Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 - First Impressions

Just got the Cybook Gen 3 eBook reader from Bookeen - a French company. This reader device uses the Electronic ink technology.

Was just looking up the Fedex tracking site and the Fedex man walked in with the box.

Cybook box.

I took it out for a bit of lunch time reading. Here are some first impressions.

The display is great. Even in bright sunlight. The text reads like as if it is printed on paper. I have never used an eBook reader before but have spend years reading on Palm and Pocket PC devices. Electronic Ink is way way better.

The device has a decent form factor. I was using it in the public transport and it was comfortable to hold with one hand while I was holding the hand grip with the other hand.

I felt the main keypad a bit too hard. I hope it loosens up after some use.

The flash and the delay while changing pages was not too big of an issue.

Copying books and files was very easy. I connected the reader to my computer with the standard USB cable that came with the box and the reader showed up as a drive. I was able to drag and drop files from my Mac. I inserted a SD card and it also shows up as an additional drive.

I tried some of the demo Mobipocket books that come with the reader. I also download PDF BBC News and The Economist downloaded from Feedbooks (Feed books can convert RSS feeds to PDF for easy reading on portable devices). Both look good. Hyperlink within the document does not work on the PDF.