newbie first impressions

received my unit this afternoon (i work nights and sleep days) so immediately unboxed it and put it to use to try to get back to sleep. i frequently wake up 2 hours before the alarm and need to get back to sleep so this was a good test. the quality and packaging of the device and the included accessories were excellent although i found (and am still finding) the instructions somewhat lacking. there was no mention of the hinged stand on the back or how to move it out of the way (it is very stiff) and the device is so lightweight i was scared i would break something in my half-asleep state trying to get the batteries in.

once i'd had a quick skim of the manual and a first look at the device my first feeling was disappointment that the state of the art in the user interface hasn't seemed to have advanced at all in the 5-10 years since i last used one of these machines. even tiny ham radios have moved beyond have a two-character code necessitating lookup tables. give the user a proper display, don't make him write the dang settings down on index cards or have to carry the book or a printout around.

another complaint was the headphone jack on the side instead of the top. this is just a bad design decision. having it topside would improve cable management. putting it on the side where it sticks out horizontally means that you can never fit the device into a pocket.

the glasses are an exception to the 'technology hasn't advanced' impression. the lights are so much better than the old red-only ones. and those complaining about brightness i can't understand--i only had to turn the gain control a very short distance. and there was plenty of audio volume also.

i picked session #25 (35 minutes) and that didn't put me back to sleep, however i was distracted playing with my new toy trying various settings. but shortly after i started another 'night voyage' session i drifted back to sleep. it does really irritate me that i had to get out of bed and go find the manual in order to determine what the two-digit codes mean. hopefully i'll get the best half-dozen memorized and thankfully the sleep ones are in order by length--i see some of the other categories aren't that neat.

i have some newbie questions also, but i'll put them in another post since this one is somewhat lengthy already.

/guy