We present to your attention the budget model of the Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B Black, which, of course, has already won the recognition of connoisseurs of literary works. Prestigio, headquartered in Limassol (Cyprus), has for several years been offering users high quality products with modern technology and design, as well as a combination of elegance and sophistication. Note that eBook Reader PER3374B is not the only representative of this type of device from Prestigio. The assortment of this brand includes many interesting models of e-books, for example, the budget model Prestigio Nobile eBook Reader PER3274B and the middle class model Prestigio eBook Reader PER5162B.
But let's go back to our model and see what this e-book reader is and what functions it has.
Hardware Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B
According to company representatives, the eBook Reader PER3374B is based on the Rockchip RK2738 ARM9 + DSP processor, which clocked at 400 MHz. In addition, the model is equipped with a 7-inch (17.8 centimeters) touchscreen color TFT-matrix with a resolution of 800x480 pixels. In sunny weather, the quality of the image on the screen, unfortunately, will deteriorate, but not so much that the e-book cannot be read. Still, it is better to save your eyesight and use the device in the shade or indoors.
The "Reader" we are testing allows you to work with files in the following formats:
test documents - TXT, PDF, WTXT, MOBI, EPUB, PDB, FB2, RTF and HTML;
video images - MKV, AVI, WMV, MP4, DAT, MPEG, VOB, 3GP, FLV, MPG, RM, and RMVB;
photos - BMP, GIF and JPEG;
music files - MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, AAC and OGG.
Among other things, the device can also be used as an FM receiver. But this function is available to the user only if headphones are connected, which, unfortunately, are not included in the package.
E-book Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B is equipped with 32 MB of RAM. There is also 4096 MB of integrated memory required for storing user information, of which only 3740 MB is available. The memory capacity can, of course, be increased by using a microSD memory card, the maximum capacity of which is 32 GB.
As far as the build quality of the device is concerned, there are no complaints here - all the body parts are perfectly matched to each other. The body of the e-book itself is very thin, with a weight of 312 grams, the dimensions of the device are (WxHxT): 200x120x10.5 millimeters.
Management, interface ports and connectors
The eBook Reader PER3374B control buttons are located to the left and bottom of the screen, as well as on the bottom end of the case. To the left of the touch screen is the Play / Pause button, as well as two buttons that perform the function of flipping through the electronic pages of the book.
Under the seven-inch display, buttons are located: calling the user menu, changing the page orientation, scaling, returning the page to its original position. In the middle between the "Menu" and "Zoom" buttons there is a four-position manipulator (joystick).
At the bottom, the user will find a power on / off button and a forced reset button for the electronic book (RESET). There is also an LED indicator informing about the operation of the device, an interface port of the microUSB standard, a 2.5 mm mini-jack for connecting headphones, and a slot for connecting a memory card. Using the USB port, the eBook Reader PER3374B can be connected to a personal computer. This interface is also used to charge the device's battery.
There is a small hole between the memory card slot and the audio output for connecting headphones. If you pick up this model for the first time, you can determine that a microphone is hidden in this hole. But our Reader is not equipped with this electroacoustic device.At least nothing is said about this mysterious hole in the user manual, and somehow we did not dare to spin the device to come to the truth.
Unfortunately, this e-book model does not have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless modules. It would even be surprising if this budget device had these adapters.
Sound quality
As for this characteristic of Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B, to be honest, there is not much you can say here - everything, unfortunately, is dull and banal simple. On the bottom of the case there is one sound speaker, the sound quality of which cannot be called good. Of course, the sound speaker in such a device is not the main component of an e-book reader, but still. You can get out of this situation if you use high-quality headphones. Despite the fact that the user has an equalizer, the sound quality still needs the best.
Functionality of the Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B
After turning on the e-book, triangular icons typical for Prestigio devices appear on the desktop of the seven-inch screen. Each of the pictograms corresponds to one or another function, the switching of which is carried out by means of a joystick or, alternatively, with the help of buttons to scroll through electronic pages. You can select the desired function for the user using the OSD menu button. The following sections are available here: “Books”, “Video”, “Games”, “History”, “Radio”, “Music”, “Photo”, “Settings”, “Explorer”, and “Instruction”.
The History section displays a list of the last opened electronic literary works. In addition to the names of the books, the following are also displayed here: the opening time, the total number of pages of the book, as well as the number of the page on which reading was interrupted.
The "Books" section contains the entire electronic library of the user. By default, information stored on the internal memory of the electronic device is displayed. There is already an initial selection of books. To open access to the literature stored on the memory card, you must press the zoom button, hold it down for a few seconds, and then release it. This solution, in our opinion, is a little strange, but what we have is what we have.
The "Music" menu item provides the user with access to sound files, the names of which can be viewed both in various categories and in general.
The "Video" item opens a list of video files available in Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B. Moreover, video files that can be stored both in the internal memory of the device and on a flash-card are available in a single list.
In the "Photos" menu, you can view your favorite photos. Everything is extremely simple here.
The item "Radio" also "speaks for itself". But, as we already mentioned at the beginning of the review, a prerequisite for listening to radio broadcasts is headphones connected to the corresponding jack of the device.
With the help of the "Explorer" function, you can open one by one all the files at the disposal of the e-book, which, of course, are supported by our device. The functions of copying and transferring files are not supported by the Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B, but it is capable of deleting unnecessary information. To delete a file, you must, for some reason, use the "Play / Pause" button.
As for the "Games" section, the user has only three games at his disposal: "Tetris", "Miner" and "Mosaic".
The "Settings" item offers us the following options:
"System Information" - information about the model, firmware version, as well as the degree of filling the internal memory and flash-card;
"Display settings" - setting the brightness level of the screen and the duration of its backlight;
"System settings" - return to the original settings, setting the time at the onset of which the device control buttons will be automatically blocked;
"Auto shutdown" - setting the time to turn off the e-book;
"Language" - selection of the interface language;
"Time" - setting the date and time.
The last section of the user menu is "Instruction", which contains the electronic version of the user manual.
At the very top of the touchscreen display: speaker sound level, battery status, current time, date and day of the week. Below the icons of the main menu there are function buttons: "Calendar", "Calculator" and "Search".
As for the calculator and the calendar, then, you understand, there is nothing special to tell here, but we would like to talk a little about the "Search for books" function. You can type the names of the text you are looking for using the on-screen keyboard, which is navigated by the joystick. When typing words in the "Search" line, literary works available in the electronic library appear on the display, in the titles of which these keywords are present, so there is no need to type the full title of the book.
Switching between storage media on which files are searched is carried out using the "Scale" button.
Working with e-book Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B
Let's now test our model in practice. We will start examining the operating modes with the "Books" mode, since the primary purpose of this device is to read text files. Impressions, frankly, are ambiguous.
To begin with, we note that Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B is a rather slow device. Opening a larger book in FB2 format may take about a minute, but after the book is fully loaded, the pages turn instantly.
The text on the screen is visible just fine, and this cannot but please us, especially considering the fact that no additional font settings are provided. You can only change the scale of the book page.
Scaling is also not as simple as we would like. If, say, while reading a book in EPUB or PDF files, press the zoom button, a menu will pop up on the display, in which the user will be prompted to select the desired picture size. But in books presented in the FB2 format, when you press the zoom button, the next scale is automatically set.
This method is very often used in various e-book models. And there seems to be nothing unnatural in this approach. But we already know that this "Reader" cannot be called nimble in any way. Scaling a book of, for example, 1,300 pages takes about two minutes. And, accidentally pressing the zoom button on a 3000-page book, we left this device for reading e-books to ourselves, and quietly left for coffee. Thus, we have a six-minute pause.
However, with files with EPUB permission, this kind of problem is not observed. The same books (1300 and 3000 pages) in this format can be opened and scaled fairly quickly.
The "Menu" button in reading mode performs the following functions: switching to a specific page of text, managing bookmarks, and setting the reading mode (selecting and configuring automatic page turning).
Each text document can contain up to five bookmarks. Added bookmarks are not visible on the screen. Another significant drawback of the reading mode is that footnotes to the text are not displayed. This drawback is present in almost all budget models of e-books produced under the Prestigio trademark. We are one hundred percent sure that if the company's representatives paid a little more attention to this issue, the popularity of these products would increase dramatically.
The video viewing mode is at the proper height here, and we tend to attribute this fact to the positive aspects of our model.The built-in video player does not possess any unique abilities, but it only copes with the main functions for an “excellent” rating. So you will not be bored, for example, on the road.
I was a little upset by the battery life of the device. During video playback, the Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B model can "hold out" without additional recharging of the battery for a little more than three hours. This is a pretty good indicator when it comes to a laptop. And e-books with this option tend to perform much better. For example, the e-book model Prestigio Libretto eBook Reader PER3172B, also related to the budget series, is capable of playing video files for seven hours. In reading mode, our "Reader" can work for eight hours, and the battery will not need to be recharged.
The playback mode of sound files is absolutely no different from the implementation of this function in most models from various manufacturers (both well-known and little-known) that support this option.
In the settings, you can select playback both in normal (according to the list) and in random order. There is also an equalizer with six preset sound profiles. But you can adjust the sound quality yourself.
As already noted, the sound speaker in Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B is not very powerful, and it cannot be proud of its high quality either. On such electronic devices, it is much more pleasant to listen to music with headphones, and we were convinced of this personally. Listening to radio broadcasts, if the quality of the received signal is at the proper level, is also a pleasure.
The mode of viewing photographs is, frankly, poorly worked out. Photos in landscape format are shown on the display of the e-book in portrait orientation. The function of turning the page, of course, is present here, but every time "manually" turning the pictures is not a pleasure. It should be noted that this must be done at each viewing, since Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B is not able to remember in which orientation (landscape or portrait) the image was during the last viewing.
For an e-book, this option is not the main one, but given that the photos on the screen are not so bad (one might even say excellent), the company representatives could improve this function even more.
Package contents Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B
The scope of delivery of the model in question includes:
e-reader Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B;
USB / micro-USB cable;
power adapter;
short user guide;
warranty card.
Brief summary of the review
This, perhaps, seems to be all that we wanted to note. It's time to take stock. And the general picture is as follows. E-book Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B will be an excellent choice for undemanding users who need a device for reading e-books, viewing videos and photos, as well as listening to music.
"Reader" from Prestigio will become your home librarian who will do his best to ensure that no important literary work passes by you. The budget seven-inch model looks good against the background of its competitors, and all this is achieved thanks to the color colorful TFT-display, the resolution of which is 800x480 pixels. You can store a huge amount of literary works on four gigabytes of internal memory, but if this volume is not enough for you, then you can increase the memory by inserting a microSD memory card into the slot, the maximum volume of which is 32 GB. It is convenient to flip through electronic pages using both the touch screen and the control buttons. The desktop lends itself to detailed customization.The substrate, font size, brightness and contrast are at the proper height here, you can read books with maximum comfort.
Convenient user interface Prestigio is able to display the last opened e-books on the desktop. Any of the available functions can be activated by touching the corresponding colorful icon with your finger. Among other things, this model will cope with the playback of video quality HD Ready (720p). The lithium-polymer rechargeable battery with a capacity of 2000 mAh is capable of supporting the device while watching videos for three hours, and in the mode of reading books - up to eight hours.
Positive sides:
multifunctionality;
excellent build quality;
nice appearance, modern design;
convenient on-screen menu;
high-quality sound in headphones;
high-quality built-in media player;
high-quality picture on the screen indoors and in cloudy weather;
The optimum ratio of price and quality;
long work without the need to recharge the battery in reading mode.
Disadvantages:
lack of headphones included;
uncomfortable work in bright sunny weather;
low "speed" of processing large files of certain formats;
lack of wireless modules Wi-Fi and Bluetooth;
lack of voice recorder function;
poor sound quality of the speaker.
You can buy an e-book of the Prestigio eBook Reader PER3374B Black model, as well as many other models of the Prestigio trademark, by visiting the F.ua.
