How to make the jetBook FASTER.

Sorry for the provocative subject, but this tweak that any ebook reader should be able to implement can make the reading experience much smoother. There is probably already a technical name for this suggestion, but I don't know it.

When reading from one page and going to the next in a real book, we are able to flip the page very quickly. Not only that, we can prepare the page turn in advance of our reaching the end of the page so that as soon as we hit that last word, we flip the page instantly. Furthermore, as we turn the page, we can still read the end of that page and smooth the page turn transition even more. Have you ever read aloud? You experience this every time you hit a page turn. Prime the page for turning, read ahead of your mouth as far as possible, and hit the page turn as fast as possible for the most seamless experience.

What does this have to do with reading on an e-book reader, you ask? Well, the problem we have with turning pages on an e-book reader is that it's simply not that easy to flip a page quickly. Even with the jetBook's roughly 0.5-0.7 second page turn, it's quite far from instantaneous. You must admit that there is a noticeable delay between the button push and the screen refresh. When reading, this 0.5 second delay can be quite frustrating, although it is an insignificant enough matter that we learn to live with it, given the other advantages provided by the jetBook.

We know that it takes 1/2 a second to turn the page. So, naturally, what do we do? We hit the next page button 1/2 a second before we anticipate reaching the last word. Of course! This way, we can seamlessly turn the page, similar to how we can read on a real book. But sometimes, we are distracted, sometimes we get stuck on a phrase and want to re-read it, and sometimes we just plain misjudge how long it will take us to read that last line to its completion. What happens in this case? Well, we need to hit "previous page," wait 1/2 a second, read those last 2 words, then hit next page, wait 1/2 a second, then continue reading at the top of the next page. In the meantime, our eyes are flicking from the bottom of the page, to the top, to the bottom, to the top in quick succession...This is, if not fatiguing, annoying at the very least. Proposed new feature: Repeat the last line or last X lines from the bottom of one page to the top of the next page.

Damn the text limit. I just lost the rest of my post. I'm too tired to repeat the whole thing.

Basically, repeating the text creates a buffer for you to read while you push the next page button and wait for the next screen to refresh. The page can change at any time because the text that you are reading will repeat at the top of the next page. This makes the reading experience entirely seamless.

This is not a new idea. All modern web browsers implement this when you push page down. A significant portion of the bottom of the previous "page" will repeat at the top of the new "page." For example, both Firefox and Internet Explorer use this idea. Even Wordpad repeats the last line at the top of the next page. Only notepad lacks this feature.

Please include this feature! It will improve the reading experience of the jetBook greatly! With a large enough text buffer from page to page, any reasonable page turn time can be completely negated.

Sorry, have to disagree. Not on a small 5" screen. I see your point, but screen real estate is too valuable on this device to waste on redundant text. IMHO, having more text visible outweighs the benefits you described. Instead of losing a line or two on a page I would suggest ADDING them! How? A simple "full screen" toggle option to hide/reveal the title bar. And please give us user-adjustable interline intervals too!

I would happily accept your suggestion, but only if it is implemented as a user-selectable option.

All said is strictly my personal opinion, of course.

Absolutely, user preference in how many lines to be repeated would be ideal for all parties concerned.

But think for a moment about how you "prime" the page turn of a real book with your fingers while you finish reading the page. This is the digital analog of that technique. I would gladly sacrifice 10% more button pushes for absolutely no page turn delay at all. In fact, having read books on my Nintendo DS lite (on only 1 screen at a time, not both,) for years, and this is a <3 inch screen, I can only beg you on my knees to at least TRY this technique. It might very well change your life.

Dear Customer

We have taken a note of that, and we'll try to work with this feature in the future.

Customer Support Team

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 08/26/2009 08:44:17

I agree that the best thing would be to include a customizable option, so if the user prefers to have a line repeated at the top of the page, let him have it. However, from my point of view:

The screen is too valuable to sacrifice space for an extra line, so this should not be the default option,
Adjustable line spacing would be a very welcome addition,
When I read a (paper) book, I develop some sort of mental image of the layout. I usually remember the content I have read together with this mental image of the page. I know many people develop a similar visual memory. I have tried many e-book readers (like Isilo, Mobipocket, Palm Reader, MS Reader etc.) and I am quite sure that I dislike the ones that have a "scroll" approach (eg. Isilo, which treats the text like an ancient scroll, without clear page breaks) and like the ones that have a "book" (or codex) approach, ie. clearly divide the text into pages. This really helps me to memorize information.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 11/11/2009 12:03:11

My jetbook works at least 20-30% faster by moving everything from the internal memory to the SD card. (It's a general observation, I'm not going to do any thorough analysis on the processing speed. I just want to share my tidbit thoughts. I like muffins for instance.)

What I did was a back up on all files, deleted the contents and left the folders as is (The manual does say to leave em alone. Haven't tried to delete them and never will. Probably.) and only use the SD card.

Here is my layout. I also use calibre an amazing E-book management with a great pdf to epub converter. With a bit of little kinks here and there, but overall reliable.

Author's named folders go in each alphabetical folder. Such as "Eric Flint" folder goes into folder "2 - E F G H" folder.

I think a 1/2 sec page flip is fantastic. Sometimes I even find that I have to backup a page just to see if it did change. Some of the other eInk hardware not only have a longer delay but also a flash effect.

I assume that this is all controlled by buffering/prefetching and setting up the next page ahead of time in memory re3ady to switch to it.

An e-reader usually performs better after a cold boot (which happens after a Firmware update) because working memory is compressed and all garbage has been sent to the bit bucket. Coming out of sleep mode doesn't really do any maintenance. The underlying memory manager and how well it performs at house keeping is the work horse of keeping the device well tuned - performance wise.

ezeechair wrote:I think a 1/2 sec page flip is fantastic. Sometimes I even find that I have to backup a page just to see if it did change. Some of the other eInk hardware not only have a longer delay but also a flash effect.

For the current crop of book readers (most eink) the 1/2 second IS great. Call me picky though, I'd rather have the nearly instant page turning that previous generations of book readers provided.

Said it before - the wort thing about Kindle and other eink devices it that it dramatically lowered our expectations of what is acceptable - especially in screen performance (speed, resolution, link handling, "extra" features, reading in bed)

Panagiotis