Pros
•The Demy has a rugged build; the color screen is a touchscreen so there are no buttons to gunk up, and the case is sturdy and rubbery. It's splash proof, and you can wipe it clean with a damp cloth.
•The device can be viewed either upright or at a lower-angled tilt; the screen flips around automatically when turned.
•You can choose from three font sizes.
•The "Short List" is a temporary "library" of recipes that make it easy to reference several recipes at the same time
•There's also a conversion calculator, three timers and a list of ingredient substitutions.
•The Demy comes with a charger and a cable that connects the device to your computer 's USB port for synching.
•The Demy can hold up to 2,500 recipes.
Cons
•I find my device is constantly freezing, which disables the touchscreen. This requires turning it back on, waiting for the slow startup, and again locating the recipe I was using.
•The software has many limitations: You can't remove the recipes that were preloaded or remove recipes that you've uploaded. (The company says that future software upgrades may fix that).
•The "search" function only allows you to search by the first letter of the recipe, rather than by keyword. In other words, you can't search for recipes that include turkey or lemons, unless those words happen to be the first in the recipe's title.
•The Demy will go to "sleep" eventually but even though it appears the device is off, since the screen is dark, this will run down the batteries. Actually turning off the Demy requires holding the on-off button down until it beeps.
The Demy Recipe Reader is $299, a price that seems steep considering the flaws and limitations of this device. Consider that a similar product, the Kindle, is only $60 more than the Demy, and is better-designed and has far more features.
Hopefully in the future either the price will come down or the company will work out some of the kinks, because it truly is a good idea.