Good for reading; cool toy
Pros:
Cheap, good-sized screen, handier than paper, good handwriting recognition
Cons:
Glare from screen, a few software bugs, want better scrolling, E-books not cheap
The Bottom Line:
Not quite ready for prime time, but offers fun and some real utility for early adopters. Synchronize early and often!
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I admit I only bought it because Franklin offered a rebate. But now that I have it and am connected to MobiPocket(TM), I'm really glad I did. I can download the daily news and read it without being chained to my PC (my kids hate that). I can download "classic" books (even in HTML, using MobiPocket's self-publishing tool to put them on the EBM-901) and read them for free without trekking to a library. I'll probably do likewise with some zines from Mobi or Fictionwise soon, and maybe even books.
I didn't really want a PDA, but it's nice to have a basic one. I'm impressed with how easy it is to handwrite into the EBM-901; I still have to write slowly and carefully, but certainly didn't have to learn a new character set, which some PDAs apparently require. I saw a complaint that the PDA functionality takes up so much storage you hardly have room for any books. I don't find this to be so: I can delete the programs I don't want (which is most of them) and gain space.
The screen needs better anti-glare treatment. The Mobi reader has crashed on me twice, and the device has locked up once; I fixed this by pulling out the battery and reloading from the PC. Oof! Mobi's daily news site also has some bugs.
My personal complaint is that I don't see why E-books should pretend to be paper books by forcing you to turn pages. In Franklin's own reader, you can scroll by just holding the stylus at the bottom right corner, and the scroll speed about matches my reading speed, but unless I periodically do something else, the auto-shutdown feature kicks in. Gag!
