Symbian Review

I think there is no one who doesn’t like to read. Though paper books are still widely spread, but more and more people are getting used to the book readers, which are becoming very popular.
First of all reading books with the help of eBook readers is cheaper because it doesn’t cost much to download a book, what we can’t say about paper books, which are of high price. One more advantage is that the whole book is in your phone, you don’t have to carry a thick book in your hands or bag.
Now when almost all new mobile phones are produced with wide screens with good resolutions, what is important for comfortable book reading, we decided to analyze those of Series 60.3.

The following applications were analyzed:

App name	Vendor	Price	Size, Kb
QReader	QReader	Freeware	193
eBook Mobile	m-internet.com	Buy $20.00	209
TomeRaider	Proporta	Beta version Commercial	147
Mobipocket Reader	Mobipocket	Freeware	1.56 MB

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When analyzing, we compared different aspects and application details, giving them the corresponding scores from 10 (the best) to 1 (the poorest). Here we analyzed:

•Installation
•Trial period
•Compatible Formats
•Interface
•Settings
•Help and Support
•Application in action
•Special features
•File transfer and its aceptance by the phone

•Testing procedure
•Testing results
•Conclusion

More about our scoring procedure you can read here

Installation

QReader – the application is easily installed when following the instructions on screen.

Score given: 10

eBook Mobile – no difficulties while installing the application.

Score given: 10

TomeRaider – the application is impossible to install; this is a widely spread problem.

Score given: 0

Mobipocket Reader – the repeated installation of this application passed the test.

Score given: 10

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Trial period

QReader – because the application is freeware it doesn’t have trial version. Besides the fact that the application is really good, it is also freeware. That’s why we give the highest score for this factor.

Score given: 10

eBook Mobile – the installation instruction doesn’t show the period of trial version, that is very inconvenient because user doesn’t know how long the application can be tested. That’s why such a low score.

Score given: 3

Mobipocket Reader – as the application is free it has no trial period.

Score given: 10

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Compatible Formats

Taking into consideration the variety of file formats of each of the applications (the more formats the application supports, the better possibility to download books of those formats) we estimated the Compatible formats factor as follows:

Application name	QReader	eBook Mobile	TomeRaider	Mobipocket Reader
Compatible book formats	Plain text (.txt), Palm DOC (.prc and .pdb),TCR, FB2, UMD	PDB, PRC, TXT	Not indicated	eDoc – XML, HTML, CSS

QReader: nice variety of formats

Score given: 8

eBook Mobile: not so various as in QReader but still sufficient

Score given: 4

Mobipocket Reader : only online formats, too much work for a user who downloads a book in some text format

Score given: 2

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Interface

QReader – this application has a user friendly theme aware interface with a comprehensible menu. The main screen contains such tabs:
• Library
• Phone
• Messages

Score given: 7

eBook Mobile – the main screen of this application comparing with the previous one also contains tabs for users’ convenience. Clicking through these tabs you can see the following screens:
• Bookmark (this tab shows all saved bookmarks associated with open book)
• Storage (here you can choose your destination folder storing ebook files)
• Inbox (eBook Mobile can scan your Message Inbox and you can directly open that ebook file in this tab)

Score given: 5

Mobipocket Reader – enables users to read electronic books. The “library” lists all eBooks which are currently on user’s device.

The main screen has the following view:

Left soft key Options of this screen contains the following buttons:
• Open (opens the current eBook)
• Book details
• Delete (removes the current eBook)
• eBookstore (links to the developer’s site)
• Send (forwards the current eBook)
• Settings
• About
• Help
• Exit

Score given: 7

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Settings

QReader – in this application user can configure the following preferences:

General:

• Right softkey – allows the user to choose the functionality of the right softkey when the eBook is opened; it can act as Close Book or Next Page option
• Autoscroll – allows the user to disable of enable the Autoscroll function in such ways:
o Disable (deactivating of the Autoscroll function)
o Per Page (clicking the joystick the text of the eBook will scroll automatically per a page after definite time period)
o Per Line (clicking the joystick the text of the eBook will scroll automatically per a line)
o Infinity Page (clicking the joystick the text of the eBook will scroll automatically the infinite number of pages until you stop it by yourself)
o Smooth (the text smoothly moves on the screen, thanks to what you can read the text without clicking any button to change the page)
• Autoscroll speed – when the Autoscroll function is enabled you can easily enter its speed value
• Backlight timeout – here you can choose the timeout of the backlight while reading the text; the following values are offered:
o Default
o 20 sec
o 30 sec
o 1 min
o 3 min
o Always on
• Local (book) setting

Layout:

• Alignment – gives you the possibility to change the alignment of text on the screen as you want:
o Justify
o Left
o Right
o Center
• Orientation – this option allows you to change the orientation of the text regarding the screen:
o Portrait
o Landscape right
o Portrait inverted
o Landscape left
• Interlinear space – here you can enter the value, which will define the space between the lines of the text on the screen
• Statusbar – enables/disables the Statusbar on the text screen

Text Format:

• Text Color – choose the color of the text from the list given:
o Custom
o Black
o Gray
o Blue
o Cyan
o Red
o Green
o Yellow
o White
o Magenta
o Dark Gray
o Orange
• Background Color – choose the color of the background from the list given:
o Custom
o Black
o Gray
o Blue
o Cyan
o Red
o Green
o Yellow
o White
o Magenta
o Dark Gray
o Orange
• Highlight Color – choose the color of the highlight from the list given:
o Custom
o Black
o Gray
o Blue
o Cyan
o Red
o Green
o Yellow
o White
o Magenta
o Dark Gray
o Orange
• Hyphenation
o Disable
o English
o English
o Руccкий
o Руccкий
• Remove Spaces
• CR Processing – allows to choose the carriage return processing between:
o Default
o Ignore CR
o SmartMode

Language:

• Region
o WestEuropean
o EastEuropean
o East Asian
o SW & SE Asian
o Middle Eastern
o Unicode
• Charset
o Western
o Greek
o South European
o Nordic
o Celtic
o Icelandic
• Codepage
o ISO
o ISO 2
o DOS
o Mac
o Windows
• Text Direction – you can select the text direction between:
o Left-to-Right
o Right-to-Left Font:

• Font type – if you wish to change the type of the font you can this here:
o Small
o Small (bold)
o Medium
o Large
o Large thin
o Custom

Score given: 9

eBook Mobile – this application allows to configure the following settings:

• Default doc. encoding – you can configure this global language setting to apply for all opened ebook files:
o English
o Trad. Chinese (Big 5)
o Simp. Chinese (GB 2312)
• Font – here you can choose the font size between:
o Normal
o Large
• Backlight – here you can choose to enable backlight always on or on the phone setting:
o Phone default
o Always on

• Font colour – select the colour of the font from the list given:
o Black
o White
o Red
o Magenta
o Yellow
o Green
o Blue
• Background colour – select the colour of the background of the opened ebook document from the list given:
o Black
o White
o Red
o Magenta
o Yellow
o Green
o Blue
• Highlight colour – this is used in Search function; the searched string will be shown in this present colour:
o Black
o White
o Red
o Magenta
o Yellow
o Green
o Blue

Score given: 7

Mobipocket Reader – allows to change the following settings of this application:

General:

• At startup, open – by default, when the Reader is launched, it goes back to the last position visited in the last open eBook; user can change this option to go to the library instead
• Dictionary – here user can select the dictionary which is to be used by the lookup feature

Fonts:

• Font size – here user can select the default font size for the text of the eBook
• Font family – to select a font among the list of all fonts that are available on the device for the text of the eBook
• Underline links – here user can disable the underlining of links

Colors:

• Text color – to select the default color to display text in an eBook
• Background color – to select the default color for the background of an eBook
• Highlight color – the color to use for highlights created by the user

• Modify color – the color to use to strike out modifications created by the user
• Hyperlink color – the color to draw hyperlinks with

Display:

• Margins – sets the size of the margins displayed between the border and the text of the eBook
• Line spacing – sets the distance between two contiguous lines of text
• Orientation – sets the orientation of the screen

• Full justification – when this option is activated, by default all text is fully justified
• Fullscreen – to toggle on or off the fullscreen mode
• Show the progress bar – to show or hide the progress bar that appears at the bottom of the screen in the book view

Score given: 8

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Help and Support

We think that any application of any kind should contain the help file for user’s convenience, not to mention the user manual, which should include detailed information about the application and its settings. One more important factor is the efficiency of the support department. To check this, we sent an e-mail with just one question about the application on the mail stated as a support mail.

QReader – the application has no Help file, which is very uncomfortable, besides there is no user manual available either; it has an e-mail (denis@mingulov.com) to contact a developer in case of any questions or suggestions.

The support department of this application works inefficient. After two days that the e-mail has been sent, the answer hasn’t been delivered.

Score given: 5

eBook Mobile – the application has the Help file, which is comfortable, but the Help file is general and not very comprehensible, it is not available for separate app’s items, what is now widely spread in most of applications; it has an e-mail (support@m-internet.com) for customers’ support.

The situation with support department repeated as with the previous application – no answer to the asked question for a long period of time.

Score given: 5

Mobipocket Reader – the application has no e-mail address for customers’ support. Instead of it users can visit site’s forum and discuss various questions and ask for advice. That is why we could not check the efficiency of the support department.

The application includes the Help file, but it is not very convenient to use.

Score given: 6

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Application in action

QReader – to use QReader as an eBook reader is rather simple and pleasant.

To start using it you have to download a text in plain text (.txt), Palm DOC (.prc and .pdb), TCR, FB2 and UMD files formats; and save it in any destination folder storing ebook file. Having opened the text, you can see it on the screen and read it.

Clicking the left soft key of this screen you can do the following actions:

• Close – close the current text file
• Go to – not to scroll the whole text, you can simply choose to go to:
o Begin
o Previous page
o Percentage
o Next page
o End
• Find
o Caseless
o Case-sensitive
• Bookmarks – allows to add new bookmarks or look through already existing
o Add current position
o Go to
• Tools – contains activation of Autoscroll option and brief information about the downloaded book
o Autoscroll
o Book Info
• Settings
• About
• Exit

Thanks to such settings the application is very convenient and pleasant in using.

Score given: 8

eBook Mobile – thanks to this application you have possibility to read your favourite ebooks in pure PDB, PRC or TXT format.

As in the previous application you have to download a text and choose your destination folder storing ebook files in the Storage tab. One of the advantages of this application is that to almost every option of this app you can use the defined shortcut-key.

To open the text in the separate screen you have just to click on it.

Clicking the left soft key Options of this screen you can do the following actions:

• Display – you can toggle your document view in normal (partial) or full screen mode; also to have a better view eBook Mobile supports Landscape/Portrait view:

o Large font

o Anti-CW landscape

o CW landscape

o Full screen/normal

• File
o Properties (file properties show the document’s Full pathname, Date created, File size and Timestamp)
o Encoding (encoding sets for):
§ English
§ Traditional Chinese
§ Simplified Chinese
§ Unicode
• Settings
• Bookmark (here you can add the bookmark in the current top position, name it and it will be shown in the Bookmark tab view; and delete the current bookmark)
• Browse – you can go to:
o First page
o Last page
• Search – you can enter the search string to search for specific word; or press key Search again to advance to the next search result.
• Help
• Ordering info
• About
• Exit

As we can see due to such a good set of various options this application is as good as the previous one; and is worth of downloading.

Score given: 9

Mobipocket Reader – when user opens the application he can see the library with the list of all eBooks.

To open and start reading an eBook user can use the joystick up and down to highlight the needed one and then press the joystick select button.

Book details screen displays the properties of the currently highlighted eBook:

Mainly the first page shows the cover of the eBook:

To go to the next page of a book user has to press the joystick to the right, and if to the previous page – then to the left.

Clicking left soft key Options of this screen user can perform the following actions:

• Library
• Annotations
• Add bookmark
• Navigation
o First page (go to the first page of the current eBook)
o Go to page (go to the specific page of the book by entering a page number)
o Copyright link
o Table of Contents
o About this title link
o Begin reading link
• View
o Autoscroll (starts the auto-scrolling of pages)
o Rotate (user can rotate the display for a more convenient reading)
o Fullscreen (in this mode all the surface of the screen is used to display the current eBook)
• Selection mode
o Lookup (look for a definition or a translation of the selected word in the dictionaries that are available in the user’s library)
o Copy (copy the current selection to the clipboard)
o Highlight (highlight the current selection)
o Add note (create a note concerning the current selection)
o Modify (create a modified version of the selected text)
o Add link (to create a link to navigate to another location in the eBook using this feature)
• Send (send the current eBook using one of the methods the device supports)
• Settings
• About
• Help
• Exit

Score given: 9

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Special features

QReader – this application has its specific features, what makes it different from the others, they are:

• Autoscroll (different possibilities to set the Autoscroll function)
o Disable (deactivating of the Autoscroll function)
o Per Page (clicking the joystick the text of the eBook will scroll automatically per a page after definite time period)
o Per Line (clicking the joystick the text of the eBook will scroll automatically per a line)
o Infinity Page (clicking the joystick the text of the eBook will scroll automatically the infinite number of pages until you stop it by yourself)
o Smooth (the text smoothly moves on the screen, thanks to what you can read the text without clicking any button to change the page)
• Autoscroll speed (when the Autoscroll function is enabled you can easily enter its speed value)
• Backlight timeout (here you can choose the timeout of the backlight while reading the text; the following values are offered):
o Default
o 20 sec
o 30 sec
o 1 min
o 3 min
o Always on
• CR Processing – allows to choose the carriage return processing between:
o Default
o Ignore CR
o SmartMode

Score given: 9

eBook Mobile – the application is not so rich in special features as the previous app; the only is:

o Rescan

Score given: 3

Mobipocket Reader – this application attracts with the variety of interesting special features:

• Navigation
o Copyright link
o Table of Contents
o About this title link
o Begin reading link
• Selection mode
o Lookup (look for a definition or a translation of the selected word in the dictionaries that are available in the user’s library)
o Copy (copy the current selection to the clipboard)
o Highlight (highlight the current selection)
o Add note (create a note concerning the current selection)
o Modify (create a modified version of the selected text)
o Add link (to create a link to navigate to another location in the eBook using this feature)
• At startup, open – by default, when the Reader is launched, it goes back to the last position visited in the last open eBook; user can change this option to go to the library instead
• Underline links – here user can disable the underlining of links
• Book details – displays the properties of the currently highlighted eBook

Score given: 9

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File transfer and its acceptance by the phone

To check the operating efficiency of the eBook readers, we have chosen some of the compatible formats and transferred them to the phones with the help of USB Cable and Bluetooth.

To make a long story short: after transferring any file with the help of Bluetooth no eBook reader application opened the file from the Inbox, all of them failed to do this.

When transferring the E-Book in .txt format with the help of Bluetooth on Nokia 3250, where we have installed the QReader and eBook Mobile applications, it turned out that the received file can’t be at once opened with the help of any of the applications. Also it was impossible to find the received file from inside the application to view it. The texts opened in the Notes screen, but not in one of the eBook readers application.
Having carried out the same procedure but with installed Mobipocket Reader application, it turned out that at least the file in .prc format is easily opened and ready to be used (.txt and .fb2 formats transferred with the help of Bluetooth opened in the Notes screen).

After that we have tried an alternative way of file transfer: using the USB-Cable. In this case no problems occurred with opening the e-Books, they were visible in the target folder and could be opened.

We’ve also tried to transfer texts with .fb2 and .prc formats with same test results.

The conclusion: most eBook readers lack the possibility to open the files transferred by the Bluetooth device into the Inbox of the mobile phone.

Estimating this factor we can see that QReader and eBook Mobile applications need revision in incapacity to freely open the file transferred with the help of Bluetooth. That is why we score this factor as follows:

QReader

Score given: 5

eBook Mobile

Score given: 5

Mobipocket Reader

Score given: 7

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Testing procedure

For our tests we have used Nokia 3250, as it is a widely spread phone model of Series 60.3 range. We have installed the applications using Bluetooth and data cable. After that we have evaluated the application how it looks and feels, if it can be used without reading the manual and if the help is there at all.

We changed the settings to see the possibilities of reading text from the screen of the mobile phone, made experiments with transferring files (with those formats indicated as those, which are supported by the phone) with the help of either Bluetooth or data cable.

This was done to see how phones receive any of the available formats sent by Bluetooth, and then the same action was made with the help of data cable. The results of our experiments you will see further in this article.

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Summary of the test results

Having analyzed all components and settings and given them the scores from 1 to 10, we have multiplied the scores by a corresponding importance factor in order to get the total score value of the application.

We have used the following Importance factor (IF) values:

• Installation: IF 1
• Trial period: IF 3
• eBooks transfer and recognition: IF 5
• Interface: IF 4
• Compatible formats: IF 7
• Settings: IF 8
• Help and Support: IF 3
• Application in action: IF 10
• Special features: IF 4

The total possible score for an application would be 450 points. Multiplying the score by Importance factors we have got the following table:

	QReader	Mobipocket Reader	eBook Mobile	TomeRaider
Installation	10	10	10	0
Trial period	30	30	9	-
eBook transfer and recognition	25	35	25	-
Interface	28	28	20	-
Compatible formats	56	14	28	-
Settings	72	64	56	-
Help/Support	15	18	15	-
Application in action	80	90	90	-
Special features	36	36	12	-
Total	352	325	265	-

Test winner according to the overall application test is QReader. Because of its features and peculiarities, the application is pleasant in use and thanks to this will attract many users.

One more important fact is that QReader and Mobipocket Reader applications are totally free of charge. You don’t have to pay money, just download and enjoy reading your favourite books.

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Conclusion

The choice of eBook reader applications is not big. Perhaps soon the situation will change. The test winner is eBook Mobile from m-internet.com in terms both of applications features and application price. Nevertheless both applications are worth of your attention. So if you are keen reading books from your phones, you won’t be sorry using for this goal the applications we told you about.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:52 and is filed under Software Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.