Aluratek "Libre" E-Book Reader Pro with 5" ePaper Display, Black Aluratek "Libre" E-Book Reader Pro with 5" ePaper Display, Black

Pros: Very nice reading experience. Nice size. Nice screen. Great battery life. Text is beautiful. 3 ways to turn the page.

Cons: Slow. Clunky. Non intuitive.

Other Thoughts: I like this even with the cons. Reading is a joy.

Pros: Very easy to manage e-books, accepted every book I added to it including an HTML book which it does not state it supports. I bought this for my mother who is not tech savvy at all, she picked it up right away. She does not know how to load books on it but I loaded a bunch on an SD card and bought her another, so when she runs out of books I can load more and ship it out to her since she does not live nearby. Also, the help tutorial built into it is a perfect way for my mom to read all about her new reader. She loves it!

Cons: The display is not all that great but it works, My mom loves it.

Other Thoughts: Make sure to do a reset after first turning it on. It seemed very sluggish and took forever to load anything on it including the books that came with it. After I reset it using the reset button everything worked flawlessly. It did hang once but nothing the reset button couldn't fix. Pictures are very slow to load, but I guess that depends on the size of pictures, I was loading some pretty big ones on there.

Pros: Very easy to navigate. Screen flipping is very easy and nice. Page Turning is instant and there are 3 ways to turn the page! Searching is easy. Retrieving bookmarks is easy and accurate. Easy to read in the sunlight and low light.

Cons: Has issues reading BMPs. She wishes the battery life was a little better. It doesn't separate chapters like a traditional book.

Other Thoughts: She thinks this is a great little machine. She thinks it is the perfect size and she likes the case. This was a Ma day present and she really loves it.... it is now a competition between her MP3 from 3 years ago and this e-reader. She only uses the reader function.. no pics or tunes.

Pros: It reads a wide variety of formats; I love being able to save in nested folders, i.e. Science Fiction\Weber\Honorverse; I can easily hold it and read from it one-handed; it groups Recent Readings together - handy if, like me, you're reading two or three different books at once.

Cons: Nothing major; I do wish it would remember the font-size settings when I switch from one book to another, and I don't see any reason why the USB port should be covered up with the SD card slot so that I have to pop the cover open whenever I add or delete a book or recharge the battery.

Other Thoughts: It won't play games, but if you just want to read books, it's great.

Pros: Nice size and weight. Nice screen and easy on the eyes. Would have been a great reader if it worked.

Cons: Would be wouderful if it worked for more than a week. Always locks up. Will shut off on its own. Will not load a book installed on the SD card or from internal memory. The directions stated to go online and download and install a firmware update to correct the above problems. I completted the update and only had worse problems.

Other Thoughts: It is a nice idea but Aluratek should have removed all of the bugs before selling this plastic door stop. Have not been able to read even one book on this since I wasted $130 on it. It came with an SD card with 100 classics in TXT format that used to open. The manual states it can open about six different formats but it only worked a few times with TXT files. It would lockup so bad when I tried different formats that the only way to reboot it was to wait a week for the battery to run down. It would only go into sleep mode or on for a few minutes till it locked up again. I'll never buy another Aluratek product!

Pros: Works well with Adobe Digital Editions book and OverDrive Media Console e-books available free for checkout through many libraries. Being able to play your favorite mp3 soft music in the background as you read is a nice feature. It was a pleasant surprise to be able to play mp3 audio books on this devise. One of the first audio books I selected from the library was a Scholastic juvenile book that was recorded with different readers for different parts complete with sound effects. Neat. This reader is small, light weight, and easy to hold. The number buttons on the side make it easy to navigate through the different menus. This reader is less expensive than other readers and allows access to a more wide variety of the books available.

Cons: The manual was not very intuitive to me and I spent about a day in frustration with the devise since it is the first of its kind I have owned before I called tech support. I was pleasantly surprise to get someone on the line in California who was fairly knowledgeable about the devise and was able to clear up the laundry list of questions I had regarding it.

Other Thoughts: It comes with a 2gb SD card and I have already upgraded to a faster 8gb SD card because I plan to keep several audio books on it. When I want to add new books or music to the reader I simply remove the SD card from it and use a universal card reader to do this quickly. I keep most of my files on the SD card and not the internal memory. Make sure that when you are moving a book from the library to the reader that is available through a software offered through a library to the internal memory that you include all the file, including the "manifest" that allows you to access it.

Pros: This is my first e-book reader and honestly, will probably be my last, unless this one wears out. I mean, it's a READER for goodness' sake. If you want perfect picture and chart rendering then you need a laptop or at least a netbook, not an e-book reader. It puts the words clearly on the screen from an excellent array of formats, with adjustable font sizes and will even display the illustrations if there are any. If you read the instructions fully, (unlike me) the firmware upgrade is a breeze. The controls are easy to master and switching between books is almost as easy as laying one down and picking up another. Loading and unloading books is as easy as moving files on your computer. This couldn't be much easier to use or more natural to read from. Also, the ear buds and carrying case are very nice accessories.

Cons: None, but it is important to note that the owner's manual is only located on the reader itself, not as a physical document. Unless this was just an oversight with my unit, it would probably be useful to have a printed manual included.

Other Thoughts: Several people have mentioned battery life and not being able to power off the unit. If you go into the settings, from the main menu, you can set the reader to automatically power off after a period of time.

Pros: Supports many formats, small, thin, nice screen, decent battery life, and comes with thoughtful accessories (case especially). Also nice they include some free books (which you can find numerous places on the web, but it saves you the hassle of finding & downloading them).

Cons: Updated the firmware right out of the box which took some patience (manual is very vague in some areas of the updating procedure).

Other Thoughts: This was the perfect gift for my wife who likes to read (I'd guess about 12-15 hours per week) but doesn't like carrying around relatively large books. She keeps this in her purse 24/7. I like that it doesn't come with junk she won't use (web access, etc) to keep pricing down. Newegg is the best.

Pros: I bought this for the price, I didn't need all the external connectivity the other brands were touting. Also I liked the different formats that for some reason were missing, on the others. I take mine everywhere, and have not had any trouble out it since I bought it. Battery life was however another issue. Actually the battery was just fine. I updated the software on my Libre and no problem with battery life after that. Screen is very easy to read, has multiple fonts and font sizes, so anyone should find a happy medium to reading. Have had no trouble with connecting to my PC for uploading in to the External SD memory or to the internal memory. I even can listen to music while I read, love that part.
All in all, a very good, no frills e-book reader.

Cons: Battery life WAS an issue, see above, for that detail.

Other Thoughts: The Libre comes with a hundred books on the SD memory card.

Pros: Comes with 2gb sd card with 100 great books included. Very easy to use. This is my 3rd ebook reader including a sony and the screen is the best so far. I read indoors, outdoors, cars, and on planes and perfect in every light. Able to use so many different file formats. I use pdf and Word nearly everyday. Being able to listen to music while I read is another plus.

Cons: When pull up bookmark list only shows marks in current book. I read multiple books at a time and have to go through menu to get to others. Still not too bad. I have put in many PDF files which I need for work and about 5% of well over 400 files show up in such small print that even if adjusted to largest font size I cant read. Im sure there is a fix I just havent looked yet.

Other Thoughts: I have had 3 readers so far and this is by far the best one so far. Sony's may look prettier but for $100 more than this you really dont get anything for it. Newegg had it to me in 3 days (rush processing for $2.99).