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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
PMB 248
4820 Yelm Hwy SE
Suite B
Lacey, WA 98503-4903
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The Rocket eBook
Reviewed by Camille Renshaw
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It’s designed to be read like a print book. It’s the size of an average paperback but contains as much as 4000 pages of material. It costs $199, and with an Internet connection you can download a library to it in minutes. What strange door to Narnia is this? you ask. Allow me to introduce the frightening electronic text reader that New Luddites like William Gass (Harper’s Magazine 10/99) and Sven Birkerts keep ranting against: the Rocket eBook. I’ve read the mini-computer for more than ten hours now, and let me warn you: I’m as excited as the first time I used a T-1 line. |
 The Rocket eBook NuvoMedia, Inc. Elecronics - $199.00 |
A Description
This small machine doesn’t record the precious blueberry stains Gass treasures in his childhood books, but it does allow readers to underline words, keep notes in the margins, and bookmark passages. And unlike those margin notes from college – these remain legible.
The Rocket eBook has a list of invaluable functions. Images are vivid against its backlit screen. The search function locates passages with only a word or two as a clue. You can click on a phrase, and the author will read passages aloud through the built-in speaker. Hyperlinks allow you to jump around within documents (if the e-text is so designed). The battery lasts about 20 hours when the backlight feature is set at the default intensity and about 40 hours if the backlight is off.
Folks like me who have a slight visual impairment but can never find large text books in stock will be thrilled over two particular functions. The font on every book can be adjusted to large text with just a click of a button. And the backlighting has a full range of adjustments, from quite dim to very bright.
The Rocket eBook even comes with a built-in dictionary. You can tap on the menu item "Look Up" and then touch a word with your finger or the stylist. A definition, complete with enunciation, will appear on the screen.
The Downside
The reader is still too heavy. The weight should be lowered from its current 22 ounces to 15 ounces or so, although the battery life might have to be reduced to allow this. It’s not as cumbersome to hold as those large volumes of Shakespeare, but don’t we all prefer something lighter?
The digital keyboard (used for taking notes and searching documents) is a bit awkward, and the Allegro Writing Pad (a handwriting reader that can be used instead of the keyboard) involves more than one screen to work well.
Also, not many contemporary literary titles have been converted to Rocket form. No Alice McDermott or John Updike or Toni Morrison here. You’ll be thrilled to find Rocket’s expansive library of free classics, though, which includes titles like Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, John Keats’ Sleep and Poetry, Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out, and Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Obviously, my complaints are few.
Details on e-Texts
Most classic titles, like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, cost nothing to download electronically, although new e-titles, like ‘Tis by Frank McCourt, are more expensive than what they cost in print ($13 in hardback; $26 in e-text). Powell’s Books and Barnes and Noble sell Rocket titles like Little Women ($1.56) and Bulfinch’s Mythology ($13.56). The logic behind what is available and at what price is seemingly random.
The majority of the contemporary texts being converted to Rocket form are self-help books and mystery novels, assumedly because businessmen own more e-readers than anyone. With the literary crowd catching on, however, the demand is driving everything to e-print. Within a year books won’t be published in print without also being sold in e-text.
A real boon is the e-Newsstand. Magazines like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Industry Standard, The Street.com, Bloomberg, and Salon are available in interactive editions and at low prices (a few are free).
Download eRocket
If you think I’m crazy for loving this little reader, or if you’re just curious how this blessed thing works, try out a simulation of the Rocket eBook on your computer. You can use this format to read all the books in Rocket’s library.
Blueberry stains or no, you’re gonna love Rocket’s sweet machine. $199 is a steal for a reader like this.
Tell us what you think. Email
talkback@pifmagazine.com
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Camille Renshaw is the Senior Editor for Pif Magazine. She currently resides in Boston, MA.