[andrew.berg]

Book Reader for BlackBerry PlayBook is Best ePub eBook Reader Yet - BerryReview

This might have been covered already, but I've tried a few of these reader apps and this is BY FAR the best one for playbook right now. I'm no longer even going to bother worrying about Kindle or Kobo. The developer answers emails quickly too and is very open to suggestions. Check it out!

[adoral]

Any advice on how to transfer books from Kobo e reader?

[andrew.berg]

I'm not sure but if you buy books from Kobo are they DRM-protected? If not and they're in ePub format, you should be able to import them directly through the app without issues.

[tonyshep]

Not bad but the fonts are ridiculously tiny and impossible to read in most cases. There is no ability to change the theme and the page turning constantly stalls ans d you have to close the program and open it again.

[andrew.berg]

Actually, you can increase the font size. Tape the "A" in the top right corner. You can change the theme between light and dark and I've had no issues with reliability. Sounds like you're using a totally different app to be honest.

[tonyshep]

Just updated today to allow increased font size and also changing font color and background. These are amazing improvements so congratulations to the developers.

However, while it allows the fonts and backgrounds to be changed on the "tools screen" I cannot find a way to make the changes stick on the book I am reading. Still having problems with the page turning too. This has the potential to be the best reader app in the marketplace but it's not ready for prime time yet. I will keep checking on it and keep my fingers crossed.

[tonyshep]

Also, this new version is showing every single page twice. This "upgrade" has actually ruined the functionality and has some major bugs in it. I can;t sue it in it's current form and that's a shame as the new features, if they worked, would be awesome. Back to ePUB for now.

[tonyshep]

sorry for the typos in previous post - should have said "I can't use it in its current form..."

[andrewmcwhirter]

I just purchased this app to see if it was better then the other 2 I tried so far (ePub Reader and PlayEpub).

I really like the import feature of Book Reader. It's fast, and works very well. They use their own file browser as opposed to the default Playbooks file browser popup. I have 100's of ePubs on my Playbook, and you can browse and find them in exactly the same file structure you put them in.
However, I'm disappointed with the rest of the app. When I enlarged the font, it was not showing the complete line (the last word was cut off) for a few books, but other would render ok. The page turning animation is a bit choppy, and wouldn't always turn pages when I tapped the right side of the page.

Things I like:
- You can change font size, color, even the font type.
- Change the color of the background to whatever you want
- It displays a page number

I still prefer EPub Reader as my main Playbook eReader.

[FF22]

sorry for the typos in previous post - should have said "I can't use it in its current form..."

Just a fyi - you can edit your own posts so you can fix typos and even add entirely new paragraphs, like your second message.

But also thanks for the review. I'm still holding off on any additional reader apps for the pb and falling back to my kindle3.

[tonyshep]

Thanks for the FYI - I didn't know that.

Keep an eye on this particular ebook reader. The developer has some good ideas but has not achieved the functionality just yet. If he (she?) fixes the issues this will be a great reader to have. I have all my DRM Kindle books stripped of the DRM and loaded on my Playbook and it's pretty awesome. I love my Kindle, but I like the idea of carrying just the one gadget and have been waiting for the "perfect" ebook reader. Still waiting......

[PanaSama]

The best is still EPUB reader, but i must give credit to the developer of Book reader for the frequent updates, the app is way more nicer and functional than it was at launch, also the dev is very quick in answering emails.

[tonyshep]

Yet another upgrade came today (fantastic support) - seems the issue with not storing any changes in font size was related to the fact that my books were converted to epub format using Calibre (a great program BTW). This now seems to have been resolved in the new release. This app is rapidly becoming the best and most flexible book reader for the Playbook.

Pros: - customizable fonts, text size and background, fast book import, last page remembered, bookmarks, etc.
Cons: - only one so far since the latest release - the page turning is a little clunky and slow.

Everyone should try this out - we all bellyache about the lack of good apps and this developer is doing everything possible (and very quickly) to ensure that we get the perfect reader. Kindle who anyone???

[andrew.berg]

I'll have to get the update tonight. I noticed lately that the right side of all the book text is chopped off. Hopefully that is fixed.

[tonyshep]

Words now display correctly across the whole screen. This is a rock solid upgrade - except for the clunky page changes, which hopefully will get fixed soon.

[untangleddev]

Hi,
My name is Igor and I'm the Book Reader developer. Issue with changing font size and chopping some text on a right side was related to the Calibre's default export settings for EPUB.
Instead of overriding HTML body CSS styles, Calibre assigns a separate class ID to the body tag, which sets hard-coded font-size and margins values, and it was overriding any changes I was trying to make. To complicate things even more, this ID is not fixed and I've seen some books with ID="calibre" and some with ID="calibre3". Unfortunately, it took me 2 releases to fix this completely. Release 1.0.9 should become available on Monday and this problem should be finally fixed for all books.
Another workaround for this issue is to change default Calibre's settings to following:
- set Disable font size rescaling checkbox on Look & Feel conversion tab
- change all Margins to 0 on Page Setup conversion tab
I also agree that page turning animation is somewhat choppy, but it should be relatively easy to fix and hopefully I'll be able to do it by Monday.

Please don't hesitate to let me know what else Book Reader is missing or what it could improve.

Regards,
Igor

[alegs]

Would you be able to turn off the back-light dimming? It is annoying while reading a book. Otherwise a great product! I switched to this App from one of the competitors.

[tonyshep]

Thanks Igor. Page turning works best when you can touch the whole of the right side to move forward and the whole of the left side to move backwards. Page turning does not work well when you have to touch a very small, specific part of the page to move forward or backwards. Keep up the good work.

[untangleddev]

Are you referring to the PlayBook power management setting that dims the light after some period of time? Then it's only available via standard device settings only. RIM does not provide an API to control it from the app.

Could you give me a little more details on this one? It was a long day for me and I'm not sure that I fully understand your request.
Thanks.

Would you be able to turn off the back-light dimming? It is annoying while reading a book. Otherwise a great product! I switched to this App from one of the competitors.

[untangleddev]

I was just working on page turning improvements today.
Tap zone for page turns was too narrow - fixed. Page animation also should be faster now. Changes will go into v. 1.1.0, which should be available next week.

Thanks.

Thanks Igor. Page turning works best when you can touch the whole of the right side to move forward and the whole of the left side to move backwards. Page turning does not work well when you have to touch a very small, specific part of the page to move forward or backwards. Keep up the good work.

[alegs]

Are you referring to the PlayBook power management setting that dims the light after some period of time? Then it's only available via standard device settings only. RIM does not provide an API to control it from the app.

Could you give me a little more details on this one? It was a long day for me and I'm not sure that I fully understand your request.
Thanks.

Yes that is the feature I was talking about. I wasn't sure if you could turn it off in the App or not. I can turn it off in the settings. Thanks for responding. Looking forward to your next update.

[jeffawa]

I just want to comment that untangleddev provides GREAT support for their Book Reader product. Bought the app yesterday and I had an issue with a .epub file not displaying correctly because the internal encoding was wrong. Contacted untangledev and they analyzed the problem and fixed the .epub file all within 12 hours.

Great App and Great Support!

[tonyshep]

Page turning seems to be working much more fluidly now. Thanks for your efforts.

[PanaSama]

This app just keeps getting better, i attached some screenshots of the current 4 readers available, diplaying the same page of the same book, all in the Sepia theme, you can see from the screens that Book Reader now looks the nicest, the only thing in wich EPUB reader is better IMO is in paragraph spacing, Svit also gets this right but the app has bigger problems as you can see from the screenshots.

Also i noticed that even with page animation turned off, sometimes it requieres a double or even a triple tap for the page to turn, a small issue considering how much the app has improved with the latest updates.

[mapsonburt]

Hi,
My name is Igor and I'm the Book Reader developer. ...

Please don't hesitate to let me know what else Book Reader is missing or what it could improve.

Regards,
Igor

How about support for DRM? I'd like to be able to check out and read books from our local library. As opposed to Kobo's/Kindles, with the PlayBook, you can do this by getting to the library site directly and downloading the book so no computer is required, however because ithere isn't a DRM supporting application on the PlayBook yet, I need to look elsewhere.