Pearson eText Reviews

The Pearson integration into my school’s learning management system is horrid and provides a very small window view for the e-text. PearsoneText is leaps and bounds better than that and looks great on my iPad. But PearsoneText is seriously lacking in navigation. When I go to the TOC, only the first two sections are listed under each chapter even though there are many more sections available. Also there is no “go to page” feature. So the best I can do is use the table of contents to get to the second section and then flip through the pages until I get to where I left off in the textbook - possibly 30 or 40 pages! Also the timeout feature is very quick. If you leave PearsoneText to grab lunch when you come back you are back at the textbook selection screen instead of the page where you left off. Leaving you to painstakingly navigate back to your last page via the method I just described. I could do without a go to page function if at least the TOC was fixed to show the full TOC.

Have no clue as to how useable PearsoneText is. Was able to find the A & P book in the bookshelf, tapped do download, then gets stuck at 90% "Synching Notes and Bookmarks". Have tried downloading on two separate devices (both up to date) using both WiFi and cellular networks, and result is the same. Waited an hour for said note and bookmark sync to happen (which I have none as I have yet to access the ebook).

A bit frustrated, but should be able to access the ebook via web browser. So cannot comment on performance, but functionality gets a shiny, tiny, little star because I no longer wonder what you are. Deleted.

UPDATE: Downloaded app again after updated apparently the same day as the review? Regardless, I am definitely able to download the textbook. I do have some thoughts and will reserve for when experience accumulates. Thankful for basic function Pearson and changing initial rating.

It lost hours worth of highlights and notes. I contacted customer service, which was useless. After going through steps with them for a whole hour, they “escalated” my case, which ended up meaning that they’d send me a form email about every 3-4 days with no new information and no fix. When I contacted them again, they referred me to an incorrect customer service number. A woman halfway across the world spent 20 minutes explaining to me that she couldn’t help me at all. I still can’t make notes or highlights without them disappearing, they won’t respond to me with anything useful via e-mail, and now there’s a new issue of sideways page numbers randomly appearing in the text. Try concentrating on studying a complex topic when random 68 numbers 22 appear all throughout the 35 text that you’re reading. If you can avoid this company, please do — for the sake of your time and sanity, not to mention your performance in class. They’ve done nothing useful since I contacted them two weeks ago. Imagine two weeks in a lab science course without a functioning textbook... Not fun.

I’m taking Biology through my community college and I bought the Etext mastering biology with physiology. I actually give this rating a 3.5 stars but the rating didn’t allow half stars. I like that I can read my book on my iPad at home but I do not like that I can’t adjust the background color of the book. When I read books on my iPad through my kindle App I have settings I can play around with. Settings like background color i.e black, sephia, which is an off white, and stark white. After looking at this book on my iPad my eyes start to hurt from the bright white background color. I’ve tried turning down the brightness of the screen and this helps a little. I also do not like that I can’t listen to the book. I would love that option.... I would benefit from listening to my BIOLOGY book in the car, in between work breaks, and school breaks. Please add the audio option and option to change background book color. Thank you

The convenience of having the textbook within reach and easy to carry can not be ignored. Though I wish there were different colors which use to highlight and ways to easily access notes from the textbook page rather than flipping between two different areas. There is also the issue of the textbook never saving my page, so I have to either bookmark it or search for each time. The greatest annoyance however is that the very edge of the page is eaten by the page turning interface. With my inability to adjust the page size so I can the last few words on the page, I’m forced to pull the page up and hold it, making note taking and highlighting hard.

I suspect there is little that can be done, as there is little incentive for them to actual change the situation or issues. Yet I felt it important to share these glaring flaws in a rather convenient application.

Having access to the audio version of the book is excellent.

The audio playback on PearsoneText is almost useless. The audio does not remain playing if PearsoneText does not stay active on the screen. If I lock my phone or it auto locks the audio stops. Also the audio starts over from the beginning once I restart playing. This is very aggravating because most of the chapter audio are more than an hour long. If a phone call comes in the audio doesn’t retain its current playing position.

Audio download to be available to listen to offline would be a very nice option. If that cannot be provided then the audio should be able to stop and start playing where it was. Playing with the screen locked would also be ideal as most people listen to audiobooks without reading along. Keeping PearsoneText open and running with the screen on really drains the phone battery quickly.

I downloaded PearsoneText to use for my anatomy class. Overall PearsoneText is bland, not really the most user friendly and is basically the bare minimum that could be done. Right of the back there are few things at the time I wrote this that Need fixing.
One of these is I’d like to see a page marker where we could also go and type a number to jump to a page like on the desktop version.
The second is the that when using the search tool when we get a list of results it would be nice if we were shown which of page they were on.
Third I was trying to zoom onto a certain part of a page but when I do so I am unable to shift to the bottom of the page. And the bottom banner for previous and next is also in the way. If the movement boundaries were expanded and we were able to cause the banners to fade by taping on the screen it would be much nicer to be able to work when we try to zoom in.

I bought MyMathLab from in order to use the textbook because that was the least expensive option for my broke college working two jobs self. My professor does nothing through MyMathLab I seriously only bought it for the textbook access. 5 weeks left to go into class I go on my iPad to access my book and it says subscription expired, but on my Mac I can see it perfectly. I uninstall PearsoneText and reinstall it. I restore. My iPad and set it up as new without a back up. Nothing. I contact Pearson support and I am told that I should access the text book via my “pc or laptop because PearsoneText is unreliable.” Are you serious. For real Pearson. For real. If you’re reading this I really hope you put in a fix for that because it’s frustrating. At least if I’m mad at Apple I can tell myself I have other tech companies to go to. If I can’t access your stuff, my only option is to submit because my school uses your textbook.

The Pearson eText app is very clunky. It does not remember where you left off and opens a random chapter. Often it freezes and will not let you progress through the book/go back or exit the book you are reading. When trying to move from new chapter to another the list automatically jumps to the beginning(and expands a random chapter, not even the one you are in) and you have to scroll all the way through to find the one you want. It would be much better if it jumped to the part of the list for the chapter you are currently in, adjustments like that would make PearsoneText way less annoying to use. It also removed a book I had downloaded randomly, had that happened when I did not have access to the internet it would have been really frustrating. But it works, most of the time.

2 stars because of navigation problems.
Started out as 3 stars but I kept running into more issues. For as much money as students are forced to throw at Pearson, you might think PearsoneText would at least have the basics figured out.

I can’t specify what part of a chapter I want to jump to from the table of contents. For example, I want chapter 1 > section 1.2 > practice problems. Instead my only option is chapter 1 > chapter 1. Pointless. It’s annoying to have to keep swiping and swiping and waiting for the pages to load, especially if I need to keep referring to the text during my homework.

Can’t enter the page number I want to jump to.

Search feature doesn’t tell you what page or section the results are from.

Tried using bookmarks to make up for poor nav. Bookmarked each section of chapter 1. In “my bookmarks” they’re all titled the same thing “Chapter 1: Graphs and Functions” then the page number. Not helpful. At least let me name the bookmark whatever I want if you aren’t going to put the effort in to tell us what it is.

Zooming in sometimes crops the bottom of the page off and won’t let me bring it into view.

I don’t like precalculus. I like it even less when I have to use PearsoneText.

Pearson e-text is a garbage way to read books digitally. PearsoneText is so frustrating and unreliable and is a disgrace to Pearson. The formatting, video, and interactions are fine; yet the constant crashing and forgetting where you are in the book is so difficult to maneuver. The worst part of PearsoneText is that it sometimes fails to load certain sections of a book even after restarting my iPad and closing PearsoneText . I have homework to do and I do not want to have to worry about this. My teachers expect me to get something done when it is due, yet now I have to result to cheating or pirated copies of the book I’m reading in order to complete a task or reading. It’s VERY reassuring to see other reviews on how garbage PearsoneText is and how Pearson has done nothing about it. I love the fact that I have to spend a whole school year with this shaky, unreliable, piece of garbage app holding me back. Get it fixed.

Great application compared to logging in on my Mac! For some reason when I login (via Mac) either on Canvas or Pearson, all the content is not showing up/fully loading. It was a lot easier to login & view the eBook on my iPhone though. If you guys added features to make it easier to read like change the portrait orientation or reader mode, that would help tremendously. Also, to be able to access the PowerPoint content, videos or any other material offered with your eBook purchase(s) on the mobile application would be helpful as well. Thank you for all the work you to all the developers who have put work into this application! 🙏🏼

Overall, PearsoneText is a solid eReader. It makes your school text much more accessible and helps you to be able to study wherever and whenever you want to, however the interface is buggy and the synchronizing across multiple platforms is subpar.

PearsoneText doesn’t synchronize notes or highlights between multiple devices, such as switching back-and-forth between your phone and your iPad. That forces you to always use the same device to study and make notes on, or else be forced to go back and forth to compare what you already did on your other device.

Also, even reopening PearsoneText from the background on standby, PearsoneText constantly reloads itself and opens up a random page in the book you either were never on or haven’t been on in weeks. It’s very annoying to have to go back to the page you were on previously, rather than to have remember the page you were on and to load it automatically like a good eReader should.

Other than the bugs and the glitches, it’s a solid app and has some great potential.

I don't know if the issue is with PearsoneText or with the etext itself, but several times I have highlighted information I need only to go back in later and find that it was deleted. I'm a nursing student and I paid close to $500 for this software, and for that price I expected it to work close to, if not flawlessly. If I knew there were these issues I would have bought the physical book because I do not have time to keep rereading and re highlighting the same content. I will not be buying any pearson etext material in the future unless they make sure the software runs smoothly before they let people spend a small fortune on it. Aside from this, PearsoneText crashes often and sometimes doesn't even load at all.

The biggest issue I’ve been having with this is that it keeps freezing up and closing and restarting it multiple times until it works is annoying.
With that said this is the only way I take notes from my textbooks. I prop the tablet in my tablet holder set the screen to not shut off and don’t even need an internet connection. Easy to add highlights or mark a page! The online website is unbearable because it boots you out after so long and takes forever to load and navigate to the textbook through the many different links.
If they could fix the performance of this it would be a 5 star app!