Windows Mobile Smartphones are wonderful devices that allow us to carry fewer things around and be more productive in an increasingly convergent world. From this single device we can not only make phone calls, we can send instant messages and e-mails, browse the Internet, make and view appointments, keep track of our contacts, and much more. However, Smartphones have always lacked one feature that helped make the Pocket PC a success—an eBook reader. But those days are gone forever with the introduction of a tiny program with a big set of features.
Fast page load for great reading enjoyment!
Golden Crater Software (http://www.goldencrater.com) has introduced Tiny eBook Reader, an amazing program that “reads†(i.e. lets you read) MS Reader-formatted (LIT) files as well as HTML and plain-text documents. You can even view plain-text documents that have been zipped.(Note: Tiny eBook Reader is also available for the Pocket PC, but this review focuses on the Smartphone version of the program.)
Tiny eBook Reader (TBR) is not only powerful, it’s fast! The pages fly by on the screen thanks to a pre-pagination process that takes place when you open an eBook for the first time. Pagination, last page read, and other information are stored in a TBR data file, which the program creates for each book it reads. This information is used to speed things up so you don’t have to wait for each page to load.
View images and link to Web pages
The way the program handles embedded images also helps speed things up. Images aren’t automatically displayed in the text of an eBook as they are in MS Reader. Instead, a bracketed numbered link, highlighted in green, is displayed for each image (Fig. 1). To view the image, you merely press the corresponding number on the keypad. When you do, the image is displayed using Pocket Internet Explorer (Fig. 2). When you’re done viewing, press the “back†button to return to the page you were on.
Fig. 1 (top): Color-coded links let you view images, send e-mails, and view Web sites by pressing the number on the phone’s key pad that corresponds to the link. Fig. 2 (center): Images are displayed using Pocket Internet Explorer. Fig. 3 (bottom): Pick from a list of articles for easy navigation!
Links to Web and e-mail addresses embedded in a document are also displayed. Press the corresponding number on the keypad for a Web link and the Web page pops up in Internet Explorer. Press the corresponding number on the keypad for the e-mail link and the Inbox new message screen pops up, with the e-mail address already entered. Of course, your Smartphone will need to be connected to the Internet to use these features. (These features were added to the program to support the eBook version of Pocket PC magazine.)
You’ll also find links to phone numbers in some documents. Press the corresponding number on the keypad and your phone will automatically dial the number for you.
Excellent navigation within a document
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