I agree that some options in the UI could be better. Well, I've used SD-cards before and never had a problem. But I didn't have 13.000 books on it either. And I guess I never will. I think that this number is a more comparable to the statements on mp3 players. They take an average, check what size SD-Card the reader can handle and just divide the SD-Card space by the average book size. So I think this statement is more of a calculation example.
Well, if you have 13.000 books to store, then I agree that they don't keep their promise.
I've used memory cards to some kind of separate pdfs from other formats and such and was a little annoyed that the reader now scans twice (it probably does that anyways, but with having files in different locations it became obvious). Additionally, accessing files on SD-Cards is slower than the readers internal memory. So I just went and put my files right on the reader.
Reading in direct sunlight is no issue on both of my readers. Check the forums for screen fading. There are others who encounter that problem and it seems it's not only a Sony problem. As stated, my Sonys don't fade in sunlight.
Ok, so these are probably shortcomings to their advertisising. But really, despite that, the readers do what they're supposed to do, don't they?
And the problems above are not Sonys problems. I bet that if you take another brand reader with card slot, it has to scan the card too, and then it has to update its internal database. So other brands won't be better in that case either. And as said, screen fading can happen on other readers as well.
It's not that I think I should defend Sony. I'm not affiliated to them (allthough getting some more income by doing so would be nice
). But I think that they do a pretty good job.
If you look at other readers, there are some that are just not quite finished when they hit the market from a FW point of view.
As for the other stuff like the noscan and such, better wait for a hack. I think that is more likely than a FW update.