Franklin Electronic eBookMan-900

I bought the eBookman 911 for $40 at OfficeMax on closeout. I thought I would use it as an MP3 player, which was a mistake. The eBookman is capable of playing audio files, but it has to convert MP3 files to a proprietary format that takes up about 3 times the space of the original file. It also takes a loonnng time to download audio content. I do not recommend this product for listening to music. On the other hand, the device is quite capable as a planner, and will synchronize with Microsoft Outlook. The screen is larger than most PDAs on the market, and is very readable. After a couple of months playing with Outlook on my eBookman I decided to return to a paper calendar, but this was NOT due to any weakness with the device. Now for the good news. I would not give up my eBookman for anything: once I learned to use the somewhat tedious software for transfering files from the computer to the device, it has become my bookshelf and magazine rack away from home. My practice is to copy web content into Microsoft Word, then "Save as" an HTML document into the eBookman contents folder. The files are transferred to the eBookman fairly easily once you get the hang of it. Once loaded onto the device the eBookman uses a program called MobiReader to display the HTML files. These files do not take up much room, as I currently have the entire King James Bible, three full-length works by Charles Spurgeon, and numerous individual articles and pages from the internet on the device, with room to spare. The device has built-in handwriting recognition software that really works, a decent game to help you practice handwriting on the device, and a basic text search function that is a tad slow but actually works well also. There is a ton of free public domain content available in html or .txt on the web at sites like www.ccel.org that make the device worthwhile. The backlight is quite bright, but should only be used in dark conditions and will burn up batteries quickly. Which brings me to one last negative point: Many of these units will loose EVERYTHING including the operating system if you let the batteries get too low. Experienced users suggest changing the batteries when the indicator reaches 30% to avoid having to re-download everything. This has happened to me and is a nuisance, however it really only takes about three or four minutes once you get the hang of it. Overall, with the deep discounts offered on this product it was well worth $40 to me, just for the MobiReader function alone.