It's been quite interesting and academic following this particular thread. I've learned more here than I could have dreamed in the several days I've been reading through your posts.
Recently, I purchased two PB 360's for my girls. Both are identical in every way, including the books I've put on them, as well as the micro sd card (250 mb) I've put into both.
I've not messed with any of the configuration on either of them, and both came with the 15.2 version of the firmware. We've had both PB's for about three weeks (both came in the mail from the same place, packaged in the same box), and both of my girls read about three to four hours a day.
Interestingly, my older daughter's PB has never had any issues. It has done everything the reviews have said it should do, and I've been extremely excited with all the reading she's doing.
On the other hand, my other daughters PB has had issues from the start. It does about everything wrong that you can think of, accept it's never shut off on it's own. Resets never did anything for it accept take it out of its frozen state.
There were specific books that, for no rhyme or reason, would not open, or display correctly if they did open. Some were epub books, and some were fbreader books.
With all that said, I figured I had two options: Send it back for a replacement, or try out this new 15.3 (beta) firmware.
I opted for the firmware update.
Since then (earlier today), my daughter has been reading for several hours with no issues what-so-ever. All books are opening, no freezes, all pages are turning quickly, etc, etc.
My hope is that this version (15.3 beta) will end up being the one that 'saved the day' for me and my girls. We love to read, and we love the PB. But not so much when your spending more time trying to figure out how to get it to work correctly.
Keep up the posts. I know others that love the PB 360, but some of them are dealing with problems like the ones I shared above. If 15.3 works, there's going to be a whole lot of happy readers out there
