Imagin IMEB-5 colour e-book reader

Gift horse

The only other keys, respectively, call up a Zoom menu which is them controlled with the navpad and action key, and a play/pause button for music and movies. The power key is on the bottom edge of the IMEB-5, along with a 3.5mm earphone port, a Micro SD card bay, and a mini USB port for charging and drag'n'dropping content to the gadget's 2GB of Flash.

All in all, it's not actually a bad e-reader - especially for colour content

It has an aluminium back - the front is matte cream plastic - but it's no iPad: the build quality won't win any awards, the design neither, but cheap though it looks, it feels solid.

A decent array of formats complete the spec, including Flac and Ogg audio; AVI, Flash and MPEG 4 video; and ePub and PDF for e-books. The device supports Adobe's DRM, but not Amazon's or Apple's - though it does detect and use cover art pasted in to ePubs in iTunes.

Flaws? You can't change anything but the font size without leaving the e-book reader app and entering the system settings, many of which are presented as simple lists of numbers: brightness, for example, runs from 1 to 5 with no indication as to what the effect of selecting one will be until you do so. At least the change is implemented as soon as you hit the action key. It's none too quick at turning pages, or reflowing text, either.

Verdict

The IMEB-5 retails for £100, so it's cheaper than the basic Kindle and compatible with a greater range of content and e-book stores. WH Smith is offering it online for just £65, which makes it a bit of a bargain. Yes, it's crude; yes, it's a terrible PMP; but as a low-cost e-book reader, it just passes muster. ®

Thanks to Firebox.com for the review sample

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