I got two white Literati eReaders from somewhere else for less than what BB is currently selling the black versions for at $120. The black and white units I’ve told when I called the Literati help desk are same units underneath. If you read other people’s reviews it appears that BB was selling the black units on sale for $49.99. I missed that sale and lowest I saw BB sell them for was $99.99. They were only two white units so I bought both one for my wife and one for me. You could see one them was either returned/used, while the other was brand new. I would have passed on the used one but I didn’t think they would be getting more of them at their low selling price below $99.99 that BB had the black units on sale for at the time. It appeared that it was a close out of their left over XMAS sales stuff. During XMAS there was a lot of activity on eReaders and they always seemed to be more that $100 depending on the brand. I did later go back a few weeks later and they were now selling them $249.99 at retail value, which I think is way over priced for a Literati.
I didn’t know much about eReaders in general or the Literati. Everyone I talked to said get a Kindle but they were in the $150 range and didn’t have color so the Literati seemed to be a good deal. I normally research before I buy, but I didn’t in this case. After I bought it then I researched them and found in general that most reviewers didn’t like them and basically said stay away from Literati eReaders.
One thing I did learn is the depending on what eReader you buy you maybe tying yourself to a single book seller. Kindles are tied to Amazon, Nooks are tied to B & N and Literatis are tied to KoBo (Borders). The Android eReaders may allow you more flexibility in where you buy your ebooks and you might be able to get them from more than one site, but I would check it out first.
I decided give it a try and searched on the internet for “free” ebooks. I found a lot, both in epub format and in PDF format. I already had a lot of documents in PDF format, so I thought the Literati would work well to read them.
While you can read PDF documents, PDF format by nature really isn’t a good way to read them on the Literati to take advantage of the eReader capabilities. Now epub format is what I believe what the Literati and eReaders in general are designed to work well with. They format to fit within the screen size and you can adjust the text size easily. PDF’s on the other hand are good for large computer screens but don’t format well in the smaller screen sizes. With PDF’s, after you get the text to a readable size the document scrolls off the screen and you have to use the pad to move the document to read it. Not really what the eReader was designed for. Epub format documents are the way to go and that’s the format that Kobo and other sell their books in.
I loaded up an 8 GB SD card with PDF documents I had, and by doing so I overloaded the Literati. The Literati’s memory, I guess keeps a database of the documents and there were too many documents to list for the memory it has. I maxed out the 210 MB (with ver 2.0 of the firmware update) it had available. I couldn’t add anymore PDF documents or ebooks. It left me no choice but to reset it to start over again using less PDF documents. However, the Literati, would not reset and clear the system using the built in function. Called the help desk both at Kobo and the equipment manufacturer and they were no help. The Literati was stuck saying it was full of documents that I didn’t want and couldn’t delete. I even tried deleting the files in the memory attached to a PC and there was an error when I tried to delete them. It wouldn’t allow any erasures. I was stuck and Literati’s support recommendation to return the unit and get another one. Since I didn’t think there was any more left where I originally bought it, that just meant I would return it and get my money back, but get no reader in return.
I didn’t want to do that and I thought that there must be a way to restore the firmware again another way. Sure enough, on the internet I found how to restore your Literati. You need a “KoboRoot.tgz” firmware file and the firmware can be loaded from an SD Card by holding down “Q” while powering on. I tried it and it worked!! The Literati was now working again only back to firmware ver 1.9 which was the latest I could find. As soon as I restarted and had WIFI access, it automatically found that there was an update (2.0) and asked if I wanted to update, which I did.
Everything is working again. They knock the Literati, because it doesn’t do more, like the Android models like Cruz and Pandigital. While the Android models have come down in price, and are more than an eReader, I think the Literati does its function well. It sized to fit comfortably in your hand and works well as an eReader for epub documents. If you don’t need all the other capabilities, which may or may not work well at anyway, and eReading is all you want to do, the Literati fits the bill. They only thing is I would wait for a sale to get the best deal.
