Customer Reviews

Franklin EB-500 Rocket eBook

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

THE BAD STUFF: It's heavy. I sometimes flip pages when I don't mean to (although that it just because I always keep my thumb on the button). The screen shows fingerprints and it's really difficult to wipe off, about as hard as getting PAM off a pan. It's thicker than I expected (and one half is thicker than the other). The text is a little grainy. THE GOOD STUFF: It does everything I could dream of. It let me put my ENTIRE family tree (over 1,300 webpages) on it so I can take it to the National Archives. It let me make a collection of essays to put on it. There are thousands of books to download FREE. The backlight is fantastic. The text is changable. The thing holds about 100 books (mine has the 32 mg upgrade, which I recommend). The battery charges swiftly. The thing takes about five minutes to install and set up. The touch screen is awesome, especially when you use the pen. Allergo, the handwriting-recognizing software, actually works. The dictionary is handy, since you can set it up to touch one button, then touch a word to get the definition. I love the feature that lets you search the whole book for a term. I love carrying around Josephus and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle along with everything else I want to read. CONCLUSION: I love it.

I've had a Rocket eBook since they were first available and canpersonally attest to the fact that most of the negative informationposted about this product is flat out wrong. The 22 oz. device is a library, not "just a book". What else would you call something that lets you carry around 100 books? The idea of carrying around a bunch of flash cards is old world thinking. I can download to my Rocket at will, so why would I spend a bunch of money on flash cards that I could easily lose? Yeah, sending the Rocket in to get the memory upgrade was a bummer, but last time I checked, it was 9 day turn around, not 3 or 4 weeks. I'd love to know where you can get 80mb of flash for well under a hundred dollars. Every on-line source I've seen wants $100 or more for 48mb. And if you think you have a problem if your son deletes titles from your ebook, what about when one of those expensive flash cards disappears?

To imply that the Rocket's designers didn't think about human factors flies in the face of reality. Compared to other handhelds out there, the Rocket is way up there on the ergonomics scale. Maybe they could have done more, but they clearly spent more than a couple of hours on the task.

The Rocket isn't perfect. At 22 oz., it's still too heavy, the proprietary memory is a pain, and a USB interface would be cool. I'm sure that next generation ebooks will improve on a lot of things. Find someone who has one and play with it, and you'll see what I mean! You'll be logging back onto Amazon to get one for yourself soon after.

I love my eBook! When I travel, I sometimes have 40 titles in it, and never run out of things to read. I especially love the way I can download free books from the Gutenberg Project and other public domain sites and load them into the reader. I can download HTML pages, and portions of web sites and have them to read. The backlit screen is very easy to read and requires no external light. You can adjust the light to accomodate a dark room or direct sunlight. I collect web pages and e-mail I've not read yet and upload them to the book. I have bought a few current titles from booksellers, with no shipping and immediate delivery too. Now the downside: It's so easy to get lots of good literature free that authors and book sellers are missing out on a cut of the profits. After all, if you want to read Mark Twain, why pay for a copy when it's all over the Internet, free? So they've stopped making this wonderful gadget, and the replacements from RCA actively discourage you from loading your own materials into the ebook. You can still find the software to do it, but you need to search for it. They also keep the prices very high,...for an ebook! I think this means the format is being driven out of the market slowly. This could eventually limit new, non-public domain book availability, but there will be thousands more freely available books too, plus all the reading you normally do on your computer screen, such as this web page. It will continue to be possible to use the ebook for that. Unless they come up with a PDA with a large, very readable backlit screen, with long-life batteries and highly ergonomic usability, it'll still be easier to read a Rocket ebook!

I used to hate the fact that I couldn't read as much as Iwanted to. There just wasn't enough time in the day. The RocketeBook really changed that. I just throw it in my satchel and can turn it on and pick up reading right where I left off.

I know this sounds trite, but I rather read a book on the Rocket than in its paper version. It is a great crutch to my laziness--I can sit or lie in any position and with a flick of my thumb, turn the 'page.' And, whenever I have some down-time, I can spend it reading. The backlit screen makes reading in bed without disturbing my companion realistic. And, the screen is beautiful. It has a great clarity and I suffer from no eyestrain, of course, if YOU do, you can bump up the font a few points. The fact I can get many books loaded on the thing is incredible and allows me to select any reading material I'm in the mood for. Just a few clicks on a book seller's web site and I can download the book in a couple minutes.

I've read where some people complain that the books are a lot more expensive than they should be. However, ebooks are on average 20% less than the normal paper version, and when you consider there is no tax or shipping charges AND get instant gratification of receiving the books immediately, the savings really add up. You can also often download a portion of the book to read, free of charge, so you can see if you'll like it before paying for it. I'd also definitely recommend the 'Pro' version. It's more $$ than the basic version but has 12 more megs of memory and can hold upwards of 50 or 60 books. It's well worth it. Pick one up!

I have used this product for almost a year and love it. You can download the books you buy or html files from the Internet. It's a wonderful way to surf the Web. Just download the html files you're interested in to your PC and run them through the eBook program on the PC and download to the eBook. An extra advantage is that you can read this in bed without the light on, thus not disturbing your wife (or husband)! I highly recommend it. Joel

My Rocket eBook is most enjoyable in the dark hours of night if you have problems sleeping as I do. No more flashlights and no lamps on to disturb your partner. It travels just great.. the battery seems to last forever, you don't even need to pack your charger if a weekend trip. The "only" complaint I have is the lack of Best Sellers available and especially, the cost of the few that are. We all have the common sense to realize that if the publishers are NOT spending their money on printing, shipping, etc., they should be able to pass on these savings. At any discount store, we can get printed versions of a Best Seller for about $15.00.. Any new book should be available for this $15.00 or less. psv

I really love my reader. The BEST part is I can actually read in bed, which was something that really turned my opinion on e-books around. The books are a lot cheaper than regular books, I stumbled on Crossroadspub.com and am amazed at that and other sites decent prices and availability of e-books. No more out of stock books! The only bad thing about it is the weight. It does get heavy after awhile. Hopefully they'll change that in the near future!

This is a very useful product, particularly for downloading lengthy texts from the web. I have found it very useful for studying annual reports, speeches from CEOs, etc. The software allows simple downloading and then one can carry these useful texts with you. Fabulously useful!

My only regret is that it will not read PDF files. Currently, a number of the really useful things that I get come in PDF format. Right now -- in order to down load a PDF file you have to e-mail out and then download the file after a translator reworks it. This has not worked well.

This thing is awsome! I have read about 7 titles so far and I just like it more and more. I first thought that titles would be hard to get or download but it is so easy. Being that it is a new item, not every new book is available in electronic form but they are catching on slowly. It's very easy to read and I can read it for hours without any eye strain. Yeah it may be a little heavy but hey, at least Franklin has the product out there! I would recommend the Rocket eBook to anyone who is an avid reader. Mine goes wherever I go!

This is great. Purchasing this product gives you access to over 2000 titles at the Novumedia web site (you may not need all of them, but there are a lot of gems in their library of public domain books and "little publishers"). It also let's you down load any text you create (web, wordprocessor, etc.) and read at your convenience. And, you can purchase newer titles online, pay no shipping and handling and get the title instantly. I HIGHLY recommend this gadget of the future.