Franklin AnyBook Reader - 60 Hour Edition (DRP-4000)

I ordered the Franklin Anybook Reader, 60 hour edition through Amazon. I was so excited to get it. I also ordered all 4 additional sticker sets from Franklin. So I have spent about $100 in total for this tool and its accessories. I read a big box full of great picture books, several science books and history books, biographies, and a couple of chapter books that were loaded with pictures for my elementary age children and toddlers. I spent between 25-30 hours reading all of that material out loud. A couple of times, I let the kids try it to see if they liked it. They LOVED it. Imagine! Mommy is available to read out loud ALL DAY LONG! We talked about how careful we would be with the pen, always putting it back in its bubble wrap bed that I made it.For Christmas, I gave the Reader and the Big Box of Books to three of my children as their big present. Oh my, they were thrilled. The older boys just couldn't stop listening to the books on reptiles and snakes. And my little girl sat on the couch for hours listening to the same book over and over again. And they were super careful with the pen. They understood that the Franklin Anybook Reader was a treasure to be cherished and coddled. I was thrilled. For two whole days.And then...it stopped working in the middle of a book. The unit turns on but there is no sound. It doesn't beep when it turns on, the volume doesn't work at all, and it doesn't read stickers.Franklin's customer service is quite willing to replace the pen. But, the new pen won't have any of my reading on it. And they can't fix my old pen. So my 25-30 hours of reading aloud are wasted. Of course, I can do it all over again, but I don't have the time to do that. That is why it was a present.I sincerely hope that I got the lemon in the bunch because this pen was such a great idea in concept. But I cannot recommend such an expensive outlay of time and money for 2 days of pleasure. This was supposed to last for years.

A little help for first time users / buyers . . .I work in information technology with several different types of technologies, so I get used to all the different engineering quarks that occur on every product. I can honestly say this device is in the top of my list of poorly engineered devices at this price point. The concept is fantastic and the positive reviews are warranted, but it takes some patience to get used to at first. Here are the reasons for my criticism.You have to hold down the record button during recording. If you want to record a short book with one record sticker, your thumb will get really tired leading to cramping, and accidently letting go, stopping your recording. Wish you didn't have to hold down the record button to keep recording.You can't add recording to a sticker once you let go of the record button, you can only re-record the sticker - so if you accidently let go of the record button during your recording, you have to re-record the entire / page(s) or book depending on your preferred method. Wish you could add to a record sticker.To start recording there is a four beep count down that can take around 3 or 4 seconds to start. If your child is a first grader with only a handful of words per two pages, you'll find your child waiting for countdowns longer than actually recording. If you try to do more than two pages per record sticker your child will run into my first complaint of accidently letting go of the record button while turning the pages or by thumb cramping as I experienced when trying to complete a short book using one record sticker. In my experience my first grader was spending more time waiting for countdown beeps that actually reading the two pages. Wish there was a way to modify the countdown . . .Too many buttons have multi functions. To put the device in record mode, you have to hold down the power button until the LED starts to blink (after the device is already on). To record you have to hold the volume up button while "holding it down" to stop recording you let go (Don't forget to touch the record sticker first or you'll accidently record over the previous touched record sticker). To take it out of record mode you have to turn it off. To delete a recording you have touch the record sticker and then hold down the volume up and volume down simultaneously while the recording is playing until it stops and beeps. To delete the entire device if you lose the record sticker - I don't know couldn't find it in the instructions. Are you confused yet? It took several attempts to get my first grader to comprehend how to use it - not sure how it will go once he's at Grandmas. Wish they would have added a few more buttons to make things kid friendly.I understand the purpose of this device, and I will actually keep it for a while since it's highly recommended by schools, but I wonder if purchasing a small recorder would have been easier for my son, I could always find a blue one and put some stickers on it to spice it up.If you have some patience and look at the overall value of this product, I like it a lot, but I just wish engineering would have spent some more time looking at the functionality of it. It's the second version of the product so things should have already greatly improved.UPDATE: 7/1/13We made the decision to return it to Amazon. After several weeks it became apparent the pen was hindering our sons performance, despite the interaction of back and forth readings and motivation recordings. The cut off or missing recordings were more of hassle. It was taking twice as long to read, and our son was losing focus as he would constantly let go of the button. As an adult, I too found it uncomfortable and awkward to hold the button while making recordings. I'm sure it depends on your child's abilities, but our son didn't have the thumb strength to benefit from this product.Franklin needs to start a new design with a start and stop feature for recording, that feature alone would make this product 10X better.

I must admit I had a blast recording the books, but the sound quality sounds like a cheap plastic radio. The specialty sound stickers are great. I just wish they had more and with a greater variety

This reader is a wonderful tool for reminding the grandchildren of Grandma's voice reading them stories, since we live far away from each other. The recording button hurts my thumb though, since you have to keep holding it down during the entire recording. Great idea! But it needs some work.