Its screen possesses a paper-like high contrast appearance and is readable under direct sunlight.

The Cybook Gen3 supports PDF files, however it doesn't reflow text and early firmware did not allow zooming in on documents.

Current firmware revisions support ten levels of zoom and allow scrolling around the page, making the device suitable for reading many PDF files.

[2] Some PDF files also cause the firmware to crash, which requires a hard reset by pressing the small button on the back side.

While the firmware source code is mostly open-source, the Mobipocket reader application which allows the display of DRM-protected content is closed-source.