Icarus Illumina e-reader E654BK E Ink 6 Inch – Black

The e-reader feels solid and well-made. I bought it to replace an old Kobo that felt as though it was on its last legs. The other selling point was the physical page-turning buttons on the side - I've never liked swiping the screen very much. The flush screen is a nice touch and doesn't afford any space for crumbs and dust to accumulate! I've also loaded other e-reader apps to improve the functionality - including the Kindle app so I can read books from all over the place. I've knocked off one star as the instructions do not give any clue as to how you actually load more books onto the device! I'm OK with this as I've been using e-readers and Android devices for years but I can imagine a newbie user being left completely in the dark. Also, it's not possible to switch off the screen-swipe facility - so it's very easy to touch the screen as well as the physical buttons, thus turning over two pages. By the way, the old Kobo is still working.

Positive:No shop attachment, can be used completely independently. Large amount of supported formats. Customizable reading display settings.Sleek, good screen, homogeneous front light although a little bit too cold for my taste.Customizable with custom launchers, icon packs etc.Supports open source dictionaries.Biggest bummer:Poor battery life. I have installed some custom apps most of which are not running but I still get just a weeks battery life on a full charge and moderate use (30 mins reading per day, front light almost off, WiFi off, refresh every 5 pages).Also, the software needs further maturation. I cannot update the android system, the reader always crashes when looking for updates. Other than that everything is stable and crashes far less than my daughter's tolino.