!!

No invoice was in the package !!! Also no reply from my two emails the one was the confirmation of receipt ! That means they have a very bad after sales service (??)

Opening the envelope was a thick carton box with a mains power adaptor to the UK standards and a thick carton box , I color referring to a generic e –reader with some general specification on the ‘bottom left’ on the cover part . Its end uses an magnetic mechanism to stick into the remain box of the packet . This is exactly the same standard of boxes I remember since the early 2000s when I bought from Hong Kong several other gadgets (mp3 players ). Look here!

THis is the  mains power socket adaptor THis is unsuitable  in Greece since a different standard is used

Inside the box there was the me-book at the top inside a white protective layer. Mebook has a black color exactly as advertised., laid inside a black protective ribbon to reduce shocks .

A thin carton paper to separates this set from the remain accessories : mains adaptor (UK standard?) , earphones and as USB cable etc

The mains  power adaptor , has  also a different plug , I am not sure but reminds me the UK standard

The opposite  plug is similar to the  Nokia's mobile phone plug

This is the first part . In the next parts I will post an analysis of the Mebook’s operation and compatibility. Expect it soon!

 

Mebook e-reader review#1: text modes

This is the first part with text compatibility modes for the Me-book with several small experiments for the intended reason I bought.: reading text files or more particularly PDF files , either found from the net or personally made as noticed on previous postings: radio related (DXLD –>90 pgs once weekly ) tech and IP(intellectual property )/net related (20-100 pages  daily!! )

 The first part includes compatibility modes on text mode (1)and browser history (2).

Before noticing the compatibility modes let me stop at the text adjustment modes: 

Page jump (going to the requested page ) Marks : save load delete , are the bookmarks and their management Browser mode : to automatically flip pages or not Flip time : time to change the pages Information : info of the file Mode : the background colour

Text mode

Html Yes

TXT yes – word wrap

Mobi yes word wrap text – pics lost

Doc yes – word wrap

Docx can open without showing anything

Pps (PowerPoint presentation ) partial (only text )

Rtf yes wrap mode and pics

Epub yes – pix font format and word wrap

PDF yes look separate part below for more analysis

Chm : seems supported but produces file error after opening

Here is a picture of most of the above  formats as shown on the mebook's screen The file below is in rtf mode

More complex format files:

Two column text

Doc : unformatted wrapped text ,

Epub: same

Rtf : same with picture support

5 column table

Doc : unformatted and cells are just separated by carriage return (ie showed in next line )

Rtf: all the text is shown s a line of unformatted text

Scanned books

Rtf: does not support high resolution pictures

Other info :

-No text search supported !

-There are 4 levels of magnification for both modes . IN the above formats zoom only increases the font size (did nt test for embedded pictures so far )

Big file rendering can require more than 1 minute to produce results!

In total : All above modes are supported but formatting (ie bold and italics except epub ) is not retained. Only on epub and rtf files pictures can be shown

PDF mode (more descriptive here )

 

PIcture of the Mebook's user manual  , which is a PDF file

PDF here is the most complex mode here as the requirements are to retain all layout and design of the page.

Opening a pdf file depends full to the size of the book . Small PDF can open immediately , 35 MB PDFs (or 600 pages or more with pictures and heavy layout ) require more than 1 minute.

Rotating the page yields to a full page show . First zoom level goes to page width view.

More zoom levels seem to depend on the page size from 2 to 4 levels max PDFs from scanned books can be opened with a condition: High resolutions can cause crashing

Navigation in PDF : In using zoom levels up arrow and left –right arrows can drag the paged picture on the screen .Left and right arrows jump to previous or to next page . IN quite bulky pdfs returning to previous page can consume some time

Its  LCD screen is not the best solution to read texts for so long . after sometime it can irritate your eyes. I coul prefer if the screen was either e –ink as my previous reader or OLED (this supports colour )

History mode

 

History reminds the Firefox’s history , showing all text only (pdf etc )files traced so far , in time descending mode. It is very good in case you have very numerous files as me !

Once a file is opened, as with my previous e-reader is that you can commence your file from the point you stopped

Mebook Part #2 : review on audio files !

Music  is the  least interested mode  for this model as I really  have better players   for listening to music !n Anyway for the sake of the experimenting I did  a series of measurements. I used 3 different programs  for making these audio files

Audio  mode :

The above  shot comes from a song provided by  Mebook Two songs are preloaded with it

Each file  shows the  following info as provided from the ID tag :

-artist ,

-track ,

-album  

-album image  if available

-and lyrics I available (provided  by a separate  .lrc   file in same folder with the  song here shwon at the  bottom  part of the screen ! )

Before  you browse the files there is a special settings mode to adjust   the following :

repeat:  1 , all , all repeat intro (10 secs )

play : seq , random

eq(ualizer ): normal  pop rock classic bass  jazz user mode

user mode with 6 bands

display  :lyrics on off

As in the zero part of this review series there are more than 6 formats supported

Here are the  results  from  the most important audio formats

tested  in various  bit rates . I used 3 programs   to produce these audio files

Mp3 format (bit trate ,playback ,shown bitrate )

Mp3 @16kb      yes but 32

Mp3 @40 kb     yes 40

Mp3 @48       &bsp; yes 48

Mp3 @56         yes 56

Mp3 @64        yes 64

Mp3@80         yes 80

Wma (the Microsoft  proprietary format that supposed  to replace mp3 with the half size for same audio fidelity for the sake of dynamic range . Notice that WMA is an updating formart with current version of 10 which is  for audio video . The previous version is 9 and 9.2 As is fund below 9 and 9.2 are supported by mebook  tough  not all bit rates ae supported  )

Wma v9.2 @16     16 (wma version 9.2)

Wma 9.2 @20     not

Wma 9.2 @4    not

Wma 9 32        31

Wma 9 48        48

Wma 9 64        not (why ???)

Open source ogg offering the half bit rate  for same fidelity 

Ogg @48        45

Ogg @64        64 

  AAC the  format for mobile phones?(I think part of the mp4 format ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding?

Aac 24        24

Aac 47         59!

Aac 64        64

M4a 64        unknown file format   (mp4 audio format )

Audio fidelity : Mebook’s audio is just fair using  my Sony’s ‘trebly’ earphones  . If you are looking for better audio you better have to use a more dedicated mp3 player

3/5 for audio 4/5  for the modes . Not tested for flac or ape

Mebook part 3 :Remain modes preview

IN this part no pictures will be used due to a spacial problem (just text )

Picture mode

My third fav mode that by the way replaces my photo frame due to itsportability . The photo frame requires a constant connection to its mains plug !

Formats tested:

• JPG :  yes
• Gif !!! yes  (unlisted )

• Animated gif yes!!
• png yes!!

Tested  with several  jpg  formats   from internet , from various cameras and all shown OK and with great

andclear picture 

There is a browser mode from image settings menu  that supports  picture playback , with time interval between 5 and 15 secs

Rotation and resizing also available from image settings menu

Smaller pictures (below 800 pixels? ) are turned clockwise  and are shown in landscape!

A low battery consumption mode! With battery level of below 5% (red level )it can  operate for more than  35 minutes!

Rate 4/5 (I did not like the image rotation )

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Video mode This is my second favorite  mode due to its impressive format compatibility. Higher  definitions  from 720 pixel and above found not to operate (didn’t test for avi but mp4 mkv and flv did not play thus I can assume  the same for avi ) Very useful for  offline watching videos from Youtube.

Also be noticed  that most of the formats below  are containers , ie include other video formats For example  avi can include xvid or divx encodings . Flv can contain either the proprietary flash or even mpg

• Avi yes

• Avi from photo camera  no (this is mjpg format  and not supported )

• Mp4 yes

• Flv yes   as container , but supports  mpg and flash video formats

• Rmvb yes

• Mov yes

• Mkv yes

Resolutions equal or above 720 cannot be rendered

Srt  subtitles supported and synched

Resume playback supported with dialog (is shows: continue last play?)

3 levels of contrast

3 levels of video size : Original , normal , full

Rating 4.5/5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------  

Radio mode (another mode not so interested )

These are 4 radio zones  to cover: China , Japan USA Europe Campus (??)

Every radio zone  retains its memories – resetting from main menu deletes all memories

Audio modes are labelled in reverse  : stereo works as  mono, mono mode as stereo 

Active display interferes into  the radio reception producing  cracks and hums . These sounds effect the recording

Sensitivity : poor .

Rating : 3/5

-----------------------------------------

 

Recording mode

There are  3 settings for recording  level  but  I did not found any significant difference

Radio : strong audio levels

Mic:   low audio levels

All modes with 45 kb  WAV possibly ADPCM

Rating 2/5 : No possibility  to change bit rating , not to mention MP3 would be more welcome

 

Mebook part 4 : other info

And here is the last part of my review of Mebook

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other info : USB connectivity :  transfer rates up to 1.5 MB /sec (!!) using cable extension with chocked cable. But I found that short cabled connection can yeld  to speeds up to 7.5 kb. Downloading from  mebook can rise  up to 23 mb (on Win 7 )  but speed is gradually lowering to 5 kB Earphones : very low audio (15 db at least ), bad quality (quite bassy ,low  trebles )Better to use other ears I prefer  using the Sony earphones  though AKG 315 are also OK (but quite bassy , better are the fuze sandisk ones )

Tested to support Greek , Russian Chinese and  Japanese file names as shown in the picture

Charge : can be charged  by the charger provided but also from the  USB port

About 10-12 hours of general playback duration (non video)

Full first charge via USB charger (1A) in ca 3 hours (together with some video playback ) second charge same time using its main adaptor.

The third charge was quite peculiar as it charged in ca 1-1.5 hours only , and the resulted  video playback was  ca 3.5 hours . Battery level was ca 5% , during a video playback and then I charged.

It can charge also while playing video! 

A blue LED is blinks  indicating charge . After charge has been made the  LED  lights continuously

Also  it s better  for you to explore the  Mebook  in your language than use help from its manual . The English  version of the manual is written in awful English. There were several cases that even the English menu did not help as for example the  'resetable'   meaning 'reset' (to default )  Its Greek version is even better

Leather case

This is an extra purchase  again via Amazon one month later  . it took for me  ca 1and half hour to search. But by chance I found the most appropriate model  for 8 GBP plus shipping. I t took ca 18 days to arrive here (quite much ). Hen I saw  I thought it could be smaller than the e-reader but was wrong . The  case  was exactly on the Mebook's size but the rubbers were quite firm to it.. The 'tongue'  to bend the  case its quite hard and annoys while reading or watching . But the surface is very good on using it in landscape mode to fit into a 'stand' of any kind  behind. I Use a pillow behind ,standing over a sheet of plywood , connect  my earphones and watch my movies!

 

  Results and opinions

Mebook uses an old Rockchip CPU  (processor) .Based on the info I collected from googling , the factory  is located in  Shenzhen and this CPU model  was produced at least 2 years ago.

MY verdict of this gadget:

I must admit that this gadget is really a  very good media player but cannot  say t it's a dedicated reader  since its  screen is not suitable for very long  reading  As noticed above this LCD screen is better suited to watch movies etc than reading books

As for  video is capable to watch movies up to 720 pp but not HDTV

Its audio is fair , but not so good as the Sandisk Fuze

Rating 4.5 /5