July 20, 2010

Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white

Posted in Personal by | Tags: Aluratek, eBook, Flash, LIBRE, Reader, White

Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white

Supports PDF (Adobe Digital Edition DRM/non-DRM), TXT, FB2, EPUB (Adobe Digital Edition DRM/non-DRM), MOBI (non-DRM only)
Supports BMP, JPG, GIF, animated GIF picture format
Includes 2GB SD Card and 100 free eBooks
Content search for easy navigation between books and pages
Bookmark and auto page turn function

LIBRE EBOOK READER PRO WHITE PERPSD CARD SLOT PICTURE & MP3 SUPPORT

Rating: (out of 13 reviews)

List Price: $ 179.99

Price: $ 132.99

Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)

This concise Kindle manual provides step-by-step instructions on how to do everything with your Kindle FASTER. You will also unlock hidden secrets of your Kindle such as how to download free eBooks, send an email from your Kindle, play preinstalled games or read news for free. Updated on December 1st, 2009.

This eBook includes:
- Keyboard shortcuts for Kindle DX, Kindle 2, and Kindle 1
- How to use Kindle for iPhone & iPod Touch App
- List of Kindle-friendly websites that saves you time typing in long URL addresses
- How to email from Kindle
- How to download thousands of free eBooks
- How to convert your documents to Kindle format
- How to convert PDF Files
- Kindle hidden features such as the Minesweeper, GoMoku (Five in a Row), and the Image Viewer
- How to search the internal dictionary, Wikipedia, and the Internet
- How to use Kindle Web Browser
- Shortcuts to adding bookmarks, clippings and notes
- Shortcuts to viewing periodicals
- Shortcuts to Kindle audio player
- How to buy books
- How to expand an image
- How to use text-to-speech Kindle feature
- How to make a screen shot on Kindle and on iPhone
- How to choose the default dictionary
- How to use Kindle as a calculator
- How to Display the Time
- How to Display Free Memory
- How to Display Wireless Network
- Live Kindle support telephone numbers

Selected Kindle 2 and Kindle DX Shortcuts:

Home Page

If your home page is sorted alphabetically by either Title or Author, enter Letter Keys (a, b, c, …) and press the 5-was controller to jump to the page containing the first book starting with that letter,”The”, “A”, “An” are ignored.
Alt+Shift+M: Minesweeper game.
To Display the Time and Free Memory, Press the MENU button.

Viewing Books or Periodicals

To display an image in full screen mode: Point the 5-way controller to the image, the magnifying glass will be displayed in the center of the image. Press the controller to view the image in full screen mode. Press the controller again to switch to normal mode.
Alt+B: bookmark the current page, unbookmark the current page. You can view all bookmarks by pressing MENU My Notes & Marks.
Alt+Aa: to change text size, text-to-speech speech rate, text-to-speech speaking voice (male or female).
Shift+SYM: start/stop text-to-speech.
Alt+Shift+1 to 9: changes the spacing between lines (the default is 3).

Search Commands

Type in a word from any screen. A search box will pop up automatically. Move the 5-way controller to the right twice and select the search location.
To limit search to a single book, open the book and enter your search term.
To search all books on your Kindle, click the HOME button, enter your search term.
To search Wikipedia from any screen, enter the term and move the 5-way controller right to select Wikipedia.
To search the internet from any screen, enter the term and move the 5-way controller right to select Google.

Text-to-speech

Shift+SYM: start/stop text-to-speech.
During text-to-speech: press Spacebar to pause/resume text-to-speech.

Rating: (out of 54 reviews)

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10 Comments to “Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white”

July 20, 2010 at 10:39 am
mayfayre says:

Review by mayfayre for Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white
Rating:
I’ve had the Libre for a few weeks now and I’ve been very impressed with it. I chose it over the Kindle and Nook for a number of reasons: available formats, lower cost, and the fact that I don’t need the instant purchase capability. The Libre comes with a 2GB SD card with 100 classic books loaded in the .txt format. 100 books takes up almost no space on that card – there is room left for hundreds and hundreds of others. Loading the books onto the Libre is simply a matter of connecting it to your computer and dragging-and-dropping the books into the pre-set folder or into folders you set up. There are plenty of sources out there for ebooks that you can load up your reader with whatever genre assortment you like, so the immediate gratification of instant purchases is unnecessary, IMO.

I chose the white color over the black, and I am happy with my choice. Frankly, I’m sick of black-colored electronic gadgets – I have way too many of them already. I find the white frame doesn’t intrude on my focus. The “e-paper” of this reader had a slightly gray-greenish tinge to it, from the LCD design, as opposed to the whiter backgrounds of the e-ink type readers, but I’ve found the difference to be negligible. The letters are crisp on the background, and I’ve had no difficulty in reading it in sunlight, twilight, and incandescent light. I haven’t had any problem with eyestrain, and I find it much easier to read than reading on a computer back-lit screen. I like the fact that the page-changing is seamless, without the flashing of the e-ink type readers.

The controls are easy to use. There’s a up-down slide switch on the left side, left-right buttons on the left front, and left-right buttons on the right front that allow you to turn the pages. There are also alpha-numeric tabs on the right side that allows quick choices, but the same can be done using the directional buttons on the lower right front. So there are a number of different ways to accomplish the same task if you are right-or-left handed, or if you have some physical infirmity. I have had no problem adjusting font sizes from very small to very large, and there’s an auto-page-turn function for fast readers or people with a disability.

I would say that the weight of the reader is probably comparable to that of a 500-600 page paperback book, without the book’s bulk. I’ve found that strange at first, but now I’m used to it. One thing that I think is probably true for all ebook readers is that the user has to get used to a different way of holding a “book” to read, because you’re not opening a book wide and you’re flipping pages without having to lift your hand.

It should be noted that most of the ebook readers out there today – even if they say they handle .pdf formats – have problems with that format due to its basic nature and the smaller size of the eReader screens. Reading a .pdf exactly as formated usually results in tiny text. Expanding the font size sometimes has some odd results. The Libre allows you to change the view from portrait to landscape mode for better viewing, and it also has the reflow feature to allow .pdf formatting to resize itself for the smaller screen.

I haven’t noticed any difficulty with the battery life. There are auto-off settings that allow the eReader to turn itself off after set periods of inactivity. I’ve had no problem reading complete books on a single charge.

Another thing I like about the Libre is that it comes with a USB cord to connect to the computer for file transfers and/or charging, an AC adapter for charging, earbuds, a 2GB SD card, and a protective case. So there’s no extra accessories that you have to spend extra money on.

I’ve found that I prefer to use the .epub format for my books, though individual tastes might vary. The good thing about the Libre is that it gives you a nice number of formats to choose from. And if you happen to find an ebook that’s in a format that the Libre doesn’t natively handle, it’s very easy to convert almost any ebook format to one you prefer by using the freeware program Calibre (an extremely useful and well-designed program).

To date, I haven’t tested out the MP3 player functions of the Libre, or its feature that allows you to play background music while reading. Since it does handle the MP3 format, I would think that it is possible to download audiobooks to it. And with the capacity to use even larger SD cards, to store a number of them on the device. So in addition to having the ability to read books, you should also be able to listen to them; and using the headphone output plug, should be able to connect it to the MP3 input in your car (if you have one) making this a really handy device for traveling. I’ll have to try this out. =)

Note also that the Aluratek Libre and the Etaco JetBook are physically the same eBook reader but sold by different companies. They differ in their firmware and the formats handled. Right now the Libre has the format edge because it’ll handle both DRM and non-DRM .pdf. The Jetbook seems to have the edge if you want to use it with ebooks in other languages.

For those of you trying to make up you mind about which eBook reader is right for you, I would suggest checking out the forums at [...]. They aren’t affilitated with any specific product; it is a great resource and they have a number of informative Wikis comparing reader specifications, ebook formats, and listing both free and paid ebook sources.
July 20, 2010 at 10:41 am
C. Mitchell says:

Review by C. Mitchell for Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white
Rating:
We chose this ereader because it was versatile, had SD expandability (it even came with a 2GB card), and didn’t have the annoying black flash thing that other ereaders have (which is a pretty big point to us, but, of course, not necessarily everyone else). There are positives and negatives with all the ebook readers, and we decided that the good things with this reader far out weighs whatever limitations it may have, which, we haven’t ran into anyway.

The main thing is that this reader doesn’t use the expensive e-ink, which means it’s cheaper, doesn’t have the annoying black flash thing, and refreshes instantly. Instead, it uses an LCD e-paper technology, which, I’ll admit was much sharper, and clearer, than I anticipated. The main difference this means is that battery life is calculated differently. Instead of having a certain number of page turns (~5000-8000) it’s measured by hours, which means, during it’s battery life of ~20 hours, you can turn the page any number of times. We got it just after Christmas, and have only recharged it twice, with the second charge being yesterday. In other words, it’s been great, for us.

While it doesn’t have the prestige of the Kindle, Sony’s ereader, or the Nook, it has the capability for anyone who just wants to read, and is a great budget minded alternative, in my opinion, of course. Especially until e-ink technology (the tech in all three of the above mentioned readers) can improve it’s limitations (slow refresh time) and annoying attributes (black flash).

We actually preferred the white model, so, I think this will boil down to personal preference. Also, my only wish is that they made a 6″ model.

In all, I’d recommend this to anyone who just wants to read books, with all the convenience that an ebook reader has to offer, at a price that can’t be beaten.
July 20, 2010 at 10:53 am
D. L. Shields says:

Review by D. L. Shields for Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white
Rating:
I just got this reader a couple of days ago and have done some reading in several of the different formats. With the latest firmware update from Aluratek, you can read Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) epub and pdf files, which means you can download new releases from stores such as Sony, and soon Barnes and Noble. I have downloaded one ebook from Sony, and it displays well. The downside is that it doesn’t seem to have as good a variation in font size as do the books that came on the SD card and the few books I downloaded from free sites. To be more specific, the fonts go from tiny, to still slightly too small if its a bit dim in the room, to outrageously huge. I don’t know if its the particular book I bought, the Sony store, or coincidence or what. I have looked at pdf, fb2, and epub, and listened to mp3. I would like the ability to keep a few audiobooks on it, but overall I am satisfied.

However, I don’t like the white color that I got. I would recommend the black one, or if you don’t want black then maybe one of the different colored jetbooks. The plastic casing is better quality than what I was afraid I would be getting, and the reader feels solid and well made. The white casing makes the greenish gray tint of the background a little more apparent than what some of the other colors probably do, however. The screen is very nice, and the words are very nice and crisp.
July 20, 2010 at 11:48 am
Jiang Tang says:

Review by Jiang Tang for Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white
Rating:
I have had this device for a week now and read a couple of ebooks in pdf format. So my experience is about reading pdf books on this device.

1. Overall I like the layout of the keys and menus; all essential functions are readily available, page turns, increase fonts, landscape/portrait switch, all nicely done. No need for touch screen (save some money on that);

2. pdf works great if it’s text with pictures. But it doesn’t work with figures. It translates all figures to words only, no lines, graphs are translated. So it’s not suitable to read science books, technical books.

3. Being the lowest priced ebook reader, its build quality is surprisingly good.

4. No problem reading photo scanned pdf books even with graphs. You need to turn off reflow for photo scanned books. But the 5 inch screen is not that great for reading graph intensive pdf books. Amazon Kindle DX would be the one if you read a lot technical pdf files.

5. It doesn’t use E-Ink so there is no visible repainting of the screen. The non-reflective LCD screen, in my view, works better.

Overall, very satisfied with Libre as my first ebook reader. It’s different from reading ebooks from netbook, because the ebook reader is designed specifically for reading ebooks and it’s lighter, smaller and easier to carry around.
July 20, 2010 at 11:52 am
David Roberts says:

Review by David Roberts for Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO – eBook reader – Flash: 2 GB – 5″ – white
Rating:
I own this and the JetBook (same manufacturer and overall device but different software).

The JetBook has a much more intuitive interface. otherwise functionality is identical.

This was a good value with the included memory card and case/sleeve, but just falls short when it comes to ease of use in comparison.
July 20, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Marcus Jose says:

Review by Marcus Jose for Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)
Rating:
I am new to Kindle and it is really great to know that the Kindle has the capability to perform a multitude of tasks. Many of these capabilities are not listed in the Kindle Manual. Since I purchased Kindle for nearly $300 I wanted to utilize all the Kindle potential. I also wanted to use Kindle as efficiently as possible. For me that meant using keyboard shortcuts and optimally using the wireless whispernet. I did not want to use USB connection. After all I purchased the Kindle for its ability to communicate over the air. So I searched for ‘Kindle Shortcuts and this guide was first in the list.

I decided to give it a try. If I can optimize my use of the Kindle, one dollar would be well spent. I first download the sample. The sample showed good deal of shortcuts for Kindle 2 but nothing else. That was a good start. Furthermore, these shortcut were presented in a concise and clear manner – just as I like. I frankly do not like watered down technical guides. They take too long to get to the point.

What pushed me toward buying this manual was the prospects to read about Kindle capabilities not explained in the Kindle Users’Guide. After all I saw most shortcuts in the sample. Therefore I invested $1 and downloaded the complete Kindle Shortcut book. Best dollar I ever spent. It did not repeat Kindle Users’ Guide at all. The step-by-step explanations were clear and concise. I was able to easily download a number of free books via wireless whispernet from both Amazon and several other websites. These free books download was well worth the one dollar I spent on the guide. However the guide goes into many other topics that help you optimize you Kindle use.

I highly recommend this guide to everyone interested in optimizing their Kindle use. I would suggest to first download the sample and read the table of contents. If the topics listed in the table of contents talk about the capability that you could use, then buy the book with the confidence that these capabilities will be easily explained in the guide. Of course you can search the Internet and Kindle forums and find most information there but for one dollar I’d prefer to have this information compiled for me and stored in one location on the Kindle.
July 20, 2010 at 12:50 pm
LeoB says:

Review by LeoB for Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)
Rating:
Kindle Shortcuts provides lots of useful information, much of it missing from the Amazon manual.

I thought that the Kindle is a dedicated book reader that can do little more than display text. I was quite surprised to learn otherwise from this book. You can, in fact, play games on the Kindle!

First there are two preloaded games: Minesweeper and GoMoku (Five in a row). Both games are made very well and work great on the Kindle. GoMoku is in fact quite challenging to beat. I am not sure why Amazon does not tell you about these games in the Kindle user guide.

Second, there are a few games you can download. With these games available, the Kindle becomes a much better entertainment device that just a dedicated eReader!
July 20, 2010 at 1:40 pm
knitters -n- critters says:

Review by knitters -n- critters for Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)
Rating:
I bought today (June 28th) and got version 11.3. The TOC clearly divides Kindle 1 from Kindle 2, and they went further by also marking each tip’s header with Kindle 1/Kindle 2.

The newly added email info is cool. And granted I could have eventually heard of same tip after browsing Google searches, it’s nice to have bunch of advanced info in one gulp. Worth 99 cents in my opinion.
July 20, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Angela T. says:

Review by Angela T. for Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)
Rating:
GET THIS. For $.99, you cannot go wrong with the shortcuts. I now keep up with my email and can start and stop my music with a press of a key.

There are a few more shortcuts, plus, a list of Web sites you can use with your Kindle.
July 20, 2010 at 2:49 pm
MobileReference says:

Review by MobileReference for Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, Kindle-Friendly Websites, Free eBooks & Email From Kindle: Concise User Guide for Kindle 2 (US & International), DX, 1, iPhone & iPod (Mobi Manuals)
Rating:
Comments from the Publisher:

Each shortcut was thoroughly tested on both Kindle 1 and Kindle 2 devices. Brian’s confusion probably derives from the fact that this Kindle Guide has 2 sections: one section describes shortcuts available in Kindle 1 and a separate section describes shortcuts available in Kindle 2. The shortcuts are different. If one looks in the wrong section, some shortcuts will not work. We addressed this issue in version 11.2 by indicating the relevant Kindle (1 or 2) next to each shortcut subtitle.

We have also added over 100 Kindle-friendly websites organized by category. If you found a website that we don’t have please email us or post it here and we will add it to the next edition of the guide, so that you will not need to type the URL.

Finally we have added a section on How to eMail from Kindle with link to most popular services: GMail, Yahoo, Comcast and Hotmail.

Enjoy!

MobileReference