Literati eReader Review

When I was in high school, I wasn’t much of a reader, mostly because teachers were choosing the books I had to read.  In college, I started reading some, and now that I’m a grown up (which still makes me laugh), I enjoy reading books that I get to pick.

I was recently sent the Literati eReader to test out and read a new book on.  Once I got the book on the eReader, it was quite easy to use and read the book on.  In fact, I read an entire book (The Help) in just over a day while sick in bed.

• Features a 7” backlit color LCD screen
• Comes pre-loaded with several classics
• Has a built in connection to Kobo, a global eReading service with access to nearly 2 million titles (1.8 million of them free)
• Has a list price currently set at $159 (which will likely drop as we approach the holiday season and Black Friday)

What I like:

• The color pages are really cool.  Especially for the books with pictures for kids. (But there aren’t many color books).
• It comes with a ton of free "classic" books.
• The backlit screen is easy to read at night.

What I’d like to see improved.

• There is no light indicating that the battery is charging.
• The power button is underneath one of the straps for the case, making it hard to turn off and on.
• The navigation dial is small and hard to see where you are on the page.
• The keyboard is only used for searching for books and entering the password; I wasn’t able to make annotations/ notes on the pages.
• Turning wireless off is difficult (I couldn’t figure it out).
• The user manual doesn’t match what you see on the reader making it difficult to troubleshoot.

Bottom line?  It is good when you actually get to the book reading part, but to get to that takes quite a few non-intuitive steps and is hard to navigate.  I hope they make some changes to the eReader to make it more user-friendly.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of The Sharper Image and received a Literati eReader to facilitate my review.