Dear All:

The intent of this dedicated Astak forum is to make it easier for people who are new or do not post regularly or are old timers to the old Astak thread to be able to find out about Astak products and services and features and releases and firmware upgrades and much more!

It is a chance, also, to let others that may wander around MobileRead Forum, to park here for a while and learn.

Astak makes the EZ Reader line of eBook Readers. We ARE the manufacturer! Here you can ask questions and get answers.
Wooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Since this thread is sticky, here's a bunch of info about the EZ Readers:

Astak currently offers a 6" (diagonal) eInk device (the EZ Reader) and a 5" (diagonal) device (the Pocket Pro EZ Reader, or PEZ for short). You can read all about them on this web site: http://www.theEZreader.com

People in the U.S. and Canada can order from the above website. People from other countries should go to http://www.astak.com to order (don't ask why, that's just the way it is).

Check further down in this thread for updated information, as things will certainly change (new models, web sites, etc) as time passes.

The EZ Reader ships with:
1) The EZ Reader device itself with a User-replaceable Li-polymer battery.
2) A protective carrying case.
3) A wrist strap (leash).
4) Ear buds (head phones).
5) AC adapter (U.S. only plug, but switches between 110V and 220V.).
6) USB cable.
7) (Not advertised, but included) a low-cost miniature Phillips screwdriver for removing the battery door, in case you don't have one.

The readers have 512 Mbytes of internal flash. The 6" device (older technology) supports an external SD memory card up to 4 GBytes, while the 5" device (newer technology) supports an external SD memory card up to 16 GBytes. The 6" device actually MAY work with up to 16 GByte SD cards, and the 5" device MAY work with up to 32 GByte SD cards, but it's not guaranteed (will vary with the card brand) and MAY slow down the performance of the EZ Reader, so they're not officially supported.

The Li-polymer batteries are for both devices are different, but are both standard cell phone batteries that are available on the internet for around $8 to $10 dollars. You may never need to replace it, but if you do, it won't cost much and won't require that your device makes a trip to the factory, since the battery is user-replaceable. The battery in the 5" EZ Reader Pocket PRO is a 1000mAh LG battery. The battery in the 6" EZ Reader is a 950mAh Nokia battery.

Both EZ Readers can display/play these file formats (some are handled better than others, of course): ADE (Adobe Digital Editions), BMP, CHM, DJVU, DOC, EPUB, FB2, GIF, HTML, JPG, LIT, MP3, PDB, PDF, PNG, PPT, PRC, RAR, TIF, TXT, WOL, ZIP.

The Pocket Pro includes Text-To-Speech (TTS) which can read ebooks to you in a "female computer voice" (non-inflected). It handles MOST of the text formats, but will NOT work (yet) with ePub or PDF.
I have used my CyBook Gen 3 couple months and I am going to by a bigger one with wlan as soon as possible.
I have of course used the case protecting the reader. I am wondering why the side of the case could be covered with photovoltaic material? Especially those wlan devices does not to be all the time connected to the computer?

Is the Astak Mentor 9.7 my selection or am I waiting for Plastic Logic? Or what?
Dear Sakusom:

All 9.7 inch devices are waiting anxiously for late September. That is when PVI will start production of the Flexi Screens. We do not have official word of release date yet... but expect a 9.7 inch "EZ Reader TRUE" in late October or November 2009
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How can I or where do I look to identify a single Astak MobileRead resource to establish my own subscription and then to look at as a form of "on-going monitoring" and then what do I do to "sign-up" and thus have -- for me -- a single place and link to read and look at regularly? Suggestions please. 808Tom
How about "Forum Tools->Subscribe to Forum"
I admit ... I cannot find or make the suggested link ... How do I find & implement what you've suggested? 808Tom
1) Go to the astak forum: MobileRead Forums > E-Book Devices > Astak EZReader

2) towards the top of the forum click on "Forum Tools". A pop up menu appears

3) Click on "Subscribe to forum"

You will get email whenever something happens in the forum. To get instant emails, edit your profile.

Disclaimer: I've never used the feature, I'm just guessing how it works.

Good luck.

P.S. In case you haven't heard yet, the Pocket Pro has a 400Mhz processor and the new Epson controller that makes the reader super fast!
my dad got the 6 inch astak reader and downloaded the newest firmware and unzipped it and put on the sd card that came with it and flashed the reader and now it will not do a thing, we charged for 24 hours and still will not do a thing and all so pressed the reset button the back.
we sent it back, but I read some were you cannot make brick out the reader.
Just flash it again with the old firmware and it should be ok.
has some one had the same problem? and can you make a brick out of your reader?
has some tryied to flash it with bebooks firmware and or tried openinkpot as well.