[EldRick]

Well, I ordered the Odyssey online, and it showed up two days later to the US west coast, so they've apparently got their distribution working. It arrived fully charged and with v1485 (and a bunch of old books) loaded on it.

I'm comparing it to the Nook STR through this, as a standard for comparison.

It's a very nice device - feels good in the hand bare and in the case. I previously had a Kindle 3, and hated the physical design. The plastic on the front bezel takes smears easily, but overall it feels like a slightly upscale version of the STR.

It's pretty, and the optional case is very slim. The case front is leather, and the back is molded plastic, which holds the Ody firmly with minimum bulk. Compared with the STR in its easel case, the Ody is thinner and narrower, so it fits the hand or pocket nicely. It can be used as an easel when reading in landscape mode. OTOH there is no clasp of any kind to hold the cover closed when you drop it.

So far so good.

The included fonts are not very well selected for an e-ink screen (too many fine serifs and stroke-width variations), but I downloaded an .otf version of Caecilia, which is much more readable. However, the readability advantage goes to the STR, as it's newest font-rendering update produces well-balanced somewhat darker rendering, perfect for e-ink.

Unfortunately the flaky USB bug is still there with my iMac, even though they claim to have fixed it in v1481. Nope.

I like it for PDFs - far more usable than the STR, and the K3 was buggy and unusable for PDFs. I'd like it a lot better with a 7" screen, however.

But, No Search? Not at all? Not in any type of file? What are they thinking???!!!

My impression so far is favorable. I download my books via USB (yes, the dictionary works on side-loaded books) so I can't comment on using it with the Bookeen bookstore (or with other bookstores as the manual seems to describe).

Speaking of the (beta version) English dictionary, it's pretty bad. It starts by presenting you a list of several choices for a word - these are the various definitions, with no information as to what is behind each. So you have to blindly tap on each item in the list, and then you get to see almost entirely unformatted text, describing one definition of the word. There is quite a bit of information contained in the formatting of a dictionary definition,l and this dictionary is missing all of it. It's pretty bad.

The one physical attribute that is incredibly bad is the microscopic power switch and the barely-there ridge on it that is supposed to allow you to slide it. I'm betting that the switch is worn smooth and unusable in a month. I can barely use it with a thumbnail now.

More later