Pandigital Handheld Electronic Encyclopedia (WikiReader)

If you will note, I have given this product, the  Pandigital Handheld Electronic Encyclopedia (WikiReader)  a four star review. I truly have mixed emotions as to this rating. Please note my comments rather than the star rating in this case.First, I love this little instrument. For the use I put it to it is like a gift from the Gods. I read a lot, and I mean a lot. Most of my reading is done either in my reading chair or in bed. Both locations are at the far end of our house away from our computers. As I read, I am constantly running across references to geographical locations, names of people, references to events, obscure literary figures and obscure historical figures and events of which I know absolutely nothing about. What ever I am reading is enhanced greatly if I know something of what ever the author is referencing. In the past I have always kept a steno pad and written these reference down and as time would allow, so a search, usually winding up being referred to Wikipedia. This was okay as far as it went, but so often I found that by the time I looked up what ever it was I wanted to know about, I lost the context in which it was use. This little machine has solved that problem. As I run across the many things I do not know about, I can instantly access the information and continue in an enlighten state with my reading.This small, palm-sized thing is programmed with the entire English version of Wikipedia. It is absolutely ready to go out of the box, has pretty good instructions and is easy to use. The battery life (it uses 2 AAA batteries) is good. It is easy to turn on and off. The information is truly there and truly available.The company offers updates via download or via MicroSD card. It should be noted that if you choose the MicroSD card method that there is a charge, a stiffer charge than I am willing to pay! This is something they do not tell you on the product page.I use this product a lot; almost on a daily and nightly basis. It has made my life much easier and much more enjoyable. This item has a touch screen, is fully independent from the internet and even though this information can the accessed via your smart phones, Ipads, etc., it is nice to not be connect and is far less hassle. It is also very versatile and can be carried anywhere; taking up little room.But there are some major considerations that the potential buyer needs to be aware of! I must stress the work "major!" There is a very dark side to the use of this reader.Now I am use to touch screen technology, no expert mind you, but then again, I did not just fall off the turnip wagon when it comes to this stuff. But that being said, I have never encountered a touch screen devise more difficult to use than this one; it takes practice, practice and more practice! To begin with the screen is quite small. I do not have large hands and am pretty digitally adept, but no matter, this screen absolutely drove me crazy when I first started using it and I still have a lot of problems. This touch screen is extremely sensitive and is very small. I was and am constantly hitting the wrong letters when I try entering data and sometimes it takes me three or four tries. The QWERTY keyboard is an absolute pain in the behind to use. This reader desperately needs a regular, off screen keyboard.The scroll mechanism, again something I am quite familiar with, is great in concept on this item but it is so sensitive and the screen so small, that I am constantly being sent here and there to subjects that I have no intention of touching on the screen, but due to the sensitivity, accidentally hit. This causes frustration to the extreme. You MUST NOT even vaguely touch anything that is underlined in the text because you will be sent directly to that subject and this forces you to more or less start all over again. I am a very patient sort of fellow and not subject to temper tantrums, but I have to admit that at first this item almost fond itself being hurled across the room toward the nearest wall...quite often, as a matter of fact. I still have my moments when using this thing.If you are use to texting at a great speed...forget it. You will have a horrible adjustment to make using this device.You need a good light and a lot of light to read this thing as there is no back lighting. I am older and my eyes are not what they were twenty or thirty years ago and this is a real problem at time.Were this company to produce this item with a screen a bit larger, an off screen keyboard, a screen that was less sensitive and some back lighting, I would enthusiastically pay well over double the cost of the current item. The concept there is great; it just needs to be much, much more user friendlyAfter much, much practice and a great deal of frustration and practice, I can finally manage this device somewhat and use it constantly. I am glad I bought it but feel strongly that the designers of this thing; a wonderful thing, really, should be publically flogged, sent back to design school or drummed out of the designer corps in complete disgrace.As to Wikipedia. Some like and trust it, others do not. I personally have no problems using it for what I use it for. I am hardly the person to judge its accuracy and reliability. I have never personally had problems with it and use it all the time. That is just me though...each will have to decide that question on their own, using their own standards and needs as a benchmark.Do I recommend buying it? After reading this review and a couple of other reviews that are posted here, you the potential buy will have to make your own mind up and figure your own tolerance level. Would I buy it again? Probably, but with the knowledge of what I was getting into, and a willingness to put up with the inadequacies and quirkiness of this product.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks

What wasn't clear from any review I read or watched was how well this thing works with extended reading sessions. For instance:I hit "random" once, read something I'm not remotely interested in, but somewhere in the article, or the one after it, is a link to something else. I read that article, and it leads me to something slightly more interesting. Before very long at all, I'm deep in a vein of topics for which I frequently take links to other related articles without wanting to abandon what I'm already reading. When I tap these links, the new articles supplant the one I was just reading, but I then need only to press the "History" button and tap the title of the article I was just reading (now second from the top of the list) to go back to where I was on the last article- automatically returning to the exact spot. When I'm done reading that article, I can then hit "History" again, and find the article I linked to (which is now second from the top, since the one you were just on is always on top), or any other article I might have added in like fashion, and continue reading those in exactly the same manner. Thus, it's possible to cover many branches of a topic in a very straightforward way and never risk running out tangents to follow. It's easy to move back and forth without losing your place: unlimited bookmarks. For this reason, I can also pick up a thread of articles again at any future time by just scrolling down through my history and finding something I had been working on. If I tap a title and find that it's at the end, I'll know that I already read the whole thing. I can return to the top by quick-swiping to scroll up.Another bonus is that the History list acts as a kind of instant review of the things I'd been reading about. This all works especially well with wikipedia's specific, concise, and overlapping topical format (compared to print encyclopedia articles which consolidate topics and impose a hierarchy of values on the reader. For instance, Britannica has almost no popular culture content.) I think it's quite likely that this sort of branching, interactive, and frequently redundant approach to learning is more effective than the old-fashioned equivalent (you still have to read worthwhile topics though :)When loading a new article by whatever means, you might take note of the loading bar at the top of the screen. It only takes a couple seconds, and, compared to wikipedia online, is only slightly slower. It's hard to see under some conditions because it gets lost in the shadow at the top of the screen.The LCD screen is perfectly readable both in bright and moderately-lit conditions, though under hard light there's a shadow effect from the LCD elements that's a bit more noticeable, but not enough to interfere with legibility. It becomes a bit harder to read in a moving car (with moving reflections to contend with, as the screen coating is glossy) and when reading near twilight without lights on. You'll find yourself making little hand adjustments to the viewing angle in order to read it under less-than-ideal conditions. The device is very light and easily held in one or two hands. Some diffuse ambient light fixes all this.The LCD screen is not a drawback in any way, because it is the key to making this thing both affordable and energy efficient with faster response than an epaper display. Unlike epaper, it is possible to scroll through an article, which is a fast and natural way to move through a lot of material on a small screen. I often scroll the page after reading a sentence, even though I don't need to yet. Nevertheless, I would have liked a button that automatically scrolled down one page minus one line. I can now understand why they didn't include it.The touch screen works perfectly. I have no trouble getting moderate speed and high precision out of the on-screen keyboard. I almost never hit the wrong link, and doing so is easily reversed by hitting the "History" key anyway.The system appears to have a themistor in it that keeps track of ambient temperature and adjust the LCD's contrast automatically! You can also adjust manually by pressing "Search" immediately after powering up. You'll see a bunch of diagnostic programs, as well as "Calc," and "Contrast."The single greatest drawback is that the information is from mid 2010. I downloaded the update program from OpenMoko (though the device does appear to be made by Pandigital- at least according to the sticker inside the battery compartment) and purchased a 16gb microSD card with which to do an upgrade, hopefully including Project Gutenberg. I can't speak to how feasible that is likely to actually be, since most of the online chatter about this device went quiet in late 2010.Such an unassuming little thing, and yet it embodies mankind's single greatest collective achievement- a thing that dwarfs the pyramids and makes a mockery of centuries of assumptions about human nature- and having it all on a device that I bought for less than $30, that's an experience straight out of science fiction.

I am the type of person who reads all the reviews to make sure people are satisfied with a product and the product I want to buy is worth it. I read amazing reviews about this product and decided to buy it for my 62 year old mother. She wanted something like a dictionary but did not want to connect to the internet and she knows nothing about technology so it had to be easy to use. She also cant see very well but after looking at this I thought she may be able to work with it. This was the ONLY product I could find that did all that. I got it and opened it to see how hard it was going to be to use. I put the batteries in and even straining and holding the reader in direct light could barely read the screen. I figured the batteries were probably bad since they were an off brand that came with the unit. 3 sets of batteries later no one in the house could read this thing with out really getting on top of it and straining. There was no way my mother could see this thing I am only 27 and could not see it. The instructions are wothless. They are 2 pages and they tell you to take the back off place the batteries in the unit and turn it on. Thats it!!!! No way to adjust the screen, no information on how to upgrade the unit or anything. I tried to do a search and even using a stylis I had (it did not come with the unit.) I still could not get the touch keyboard to register the correct letters. I was so upset I wanted to cry. I thought I had FINALLY found something my mother could use. I was wrong and this was returned the next day. I have never ben more disapointed with a product in my life!