eBookMan EBM-901

Pros: USB connection to the net; large screen; quite versatile

Cons: incompatible with Microsoft Reader; short battery life; highly reflective screen; 8Mb memory; poor support

The Bottom Line: Despite attractive features and operation, a change to a less reflective screen would greatly benefit. Test one by all means, but you'll still find me at the bookstore browsing paperbacks.

Review: Imagine sitting down at the breakfast, table of a morning with your eggs and a cup of coffee or a glass of juice. You reflect on the beautiful morning (perhaps also on the previous night's revelry) and you reach for the day's news. Sounds pretty...

Pros: nice idea

Cons: does not perform as advertised

The Bottom Line: This gadget should never have been released to the public.

Review: Read between the lines of the other reviews and you'll realize this is a fatally flawed product. First, it eats batteries at a high rate, and if they run down you have to go back to your PC and reload the OS, apps and books all over again. Heaven...

Pros: PDA features, Audible ready, expandable ready, better resolution than PDAs

Cons: Glare-prone screen, additional memory almost required for audio use

The Bottom Line: The ebookman is perfect for those who wants the cool gadgety-ness of an ebook, and still have the functionality. If you want the mp3 features, get more memory.

Review: I just got my ebookman 901 a while ago, and my first reaction was positive. The screen was a nice size, compared to other PDAs, and the construction seemed solid. It was a little frustrating not being able to play with it out of the box, seeing how...

Pros: Very inexpensive, lots of basic PDA and ebook features, MP3 player, voice recorder.

Cons: Screen glare is terrible, backlight is almost useless

The Bottom Line: I would only recommend this unit if you can try it out and return it if dissatisfied with the screen quality; otherwise, look for something with better readability.

Review: I picked this up at Costco for $49.95. I've been thinking about whether I would really use a PDA if I had one, and thought this was a low-cost way to find out. As a result, I found the features of this unit useful and intriguing enough that I'm...

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!

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...

Pros: large screen,easy scrolling

Cons: very poor battery life, lots of glare on screen

The Bottom Line: In conclusion its a nice idea which doesn't work in practice. I wish I had saved my money : it would have bought a lot of paperbacks.

Review: I purchased this to read e-books , not to use as a PDA.The advertising indicated it could hold several books in its memory and it seemed an ideal thing to carry on trips , holidays etc.Sadly the whole concept is ruined by its silly battery life. It...

Pros: audible books are easy to use

Cons: 40 megabytes of e-books takes 3 hours to download to the memory card

The Bottom Line: I got mine cheap to try, I learned, it works but is difficult to use.

Review: As the other reviewers have said, it is a good start and the music files need to be converted to it's own MP3 forme. It sets up OK but you must delete all memory on the MMC before you load anything or it just doesn't recognize what you had on...

Review: The above 2 respond does not rated the EBookMan fairly. When changing battery, you need to turn off the power otherwise it will loose all the data ( which is written in the user manual ). The EBM caome with the OS on CD. This is my 1st PDA and I...

Review: Purchased a 901 because at the price ($40 at a discount outlet) it was hard to resist. They weren't selling, even at that price, and the reasons for this aren't hard to discover. The unit has no built-in O/S and its desktop must be downloaded from...

Review: AAA Batteries nowadays are so cheap why worry about batteries. Perfect to hold you over till you decide whether you really need a Pocket Pc or not and it still has a cool factor above "8". Losing memory? not a problem if you change the batteries...