The SmartQ 7 - a wonderful ebook and comic reader

Looks good.

Still not quite convinced by the Q7 for me, though. I need something pocketable that will give me a larger screen than my E71 but smaller than my Eee and will be good for web browsing, RDP and SSH while tethered to the E71 and won't break the bank! The Q7 might be a bit too big to be pocketable and the lack of keyboard would potentially be a problem for RDP and SSH (don't want to have to use a USB keyboard). So at the moment the N810 is looking the best option. Are you selling your old one? :)

It doesn't sound as though it's for you at all, no. It's lovely for web browsing (same screen size as the Asus eee, 800x480) but the UI in this distro leaves a *lot* to be desired. The good thing about it is that it already has very good unofficial support, a version of MER almost ready to be used and even an Android port in the works. The company is also releasing a Wince 6.0 download soon (blergh). Bluetooth tethering is cack and for anything like SSH it's going to be a drag.

I'd say go for an N810 if you're really looking to get something pocketable and versatile; it has great support, a lovely OS and lots and lots of support.

Thanks, I think I will go for the N810 but I'll probably hang on and see if they come down in price any further.

I do love my E71, it does most of what I want, just would be nice to have a bigger screen occasionally. I use the E71 for ebook reading, too. Half way through London Fields by Martin Amis at the moment.

wow, really? It would do mt nut to read on such a small screen. What's the price point you're looking for (I just spotted one for £150 'buy now' on ebay)

Yes, I've read lots of novels on it, and on my E61 before I had the E71, including the His Dark Materials trilogy! I do have to have the font at the largest setting in Mobipocket, though.

The thing about Ebay is that I have to compare the price used with ex-VAT price new because my business is VAT registered.If I bought from Expansys at their current price it would be about £150 plus VAT including postage so if I was to buy used on Ebay it would have to be significantly less than £150. I narrowly missed buying one for £104 the other day - was the highest bidder until the last few seconds and not quite quick enough to respond. Felt like the Lions did today :)

Another one went for £102 today, but that was with a seller who had zero feedback so risky - stayed out of that one.

Since Expansys have taken the stock off Nokia ahead of the launch of their new internet tablet I reckon it won't be long before they start including the N810 in their 'Friday deals'. That's if I haven't managed to find another low price one on Ebay in the meantime.

Alfie, how comfortable is reading comics on the Q7?

Do you need to zoom in/out much?

Are the captions easily legible?

I've lots of cbr files that I'd love to read on something like this...

Thanks!

Darn it, think I messed up. Could you also take my email address out of the above comment please?

Sure thing Del, that's removed now. It's absolutely *perfect* for reading comics. I haven't had to zoom in on any page at all. It's basically the perfect width, and because you can just page up with your thumb using Comix (you can either install Comix from a deb file or change your main repository to http://repository.handhelds.org) it becomes super comfortable and handy.

Awesome, thanks Alfie. I was pretty close to getting one and have now just ordered one.

I'm not too tech-savy, so it is much of an ordeal to install Comix?

Do you have any more comic screenshots that you could email me, by any chance?

It's gonna be a long couple weeks until my Q7 arrives...

One more thing - how are comics in portrait mode? Then perhaps the text is a little too small to read with ease?

Del - it's not too much of a chore to add Comix, no. Once you have one just come back here and Ill talk you through it step by step. I don't even bother with comics (or books) in portrait mode, I mean, it's much harder to actually handle the device in that position, and the keys aren't really set up for portrait reading. In Comix however you can set some pretty refined options, allowing you to set the width for portrait reading so that you get a panel for the width.

Alfie, thanks again, I'll get in touch when it arrives.

Alfie, any chance you could email me a couple more pics like your first one, if you have any to hand? Kinda pointless now as my Q7 will be on its way in a week or two, but I'd like to see a little more of how the comics will look, nonetheless...

And would you mind removing my email address again please, I repeated my error from last time absolutely perfectly...

Hehe, Hi Del. Removed that email. Ill upload some more shots of the device in comic reading mode this evening.

Great, appreciated, Alfie!

Alfie, it's arrived - looks good, but I can't connect to the internet. Talk about ineptitude. The device won't go past the "obtaining IP address" stage. Any chance you have any idea what I can do?

Alfie,

Bit more info for you:

The internet connection, annoyingly, is Verizon's fault. For some reason, my SmartQ 7 can't get past the "obtaining IP address" stage. This was also the case for my MacBook initially, until I spoke to Verizon and they told me to download a package of theirs, etc.

So I went to Starbucks and tested the internet there. It works fine.

On to the next problem - first of all, I tried loading a micro SD card and got the message "Init SD fail". I went and bought a San Disk 2GB SD card from Best Buy, and formatted it in the store to to FAT32.

Back to running GPI again and "Init SD fail" again. Despite that, though, the SD card does appear on my Q7 as "disk."

Went back to Starbucks and downloaded 2 applications, Python Imaging and Comix.

When I try to install Python from the SD card, I'm met with the "Install same from channel" message, as expected, which I get rid of.

But then I get the "Init SD fail" message again, and when I click OK, the install screen for Python disappears.

Does any of that make any sense to you?

If so, help!

Alfie, my previous post was far too long-winded, so here's the problem more concisely:

I've tried 3 different SD cards (1x1gb micro sd and 2x2gb standard sd - all three official products) and the Q7 won't fully recognize any of them, giving me the message "Init SD fail" each time that I use GPI.

The 2gb sd cards, though, did appear on the Q7 screen as"disk", and I could open the (empty) folder fine...

I've tried installing Python but even when I try to do this with the file on the Q7 itself (not the SD card), GPI just gives me the "Init SD fail" message again, even though there's no SD card in the slot.

Any help much appreciated!

Aargh, put your name as my name by mistake, I'm making this so confusing!

Hi Del,

right (I changed the above name issues btw). IN terms of the SD card, I'm not entirely sure what's happening there. Perhaps use a PC rather than a Mac to try formatting the card? Once you have an SD card that can be seen and written to perform the following steps:

1) Download the latest firmware from here and flash the device. To flash the device simply place the firmware image onto the SD card, switch the device off, and thenwhilst holding down the last button on the left hand side, power on. Also, make sure the image is called SmartQ7

2) After flashing, go to PCFileman under system tools and navigate to etc/apt/ and under "Tool" select 'run current folder as root'

3) Open sources.list and change the text to: deb http://repository.handhelds.org/hasty-armv6el-vfp hasty main multiverse universe restricted

4) Save sources.list

5) Open Evilvte and type: sudo apt-get update (of course you need to be connected to the internet)

6)still in evilvte type: sudo apt-get install comix (This will also install the python imaging dependencies)

7) still in evilvte type: sudo apt-get install gnome-apt (this is a far easier way of managing packages/apps than currently comes with the smartQ7)

8) still in evilvte type: sudo apt-get clean (this removes any unwanted packages)

Your device should now be in great shape to read comics and books as well as install things you might like to much more easily through gnome-apt. If you want a Comix shortcut on your desktop, navigate to the folder: usr/share/applications and simply drag the Comix icon to your desktop.

With rather a lot of trial and error, the above is pretty much the best way I've found to have the device behave the way I'd like it to, I hope it works for you!

Alfie,

Many thanks for wading through my convoluted messages and giving me something this clear. I'll try it and get back to you...

Alfie,

I seemingly cannot do anything right on the Q7. I’m pretty sure that firmware 4.0 is already installed on mine (it has gnome dialup installed, if that’s the same program that you mentioned), but I think I need to flash it again to reset everything, anyway.

So I downloaded the file from the link you provided, which gave me the SmartQ7-4.0.rar file, but Xarchiver wouldn’t expand it, stating “Unexpected end of archive.”

And I’m not sure what’s going on with the SD card. It does appear on the screen as “disk” and I can move files to and from it, but whenever I run Package Installer, I get the same “Init SD fail – Mount file fail” message, again.

Can I unzip the SmartQ7-4.0.rar file on a PC, put the image onto the SD card, then flash the Q7 like that, do you think?

To answer my own question, no I couldn't load the files from a PC onto the SD, then from there onto the Q7.

And, just to make things even better, the keyboard is now playing up - whenever I try to type anything (such as an website address), the keyboard make whatever program I am using quit!

What is that about?

Eek Del, not having a good time! Right, so here's what I'd do with the issues you describe:

1) Re-download the firmware image (I've downloaded it and the archive seems fine), extract it, ensure it's named SmartQ7 and place on SD card

2) Flash device by switching it off, holding down the 3rd button on the left hand side whilst powering on

You shouldn't ever need to run the package installer, if you look at my earlier instructions they are all command line installations until you get gnome-apt, which then you can use as your package installer.

Alfie, all's working great now. The Q7 is exactly what I wanted, perfect for reading comics. Thanks again for the help!

Glad to hear it. They've just released an Android image for the device but I haven't been able to get it working yet. Once I do Ill post about it as I'm thinking it just *has* to be better than the SmartQ version of Ubuntu.