Iview 700EB 7-Inch Color LCD Digital E-Book Reader Reviews

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1. Steven A. Godun "sgodun" says:

   January 10, 2012 at 8:32 am

   46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Cheap but functional., December 25, 2010

   By 

   Steven A. Godun “sgodun” (North Brunswick, NJ) –
   
     
   
     

   This review is from: Iview 700EB 7-Inch Color LCD Digital E-Book Reader (Office Product)

   UPDATE 2011-01-10: I’ve reduced my rating from three to two stars, given the additional experiences that I’ve had with this reader. My review has been updated to reflect those new experiences (particularly in the realm of power management and button controls).

   I’m a very casual book reader and a very serious gadget enthusiast. I got this book reader as a promotional item at a popular mattress store (yes, really) when I bought a new bed for my daughter. I thought it would be an interesting gadget to play with and since it didn’t cost me anything, I figured what the heck.

   It arrives in an attractive box which contains the reader itself, an AC power adapter (charger) with cable, a USB charging/data cable, a pair of earbud headphones that look almost exactly like the original iPod earbuds, a black fake leather case, a couple of “STOP!” warning pages (one English, one French) telling you to read the manual before using the reader, and a 40 page manual (20 pages each English and French).

   Have you ever gone to a flea market or dollar store and found shelves upon shelves of cheap Chinese knock-off versions of popular products? Like, you’d never find a “Voltron” toy set or Brillo soap pads or Breyer’s ice cream or Clorox bleach, but you’d often find things like “Lion Force” or “Robo-Lions” toys, “Brilly” soap pads or “Brayer’s” ice cream or “Chloro-Max” bleach. They were all similar enough to ‘the real thing’ – similar packaging, similar color schemes, similar logos, etc – but were usually quite a bit cheaper, and never quite as good as the real thing.

   The iView book reader is just like this. It sorta looks like a Kindle or Nook, and has a color LCD screen like an iPad, but isn’t anywhere near as good as any of them. This is a product designed for people who think they might want an ebook reader but don’t want to pay for the quality afforded by brand names and are okay with sacrificing quality for price.

   I’m not going to reiterate the specs as they’re already listed in this Amazon page. There is one discrepancy I noticed. The Amazon page says that it supports up to 32GB SDHC cards, but the manual with the unit says 16GB. As I don’t own anything above an 8GB card I was unable to verify either claim.

   The screen is reasonablty bright with a matte finish, making it easier to read in bright light or outdoors. (Are you listening, Apple?) The plastic case is nicely textured, not unlike a laptop’s trackpad, making it easy to grip. The buttons are clearly marked. It supports a reasonably wide assortment of file formats including PDF so it’s not terribly difficult to find content for it. (One of the first things I did was download a few books from the Baen free library and it worked perfectly.) Connecting it to the computer with the provided USB cable makes the device show up as a standard USB storage device. To load content onto it, you simply drag and drop from your desktop. There is no sync tool; in fact, there is no software to load onto your computer at all. Screen quality is good. Not great, but good. As a book reader it supports several text sizes so those of you with failing eyesight can adjust the text size quite a bit. Battery life is decent; I ran it for several hours at full brightness and only lost one (of four) battery bars.

   This is where the cheapness starts to come in. It weighs about a half pound, the same as the current model Kindle, but its shape makes it feel heavier. There are, IMO, too many buttons; 23 in total and they’re not all placed logically or conveniently, nor do they perform unique functions. For example, on the right side are “up/down” and “left/right” buttons. When navigating the menus the logical action would mimic an iPod’s controls; up and down to move the selection cursor, left and right to drill down and up through a menu selection. In practice, left/right and up/down work identically (left and up both move the selection up, while right and down both move the selection down). You select a menu option by pressing the button at the bottom center of the unit, inexplicably labeled “M” for some reason. Also, there is a directional button (up/down/left/right) surrounding the “M” button which exactly duplicates the functionality of the side-mounted up/down and left/right buttons. So, yeah, there’s FOUR ways to move the menu selection at any given time – left, up, left directional button, or up directional button to move the selection up, and right, down, right directional button, or down directional button to move the selection down. Why, I don’t know.

   Power management on this device, as a whole, is just weird. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out all of the power management rules and I don’t want to bore you with the details. Suffice to say, here are the highlights:

   1. There is a physical power switch on the bottom edge of the device, AND a power button on the bottom of…

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2. Bryan J. Sims says:

   January 10, 2012 at 9:17 am

   22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Don’t buy it!, December 8, 2010

   By 

   Bryan J. Sims –
   
     

   This review is from: Iview 700EB 7-Inch Color LCD Digital E-Book Reader (Office Product)

   This item takes forever to turn pages. The controls are very slow to respond. The instructions were either written by someone who could not read or did not speak english. The image is not as good as they claim and the size of the font is still very limited. I should have spent more money and not purchaced this item. The real down side is, I bought 4 of them, 3 as gifts. I wish that I had waited for reviews by others before purchacing.

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3. peterbenezra says:

   January 10, 2012 at 10:02 am

   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Poor performance, No customer service. Save your money!, March 18, 2011

   By 

   peterbenezra –

   This review is from: Iview 700EB 7-Inch Color LCD Digital E-Book Reader (Office Product)

   I bought this product in November 2010 and had similar power related problems as well as poor logical design with keys serving no apparent function. But that was the good news, now the reader is as dead as a doorknob and will not even turn on or hold a charge or even turn on with a charger. Along with no power, the product seems to have eaten my additional memory card and I cannot retrieve it. Tried to contact and call the manufacturer for warranty work and have not received the courtesy of a reply. Not sure if they really are in business. Save your money and go elsewhere. By peterbenezracpa@hotmail.

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4. Joel Barnes says:

   January 10, 2012 at 10:43 am

   127 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

   
   How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth, November 22, 2004

   By 

   Joel Barnes –

   This review is from: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Paperback)

   Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but the fact that _How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth_ has sold more than half a million copies and is now in its third edition should say something about its utility to neophyte Bible students. I sure could have used this book five years ago when I first began reading the Bible in order to understand it. No use crying over spilt milk though. A late arrival is better than a no-show!

   The significance of co-authorship on this book is simply due to the fact that Drs. Douglas Stuart (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) and Gordon Fee (Regent College) specialize in Old and New Testament studies respectively. If the label evangelical has any meaning left today, then Stuart and Fee fall under that rubric. This is implicitly evident from their stance on the nature of Scripture (2003, pp. 21-3), which they affirm as God’s word spoken through human words in history.

   The title of the book leaves little ambiguity as to what it is; it’s a how-to book on understanding the Bible. Surely anyone with an inkling of interest in the Bible has experienced the inherent difficulty in understanding the Bible. Stuart and Fee work to minimize this – both the experience and the associated frustration.

   _How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth_ is written with the layperson in mind. At every turn, Stuart and Fee make sure and define their terms, thus making for an informative yet pleasurable read. They deal with every major section of Scripture such as the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Wisdom Literature, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Revelation. The approach taken to each section is more or less the same. The focus is first on exegesis and then on hermeneutics. Exegesis has to do with the “then and there,” of the Bible’s content. Hermeneutics, as Stuart and Fee use the term, has to do with the “here and now,” of the Bible’s message. Stuart and Fee explain their dual approach at the outset:

   …we have two tasks: First, our task is to find out what the text originally meant; this is called exegesis. Second, we must learn to hear that same meaning in the variety of new or different context of our own day; we call this second task hermeneutics. In its classical usage, the term “hermeneutics” covers both tasks, but in this book we consistently use it only in this narrower sense. (2003, p. 15)

   One of the keywords in _How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth_ is guidelines. In their book, Stuart and Fee are not setting out to promulgate a partisan approach to understanding the Bible that requires specialized assumptions within evangelicalism. Instead, they come across as having a genuine concern for the beginning Bible student and seek to point him or her in the right direction with general guidelines. They freely admit on more than one occasion that they do not expect every reader to agree with their particular take on a given point.

   As someone with a couple years of serious Bible study under my belt, I think it is worth pointing out a couple of chapters, which I found immensely helpful: (1) Acts: The Question of Historical Precedent, (2) The Parables: Do You Get the Point?, and (3) The Law(s): Covenant Stipulations for Israel. The chapter on historical precedent put into words something that I have been ruminating over for some time now, that is, the caveat that a practice as described in a narrative is not ipso facto normative and, therefore, binding. The chapter on parables forever settled an issue that I was confused about, namely, the nature of Jesus’ parables. They may be semi-allegorical at times, but never pure allegory. Lastly, the chapter on the Law is so informative! Stuart gives the big picture of the Old Testament in such a helpful way.

   I’m sure there are many helpful books out there on how to read the Bible in a fruitful way. All I will say here is that, provided you are a conservative Christians, you won’t go wrong with this book. (I consider that an understatement, by the way.) There is a lot of content to be digested, however. Commit yourself to read this book a few times over.

   PS: If you haven’t a clue what commentary to purchase when studying one of the books of the Bible, you’ll find the appendix handy. A list of recommended commentaries is offered on every single book of the Bible.

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5. Harold McFarland says:

   January 10, 2012 at 11:20 am

   39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

   
   One of the best introductory texts available, March 28, 2004

   By 

   Harold McFarland (Florida) –
   
     
   
     
   
     

   This review is from: How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Paperback)

   This is the foundational understanding that everyone should know before studying the Bible. Although it is written in an easy to understand style it is still full of very valuable information. For example, people often ask why there are so many different translations of the Bible. The authors do an excellent job of showing the complications and difficulties of translating and how different versions of a verse could each be just as viable as an accurate translation.

   The authors also deal with the problems of interpretation, exegesis, historical and cultural context and literary conventions of the time. They look at the narrative style of the Old Testament and its function as well as Acts, the various parables, prophets, psalms, wisdom literature, and the revelation. You may not agree with every aspect of their treatment of the various books and literary styles, but this is the best treatment of the problems of translation and interpretation that I have come across to date. “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” is highly recommend for anyone interested in Bible translation or interpretation.

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6. Anonymous says:

   January 10, 2012 at 12:04 pm

   306 of 312 people found the following review helpful:

   
   For non-Christians or anybody who hasn’t read it and wants to read the whole Bible to decide once and for all, August 26, 2009

   By 

   Anonymous (Virginia USA) –

   Amazon Verified Purchase(http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/amazon-verified-purchase/182-8892671-4202244', ‘AmazonHelp’, ‘width=400,height=500,resizable=1,scrollbars=1,toolbar=0,status=1′);return false; “>What’s this?)

   This review is from: The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: New Living Translation-2) (Paperback)

   It seems that most of the other reviews for this Bible were written by people who are already Christians and who have many years of experience reading the Bible, so I thought I would write one from my perspective also. I am not a Christian (at this point anyway) and I recently ordered this Bible because I decided it was time I actually made an effort to read it to decide for myself once and for all.

   I have spent much of my life wondering whether any of Christianity’s teachings were true or just wishful thinking, and perhaps also a good sales job perpetuated by ancient people with an agenda. But it’s quite easy to have an uneducated opinion about something you vaguely know about but haven’t actually read! So, I decided to actually start putting forth an effort to read the actual Bible, the whole thing, from beginning to end. I hoped that this exercise would put the issue to rest in my life and I would be able to decide once and for all what I thought about Christianity.

   I ordered this Bible because the concept intrigued me – read the whole Bible in one year! A good friend of mine told me about the NLT translation and how great it was, so I ordered that version. I also ordered a “regular” NLT Study Bible that has a lot more notes and explanations about everything – introductions to the different parts and things like that.

   I received this One Year Bible in August, and when I opened it up, I randomly flipped through and saw that there was a scheduled reading for each day. So I turned to the page for that date in August and started reading. I read the entry for that day. Then I skipped a few days, and finally got around to getting caught up on my reading. I had forgotten what that first day’s reading was about, so I reviewed it a little, and then read the several days’ worth of passages to get caught up to the present day. That’s when I realized that the story continued from day to day!

   This may sound silly to someone who knows the Bible well, but maybe it will make sense to someone like me who doesn’t. I had thought that the people who developed this particular Bible reading method maybe had chopped the Bible up into various “pieces” which took up the right amount of time to read, but I hadn’t realized that if you start reading this Bible on January 1 of a given year, you will start everything at the natural beginning. And if you happen to start reading it in August, you will be picking the book up in the very middle and it won’t make much sense. It will be like picking up any other book and starting to read it in the middle.

   Like others have said in their reviews, each day’s scheduled reading includes some passages from the Old Testament, some from the New Testament, and then a few Psalms and Proverbs too. If you look at the January 1st entry, you’ll see that the Old Testament reading starts with Genesis 1:1 (the beginning of the Old Testament), and the New Testament reading starts with Matthew 1:1 (the beginning of the New Testament). So if you start on January 1st, you’ll start reading the beginning of the Old and the beginning of the New simultaneously, a little each day.

   Well, by getting the book in August and starting to read the August entries, I was plopped down in the middle of the book of Job for the Old Testament and Corinthians for the New. So when I started reading, it all seemed very random in nature. I began to wonder if a bunch of random “pieces” of the Bible put together in some unknown sequence would have enough of an overall thread to teach me anything. But when I read several days’ worth at one sitting, it dawned on me that yesterday’s Job readings continued with today’s Job readings and the same with Corinthians. I had an aha moment!

   So I turned to the January 1st entry and saw that it began with Genesis as you might expect. Like I said, this may sound silly to someone who knows the Bible well (they might have immediately thought “what am I doing deep in the book of Job on the first day of reading?”), but I didn’t know any better so I just kept reading.

   So I have a suggestion for people like me who want to read the Bible for the first time ever and who don’t happen to get it in their eager little hands until well after January 1 of a given year. The day you start reading it, just start at the beginning of the book as though it were January 1. That way, your readings will be in their proper sequence. I suppose the developers of this book could have titled the daily scheduled readings “Day 1″ and “Day 2″, etc., instead of “January 1″ and “January 2″ so people could start reading on any day of the year, but since they didn’t do that, I think it would be helpful to just pretend they are titled that way and start reading on January 1 regardless of what date you actually start reading it. Another idea is to get this or give it as a Christmas present! That…

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7. A. Davis says:

   January 10, 2012 at 12:13 pm

   74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

   
   The One Year Bible, November 17, 2005

   By 

   A. Davis (Dallas, Texas) –

   This review is from: The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: New Living Translation-2) (Paperback)

   I’ve attempted to read the Bible through many times and have never been able to keep up with it. However, a friend recommended to me this version, which separates the daily readings into OT, NT, Psalms, and Proverbs, and it is AWESOME! It’s so easy to stick with, and I am over HALF WAY through the Bible! I highly recommend this Bible for your spiritual growth and journey through the Word.

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8. Bibliophile says:

   January 10, 2012 at 12:45 pm

   170 of 172 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Touch screen: cool page turner, slightly foggy effect, November 13, 2008

   By 

   Bibliophile (Manhasset, NY United States) –

   This review is from: Sony PRS-700BC Reader Digital Book (Electronics)

   I had a Sony reader PRS-505 for a year then bought the new PRS-700 model.
   The new model comes with a touch screen put over the letter screen, allowing to turn pages back and forth with swiping motion like iphone. As a result there are fewer buttons for control; a stylus is provided to highlight or search words and make notes.
   A little drawback: The added layer of the touch screen causes the underlying letters to appear slightly foggy. However, unless you have a previous model next to the new one to compare, you wouldn’t notice it. The appearance of the letters is still excellent. The new PRS 700 offers LED lights around the screen to allow reading in a dark environment. It is slightly thicker and comes in one color. (black). It can now take up to 8G SD card instead of 2G. The grey scale is 8; the resolution is 170 psi—no change from previous model. I upgraded to the new model after thinking about the slightly diminished appearance of the ink letters; I am very happy with the purchase.

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9. Brenda Stander says:

   January 10, 2012 at 1:25 pm

   91 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Sony Prs-700 (Portable Reading System), March 21, 2009

   By 

   Brenda Stander (Japan) –
   
     

   This review is from: Sony PRS-700BC Reader Digital Book (Electronics)

   I have never left a review on Amazon.com before, although I have bought many products here over the years.
   I decided to leave a review for the Sony Portable Reader 700, since there seems to be some misconception regarding this product, and there aren’t ENOUGH (real) reviews here, as opposed to the Kindle (Amazon’s own proprietary reader, which is heavily advertised here). I think the reason for this is because amazon reading device, is sold EXCLUSIVELY on Amazon.com to Americans. So it’s only natural that it has many hundreds of reviews on this site.
   The Sony Readers are sold in thousands of locations, airports, stores, online, bookstores etc. and in several countries around the world. Since very few Sony Reader owners bought their device on Amazon, it’s only natural that the reviews here are much fewer. (Then unfortunately there are the Trolls, who leave fake bad ‘reviews’ for the Sony Reader, trying to damage the ratings for some reason known only to themselves).

   This is Sony’s 4th e-ink Reader. First the Librie in 2004 which was the very first e-ink reader in the world, then theSony PRS-500 Portable Reader System, in 2006. The PRS-505 which came in three colors in 2007 ; Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader,Sony PRS-505/RC Digital eBook Reader – Red, Sony PRS-505 Portable Digital e-Reader System (Silver) and now the latest Sony PRS-700 Reader Digital Book Portable eBook reader with 6″ touchscreen display. The reason I mention the 700′s predecessors is to point out that Sony isn’t new at the e-ink (e-paper) business. In fact, they were the first!

   I had a hard time deciding between the PRS-505 Red and the PRS-700. The PRS-505 has a slightly crisper screen and I LOVED the stylish red color of the device, especially paired with a red leather cover. But for me, the PRS-700 has better features, and more fancy bells and whistles (and comes with a free cover).
   I decided on the 700, as it had what I wanted most, and it was the latest .

   The device is very grown-up and stylish looking, great to hold, (not too heavy) and looks EXPENSIVE and nice! Non gimmicky and no cheap plastic here, but then again, that is what we have come to expect from a Sony product.
   The touch screen is interactive and can be used as a virtual keyboard to make notes. Words can be highlighted and saved, pages can be bookmarked, small natural gestures to turn pages, (there are also small well placed buttons for page turns and zoom etc.) using either the stylus or your fingers. The last page on the books you are reading is remembered, so it takes seconds to continue reading a book where you left off last time.

   Page turns are super fast and there is an ability to zoom into PDF documents and move them around on the page. Hundreds of books, documents, photos, images and mp3′s can be stored on the internal device and there are two options for expanding. A SD Memory Card slot and Memory Stick Duo slot, thereby increasing the amount space of books to virtually UNLIMITED!

   The Sony PRS-700 supports many document types, PDF, ePub, TXT, RFT, to name just a few. So books can be bought from many sources NOT only the Sony Connect store. Your own documents and ebooks that you already own, can be easily and quickly transferred to your device. A free open source library software called Calibre, (that works very much like iTunes) works fantastically with your Sony and even converts file types and adds metadata and book covers for you.

   Sony has recently partnered with Google books bringing their book count up to 600’000 books! The 500’00 Google books are free and mostly in the ePub format. Fantastic news!

   Some people have complained about foggy screen, but I don’t feel that to be the case. Yes, yes…. I hear that the 505′s screen is crisper, but since I don’t have one to compare with I don’t feel the loss and I’m quite happy – MORE than happy with my personal choice. I have sometimes forgotten that I am using a Reader and slathered my hands with lotion before going to bed (to read), but found NO smudges on the screen the next day. The Sony PRS-700 definitely has a fantastic NON SMUDGE screen.

   Also complaints about glare…. WHAT glare? Honestly! The only (small) glare that I encountered was a small spot off the metal edge of…

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