Since the internal testing of Shanda’s Bambook, there has been much discussion about whether Bambook is a product Shanda is hyping up.

Overall, there are several situations:

1. Among direct users of Bambook, most are satisfied, a few are extremely dissatisfied, and very few are taking a wait-and-see attitude;

2. On the internet, the voices questioning Bambook far outweigh the praises;

3. Shanda is determined to promote Bambook with all its might. As a traditional software and gaming service company, it aims to learn from Amazon and establish a benchmark in China’s e-reader market.

Since I personally got my hands on Bambook, I often visit the Bambook forum and have joined many user groups. Based on my incomplete judgment, most friends are quite satisfied with Bambook. At least at its current price point, few would regret buying it.

However, as an electronic product, Bambook also has many issues. Among the myriad of problems, as someone said, “Great companies always have aspects that the general public cannot understand.” Some issues raised by the public are not within Shanda’s control. But as a company that needs to take on sufficient responsibility, Shanda still has much to improve.

1. The screen is fragile, and Shanda has not given enough warning;

E-ink screens are generally fragile, and cracks are not visible after breaking. Of course, this cannot be blamed on Shanda. Across the e-reader market, almost all devices using E-ink screens have a high incidence of screen breakage. However, the handling attitudes of different companies vary, and Shanda is quite rigid. Almost all users who break their screens can only opt for a screen replacement at a cost of 670 yuan;

2. Accessories have been slow to catch up with Bambook’s release;

We can understand that Shanda, venturing into e-readers for the first time, inevitably makes some small mistakes. But the speed of Bambook’s accessory release is indeed too slow. To date, only book covers and 3G internet cards are available for sale on the Bambook official website, and the latter is not directly produced by Shanda. As for book covers, it has been a long time since Shanda has had any in stock, always marked as “sold out.” Recently, Shanda seems to have started paying attention to this issue, optimizing and upgrading the book covers and offering free replacements for previous users, which is a good attitude.

3. Doubts about specific specifications like CPU and screen;

Many online question whether Bambook’s CPU is really 800MHz. According to some teardown tests by brave users, Shanda did not deceive everyone, but using a smartphone CPU suggests that Shanda might have been misled by the OEM due to inexperience.

The claim that the screen only has 8 grayscale levels instead of 16 is puzzling. However, in daily use, I have not encountered any issues, provided that it is only used for reading, ignoring other functions.

4. Lack of support for Mp3, Av playback, etc.;

I understand that everyone on Earth has limited space and needs to integrate as many functions as possible into one product. But using Bambook to listen to music is quite tasteless… As for AV, that’s even more absurd. Who in the 21st century would want to watch black-and-white videos with a maximum of 16 grayscale levels?

But having something is better than nothing. Although Bambook does not have a dedicated music playback chip, implementing the function is not difficult, though the sound quality won’t be great. It’s better to omit such non-essential features.

5. Format support issues;

This is purely nonsense. Those who haven’t used BB question whether it can only play .snb format, considering it a gimmick. But in actual use, I find it quite convenient. I used to think that the best mode for mobile devices was direct USB or other interface connections to a computer for data transfer. But since using BB (BlackBerry) a few years ago, I found that using a client for transfer is not inconvenient and even more reassuring, as content management becomes much easier.

In actual use, I haven’t encountered any format issues, though I mainly use free or pirated TXT, DOC formats from the internet.

6. Capacity issues;

Bambook uses 2G of flash memory, advertised to hold 1 billion Chinese characters, which is true. 2G = 2,147,483,648 bytes, with two bytes storing one Chinese character, roughly 1 billion. However, since BB’s storage requires converting TXT and other formats to SNB, the actual storage capacity is slightly reduced, but not to the extent of being unable to hold a few books. Currently, my BB has over 400 books, occupying about 400M of memory. I believe a normal person would find it hard to read 2G of books in one or two years…

7. Lack of a web browser function;

I understand that YY is holding events, and YY has entered a new level, but I can’t imagine browsing the web on an E-ink screen… It’s said that Amazon’s Kindle 3 has a browser, but it’s universally criticized as a gimmick because browsing on an E-ink screen severely impacts user experience. If color E-ink screens are developed in the future, it might be worth considering…

8. Slow operational response;

This is indeed another frustrating issue. With an 800MHz CPU, the speed shouldn’t be this slow, but the reality is that every operation has a delay of a second or so. It’s still unclear whether this is due to the screen’s inherent factors or the CPU’s processing efficiency. However, from the fast page-turning in “reading speed priority” mode, it seems more likely to be a firmware or CPU processing issue.

9. No backlight on the screen, inconvenient at night;

…Can books bought in bookstores glow? Can newspapers and magazines glow?…

I was also very frustrated and considered buying a small book light to solve this problem, but after multiple inquiries, I decided to modify a desk lamp instead. E-ink screens do not emit light, so naturally, other light sources are needed for reading at night.

10. Lack of annotation, search, and categorization functions;

Compared to other color-screen gadgets, E-ink e-readers have the advantage of not needing page refresh, the most natural tones, and energy efficiency, making them the closest to physical books. However, compared to physical books, their biggest drawback is the inability to write or draw on them… Bambook has a T9 keyboard but lacks annotation functionality, which is quite a flaw.

Additionally, full-text search, book search, and other functions are unavailable offline, and the book categorization feature is only available for non-beta users after November 18…

Personally, I think Bambook is a somewhat impressive domestic electronic product;

Firstly, in terms of reading effect, Bambook’s screen contrast, or the screen’s background color, is better than many other similar products.

Secondly, in terms of price, apart from the smuggled Kindle 3, other products are still priced high, and other domestic distributors’ products are hard to trust. Shanda boasts that the hardware alone costs over 1,800 yuan, but the selling price is less than 1,000 yuan, which seems a bit exaggerated. But if Bambook’s hardware doesn’t even cost 800-900 yuan, I doubt anyone in the market would dare to claim that: the cost-performance ratio is extremely high.

The annoying black screen refresh issue with E-ink has been surprisingly well resolved by Shanda, which is unexpected.

Unfortunately, many people don’t appreciate it and always compare it to TFT and other color screens, thinking the page-turning is extremely slow… I have nothing more to say.