Alurateck Libre e-Book Reader

Decided to see if i would like using one. There were two goals - it had to be inexpensive and non-proprietary, which certainly ruled out the Kindle and the iPad. I purchased the Aluratek Libre pro (in white), a small and cheap e-book reader. It has an SD card slot and a usb connector - important for easy copying and it supports PDF, TXT, FB2, ePub, MOBI, PRC, and RTF files.

First step was to upgrade the firmware. We downloaded and unzipped the folder, connected the usb cable and started copying the folder to the SD card. It ran for a while and then we got an error message about '..too deep' or something and then Windows explorer froze up. We unplugged the SD card and killed explorer. This fixed that problem. We were now able to reconnect to the device's 128mb internal memory which has 4 folders:

• Pictures
• Books
• Audiobooks
• adobe-digital-editions

Since the display is black and white i'm not sure why you would put pictures on it! The audiobooks folder would be useful - it can store mp3 songs or real audio books. I'll transfer some of my audio books and check it out. Copying files to and from the device is very slow, very slow indeed. Be prepared to wait.

Connected the device to an Ubuntu 9.10 desktop and copying is fast, copied over some .mobi, .rb, .ltf, .epub and .pdf files for testing. The copying was without a problem - until the device disappeared from the desktop. It still thinks it is connected and does not want to turn off. We had to use the reset button in the back of the unit. Maybe take another try at updating the firmware?

Connected back to windows to transfer the firmware update folder with the .bin file. This now worked but i had to take out and insert the SD card a couple of times before it got recognized and assigned a drive letter. Arrgh the copy fails again with 'the path is too deep' - it's a single folder, jim! Windows then says 'delayed write failed', The data has been lost'. It looks like the unit turns itself off. Maybe look at the settings or try another machine. The copy process hangs repeatedly when there are 10 seconds remaining. But when i compared the files they are the same size so let's try the update process.


The update process is:

• Disconnect AEBK01F from your computer after the file transfer
• Reset AEBK01F by pressing the “RESET” button in the back of the unit
• Push and hold both ‘>’ and ‘Power’ buttons for more than 5 seconds to boot up until you see the “Aluratek” logo
• Wait for 10 to 20 seconds until the upgrade screen
• Follow the on screen instruction to upgrade the unit
• AEBK01F will now update the firmware.
  
• Please wait until you see the message “Firmware Upgrade completed!

Finaslly, after a couple of resets we get the upgrade process screen so we press OK. The upgrade process takes about 2 minutes but erases the internal memory so i'll have to re-copy the audio books. Oh great - we get 'Firmware upgrade failed - hardware failure occurs'. So we reset the device. Screw the upgrade...Wonder if the problem is the SD card? Perhaps we should reformat it or try a different card. Right now let's try and read some books - the included .txt ones load no problem. The first .pdf does not load. We try Dawkins in epub format but it 'fails to open the file'. Try another epub and it works! Let's try a mobi file which it skips over so we try another epub and it works fine. The text is not bad - pretty readable but requiring good light. Let's try and copy some more books on this card.

Off to the store tomorrow