Sign in / up

back to article Bookeen CyBook Orizon

Should you be considering Bookeen's CyBook Orizon as your new e-book reader, the only question you really need ask yourself is, do you want to pay an 80 quid extra for a touchscreen. Bookeen Cybook Orizon Bookeen's Cybook Orizon: spanning the gap between e-book readers and tablets Amazon's drive to bring down the price of …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Nick Kew

    The price of Freedom

    Kindle? Lock-in to Amazon format, and 1984. Too high a price for a few squid.

    I bought a BeBook Neo last year. My other shortlisted reader was the Bookeen, and my reason for rejecting it was that the serious annoyance of a 'motion sensor' featured in the specs.

    1 1
    1. James Hughes 1
      Reply Icon

      On the other hand

      I have no books on my Kindle that cost more than £0.00. I can upload PDF's or some other ebook formats (Use calibre - it's great - collates news on home PC and emails it to the Kindle as well).

      OK, so the Amazon specific titles have DRM. Oh, I don't have any.

      There is no lock in to the Amazon format, if you don't want there to be.

      3 0
    2. FeersumEndjinn
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      Lock-in?

      I don't understand why you think Kindle makes you locked in to Amazon format. Mine supports mobi format and I've never had an issue converting ePub format for it either

      2 0
    3. DMH
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      Lock in?

      The Kindle supports the MOBI format, plus PDF and HTML, so it doesn't have to lock you in to the Amazon format.

      2 0
      1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov
        Reply Icon

        Re: on the other hand

        "I have no books on my Kindle that cost more than £0.00."

        Actually, you don't have any books on "your" Kindle - Amazon has. And it can and will remove them as it sees fit. And you cannot do anything about it.

        And if that is not a lock-in, then what is?

        And as far as I remember, to read even your own PDFs the Kindle must phone Adobe for their kind permission first. How can you put up with this all, people?

        0 5
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Big Brother

          careful, your tin foil hat is slipping.

          "Actually, you don't have any books on "your" Kindle - Amazon has. And it can and will remove them as it sees fit. And you cannot do anything about it."

          So how are they going to do that if I haven't got wifi switched on ? Perhaps send pixies down the chimney to steal the mobipocket files whilst I sleep? And steal them from the usb stick that I store them on? Maybe they've planted a virus on my pc to delete the files when I plug in the kindle to copy new stuff over from manybooks, gutenberg etc. Good to see the crazies are still about.

          2 0
        2. Bronek Kozicki
          Reply Icon
          Grenade

          Re: on the other hand

          @Vladimir

          you are wrong. Kindle is seen from PC as regular USB storage and one can copy documents to/from it. Not all can be copied or viewed but there are no issues with .mobi and few other formats. Which means you can read books you actually own, possibly converted from other formats. There are issues copying some (not all) PDF files and those Amazon will convert for you free so you can read them (and they look to me exactly as they did before conversion) and keep copy - it's not DRM-ed so you own it.

          There are some things DRM prevents you from doing: you cannot copy DRM-ed books you bought from Amazon and read them on a different reader (but you can copy them via Amazon to another Kindle reader you own). Just like you cannot copy DRM-ed books you bought from Barnes & Noble and read them on Kindle. However, Kindle supports non-DRM file formats perfectly well, so it's not like you don't have a choice.

          1 0
        3. James Hughes 1
          Reply Icon

          @Vlad

          Hmm, bit short on facts there.

          The DRM'ed stuff can be removed, but items you add yourself cannot (AFAIK). And that includes all the formats listed by other commentors. Just this last night I created a PDF of some guitar tab using OpenOffice, emailed it to free.kindle.com and it appeared on my Kindle a few seconds later over Wifi. Displayed fine. Same with news collations via Calibre, ebooks converted via Calibre etc. All this stuff is also stored on my PC at home, and whatever happens to the Kindle, that stays safe.

          Not sure where you get your facts from......

          1 0
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kindle the standard?

    As a piece of hardware that may be true, by the UK Kindle store is woefully "under-stocked". Its very annoying to see plenty of US books available on amazon.com but not in the UK. Amazon UK need to get their rights act together if they want Kindle to succeed in this market.

    0 0
  3. JDX Gold badge

    Lock in? WGAS?

    Touch-screen seems a gimmick. It's true that when I show my Kindle to friends they almost invariably put their fingers all over the screen but I find a simple button-press is easier than having to wave my hand over the screen like some pretentious tic.

    4 0
  4. Andy Kay
    Coat

    Made in Yorkshire?

    'Orizon? By 'eck

    0 0
    1. disgruntled yank
      Reply Icon

      Maybe Denmark

      Nymph, in thine Orizons be my sins remembered...

      An excellent epigraph (or dedication) for the right kind of memoir.

      1 0
  5. Alan 6

    Web Browser??

    I thought I'd killed my GF's brand new Kindle at the weekend by testing the browser with Facebook.

    It completely locked up and required three reboots to get the bugger working again.

    I think Google's plain vanilla page is the only one that renders right in the crappy browser that makes Lynx look good...

    0 1
    1. John Young 1
      Reply Icon

      Facebook

      Just use m.facebook.com or the touch.facebook.com page.

      1 0
  6. Neill Mitchell

    Amazing

    They have managed to make such a slim device look very chunky. Very ugly design compared to the Sony's.

    Review doesn't mention how page turning, bookmarking etc is achieved via the touchscreen.

    At least it does ePub.

    0 0
  7. Peter Kay

    Crap ergonomics

    The ergonomics on it are poor - try a bit harder than ripping off an iPod..

    After using the Kindle for the past few weeks, I'm convinced side buttons are the way to go - the Kindle can be comfortably and securely held and pages easily turned, especially in space limited environments such as a crowded train.

    The Orizon offers nothing new - for forty quid extra than a 3G Kindle the only vaguely interesting part of it is the SDHC slot.

    1 0
    1. James Hughes 1
      Reply Icon

      I also like the side button

      But do end up hitting them by accident quite a bit. Usually because instead of turning the device off I leave it to turn itself off and sometimes knock the side buttons when putting it down.

      Apart from that, they buttons are really easy to use, and don't involve any hand movement whatsoever, just a tiny movement of one finger..

      0 0
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PRS-650

    Any chance of a comparison with Sony's top-end eBook reader which has the same screen? From the photos the Sony is better looking, but it'd be nice to know about the usability.

    0 0
    1. Mark2410
      Reply Icon

      PRS-650

      i have the 600, 650 and kindle 3 and unquestionably the prs650 wins on all fronts, buy it its wonderful

      0 0
  9. Sanjuan1998

    Bookeen Orizon failure

    I purchased an Orizon just before Christmas all went well for 10 days then all sorts of problems -could not turn it on, the touch screen navigation decided not to work , no internet connection, navigation buttons just gave up. BOOKEEN agreed to an exchange a month ago but unfortunetly have failed so far to provide any despatch instructions. Maybe I have been unlucky, I like the design - light and robust but I would prefer one that actually worked

    0 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like