[Freddy Bastiat]

I purchased a black Pocket Pro reader a few weeks back and thought I would briefly post my impressions. In my search for an ereader I appreciated the reviews posted here so I'm returning the favor and hope my comments may be helpful to those still searching.

I had been debating between waiting for the new 6" EZ Reader to be released and getting the 5". My main concern was readability with the smaller screen. One thing that helped me was to go to Best Buy where they had two of the Sony models and looked at their screen sizes. There wasn't really a big difference to me so I decided to go ahead and get the 5". The free light offer helped to get me moving.

Once out of the box there were two things that struck me about the device. One, it's smaller than I thought it would be (even though I knew the dimensions and had a general idea - this is not a problem) and two, it was not as "black" as I thought it would be. Is there such a thing as slate black? It's a lighter black than what I pictured. I thought black was black. I was expecting a black-black if that makes sense...kind of like Spinal Tap's album cover...as Nigel Tufnel said, "It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black." But this black is not like that...it's much less black. Not a big issue, but not what I was expecting.

It is very light, which is a good thing. It is also very portable, which is more of a positive factor than I thought it might be. I take this little guy everywhere now.

It took me a while to get used to the interface, but after a couple of days I've gotten used to it and don't think about it so much now. Funny thing is that even though I know full well this isn't a touch screen (I didn't want one), I still have to fight the urge to touch it nonetheless.

I've never used eink before and I find this device pleasant to read. You have to have a decent light source though. It actually looks best in bright daylight. I don't ever spend more than an hour at a time reading, but I haven't experienced any eye strain from it. Font size 3 seems to work best for me. The page turns are quicker than I expected also. It's not distracting to me to have the "flash" with each page turn. Every now and then the buttons seem slow to respond, and I have to push the button again, which is only mildly annoying.

I downloaded Calibre and it has been great for converting books to different formats. I've been playing around with formats to see what I like best. I find that sometimes I like EPUBs for certain books and other times I prefer MOBI. PDFs aren't always great but I understand their limitations. I'm also using Calibre to grab RSS feeds and then I convert them to a MOBI format, which seems to work better with the hyperlinks for some reason. I tried FB2, but I seem to like the simplicity of EPUBs more. The Coolreader player takes a while to load and I don't like that.

I haven't placed music on it because I've got a great device for that. But I did put some audio lectures on it and the mp3 player works great. The headphones are pretty cheap though, so those have gone straight to a drawer to die a slow, tangled death. It would be nice if the player bookmarked, but like I said, I've already got a wonderful device that does that anyway (Sansa Fuze - I highly recommend it along with the Sansa Clip).

The cover was a bit stiffer than what I was expecting, but the feel should soften up over time...if it is indeed genuine leather. But it works well and I'm glad to have it.

I installed the latest firmware update with no problem. I do think it would be great to have the device come with it's own memory card with the latest firmware on it.

Overall, I'm thrilled with it and feel it was a great purchase for me...a bit more than I would like to pay for such an item, but it's competitive with the other options out there so I can't complain.

Pros:
Memory expasion
Not tied to any one book seller (big plus for me)
Supports many formats
Comes with it's own case and charger
Good product support on this forum
Supports ADE (library ebooks and possibly Sony book store)
I can drag and drop files easily
Very light and portable
I like the feel of it (didn't like the Sony, cold and hard)
Battery life is excellent
I like the clip on light - nice bonus

Cons:
Would have liked a memory card included - (not a big deal really)
Would like keys to be consistently more responsive at times
No major complaints

Good job Astak!