.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE The Novel: a $159 iPad knock-off that’s not half bad
.AUTHOR Joseph Andrews
.SUMMARY Could a cheap iPad knock-off sold at a bedding store be worth buying?
.TIP
In late August, ZATZ editor-in-chief David Gewirtz wrote [[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/how-a-mediocre-ipad-knock-off-could-foretell-steve-jobs-eventual-doom/9342|How a mediocre iPad knock-off could foretell Steve Jobs’ eventual doom]] on his ZDNet blog.
In that article, he described a $159 nobody-branded digital e-reader sold by the Dillards department store, shown in Figure A. As it turns out, I’d bought the same device, but I got mine from Bed Bath & Beyond. And, surprisingly, the device isn’t half bad and even includes an SD card slot and a USB port, both of which are lacking on the much more expensive iPad.
.FIGPAIR A Here’s a novel idea, the Novel.
There’s a zoom, and you can also set the font size depending on what you are displaying. Changing the font on the PowerPoint I was reading made things look goofy, though.
The bigger issue is the touch screen. To keep the costs down, the touch screen is not of the technology that the iPad or even decent smart phones use. I got frustrated at times trying to get things to recognize where I was pointing.
The Web browser is OK, but the keyboard on the screen is hard to use. The Novel can also play music and video, but I did not try out the music. Video was decent for a $150 device. I have not tried the SD card slot yet. The slot is supposed to accept up to a 32 Gig SD card. The Novel has a separate charger port from the USB port (so you need to use their charger). Also, the Novel seems a bit heavy (the battery, I think).
The screen display is OK for reading. I’m studying for the TOGAF 9 Part 1 exam. Using the USB cable, I copied all the documentation I needed to study to the device. The client I am working for had their own training course with a nice 150+ page PowerPoint to review instead of the original 900+ page official PDF. The PowerPoint displayed just fine.
The reader would hang every so often, though. Finger gesturing through 25 pages after restarting the reader did suck. I had a little issue with small text, but I was stubborn last time at the eye doctor and did not get bifocals (plus making the font bigger looked goofy and the zoom was hard to get to with the touch screen).
For $150, I don’t know.
I know the Kindle is a better reader, but that is all it does well. With that said, I did not originally buy the Novel as a reader. My girlfriend had got an LG Ally running Android and has been going insane as she can not get a handle around making it work. As I have a Palm Pre, I thought I needed my own Android device to figure things out.
I hacked the Novel out of the box. I have all the other readers available for Android loaded and PandaHome as the operating theme. I have not needed to read anything since studying, so it is now sitting next to the coffee table in the living room.
As my girlfriend got frustrated with her Android phone, but with the basic interface that came with the Novel device I think I would let her use it. With the hacked interface, I would not let her touch with a 10 foot poll unless I was right there. I am starting to see and understand her issues with her phone.
One more goofy thing with the Novel device and wireless. When I tried to connect the Novel to my Linksys router the router would hang. As it was an early version Linksys router (over 5 years old, latest firmware was from 2007), I swapped it out for a Belkin router I had bought for another purpose and all was fine.
.H1 Conclusion
As I was buying a techno-bobble at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I was expecting a lot less from it than what I got. I think I was expecting something my grandparents would buy, thinking they were getting a deal on the hot new toy for their grandson but instead they were getting a similarly packaged knock-off.
The Novel is kind of like an iPad knock-off, but if you use the standard software that came with the Novel, it is an Ok reader that can play videos and music and Web surf.
I would give the Novel a 3.5 on that 1 to 5 star scale, but it did exceeded my expectations. Since ZATZ doesn’t do half stars, I’ll give it a 4.
.RATING 4
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn more about [[http://www.pandigital.net/pandigitalnovel|the Novel]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Joseph is an Identity Management Architect working for one of the world’s largest IT service companies in the Detroit area. He has well over 20 years experience in IT, having worked for Ford for 16 straight years. His current client is a very large automotive company. Joseph tells us he has a computer in every room of his house except the bathroom, but the Novel is changing that.
