http://www.raiden.net/articles/review_astak_5_easy_reader_pro

Thought you guys might be interested in this. I just posted this review today.
Erm...wrong. You can start listening to your mp3s, then start reading a book. There was a thread active on that just yesterday.
Dear Lord:

WOW!! Astak thanks you!! You are a hell of a great writer and I am a proof reader and find myself always looking for grammatical errors. You have a flare for writing and your review is staggering in the depth it goes!! I would recommend putting this as a STICKY with all haste!! The main benefit of this review is to those thinking about buying and those who just got it. SO... it is important to make it a STICKY to greet those people!!


Yes, you can play MP3 and read at the same time. Start the music first and then go to the main menu to choose your book to read! We just did a firmware upgrade for the Pocket PRO (www.theEZreader.com under "support") that turns the scroll wheel into a volume control when you play music and are reading!!

You did leave out that the Pocket PRO has a User-Replaceable Rechargeable battery and you can buy spare batteries on our website so you can always pop in a fresh spare on a long trip! I think we can all forgive the one slight thing missed!!

Please make this a STICKY!!
Thanks for the info guys. Yeah, I fiddled all over the place trying to figure out how to play music and read a book at the same time, and for the life of me couldn't make it happen. But it's good to know that. And yes, I knew about the user replaceable battery, but figured that since 95% of people either won't replace it, or won't know how/care/etc, it wasn't a big deal to report it. The other 5% will figure out how to do it on their own anyways.

Oh, and RobertB, I try to be as in depth and detailed as I can on my reviews. The readers want and appreciate it, and if they're happy, I'm happy.

BTW, if you have any other ebook readers, mobile devices, or anything else Linux powered you want reviewed in the future, I'm always open to doing more reviews.
He also missed the fact that it automatically keeps track of the last page you were on so if you exit the book and then start it again it will be back where you were. He spent a lot of time talking about how to work around a feature that needs no work around.

Dale
Hmmmm. Interesting. I went back and checked diokdin's "My Review of Astak 5" Pocket Pro", and he sez it too. 512 internal memory? I plug it into my computer and it tells me my internal is 386mb, and tells me my 2g card is 1.97g.

If it were 512mb, I would expect it to read maybe 510, but I think 386 is a bit low for a 512 mb card.

Am I missing something here? Besides 128 mb? I looked in the book, and I looked at the box, and nowhere does it say how large my internal memory is supposed to be.

Btw, I love everything about my PPro. I just found this incongruity a little puzzling.
Some must belong to the Internal O/S. Another of those Marketing statements that are technicaly accurate, but not what you can use. Sort of like a 2"x4" board. The "cut" marks are at 2"x4", what you get is 1-5/8"x3-5/8" after the saw is done.
There was a time that 2x4 was 2"x4". The old part of my 1947 built home has real 2x4's and a whole lot of where they have to meet.
My folks first TV was 17". That was 17" across (Previous TV tubes were ROUND). Then some marketing guy figgured the diagonal gave a bigger number. Accurate. Legal.
Whew. Thanks for the clarification. I sort of suspected something along that line, but really expected the chip to just show up as 512mb showing 128 used.

All this talk about it being 512mb, I thot someone was actually SEEING 512mb available.

I can go back to reading my 500+ books, now. thanks.
Yes, even a simple SD card has to have something in it to tell the controller what to do and for ID purposes and such. Many devices are password protected too... so a card needs to "tell" its reader what it is and what password it may have and other info.

All of this does take up room on the card.

Regarding internal memory on a device, there is a lot more. It is hogged up by the internal workings of the device and formats and other such things. All of that eats up memory. So, you will find that 512MB of internal memory is not all "writeable".
It is the same with your computer at home. Fire up the task manager and see how much free memory you have. What you see is free memory also known as available memory.

Dale