Revel by Pearson Reviews

by Callahhhh

What’s the point of an offline download if it makes you download the entire textbook before you can begin reading? Not to mention that the download process takes FOREVER. The entire reason I branched out to use Revel was because it’s near impossible to read on a mobile phone through google. There are too many issues; another one being that the highlight feature doesn’t work, the book audio is glitchy and laggy, and overall Revel is just slow. I was already reluctant to deal with an online version of the textbook just because the publisher of my book lied to my professor, saying that there aren’t any physical copies of the book. If a company wants to push for online books so heavily, they need to make sure that their app and website work.

by Blake2309

Worst app I have used in a while. Every single time I try to listen to the audio narration of a chapter/section in the book. I have to frequently go look for the next section and press the button for the next section every 2 minutes. Why can’t they do the same thing like audible which goes from one section to the next without you having to look for the next section and press play? If someone for instance is driving and trying to listen to the audio version (bluetooth wise in their car) that is absolutely a distraction and a waste of time since you cannot concentrate as efficiently as possible without having to press for the next section. Additionally, another useless thing is on their website I see nothing that can let me send out this complaint. This is absurd since how can a student be spending a great deal of money and not be able to notify the company of a certain issue and get a response back?

by UnoSuavecito

First day I was able to open my text. Now every time I open Revel it just has this stupid thing saying access the link on the instructors page....I already have dozens of times. And then the idiots on support tell me “why can’t you just use your laptop?” Sure let me prop my laptop up while driving, or when I’m working one of my two jobs I’ll just have my laptop in my pocket to whip out. Or when I have to workout at 4am I’ll just throw my laptop on the treadmill. The whole point of Revel was convenience and it worked for one day and hasn’t worked since. This was supposed to enhance the quality of the course and allow people like me, THOSE WHO NEED TO SQUEEZE CLASS INTO ANY MOMENT THEY HAVE OPEN. TOO BAD IT DOESNT WORK AT ALL AND THEIR SUPPORT IS CLUELESS. Just another way teachers can be lazy and have someone else teach for them while Pearson rakes in some money. What a crock.

by ArtificialSmiles

Revel is poorly organized and has very annoying tendencies. For instance, when I try to highlight a section of text, it for some reasons will automatically scroll to the very top of the page. I could stop it but when I released my finger it continued to scroll up. When it reaches the top of the page it just stays there. If I try to scroll down it will again scroll itself to the top by itself. I have to close Revel to make it work again. I just need to highlight a simple definition but can’t, which makes my homework assignment take even longer.

When I registered for a new course it refused to download. It would just show 0% and do nothing. Then it finally started to download after closing Revel multiple times, but once it reached 100% it somehow went back to the little cloud icon and showed 0% again. It wouldn’t let me open the course either. I ended up just deleting Revel and tried again and it finally worked.

I’m a busy college student, I don’t have the time to try to get this stupid app to work properly so I can study and do my homework.

by Dearmargo

Revel has not worked for me. Continually lets me log in but says my subscription has expired less than a week of ownership (less than their textbook free trials) I’ve called their support multiple times sometimes waiting more than a week to hear from them on progress while checking multiple times daily. I’ve wasted HOURS holding and waiting for a resolution. I’m not exaggerating I have time stamps, screenshots, and emails to prove it. Still waiting on a resolution and they’ve closed my file twice saying they can see a problem on their end. It’s impacting participation in my course and therefore my grade. Professors please choose a different company if possible, students please opt out of the online or app component of you can. This is literally the most unprofessional and worst company I’ve ever encountered.

by Spotify Has Worse Radio

When I first got Revel everything they offered worked fantastically. That doesn’t mean I really liked Revel , it just worked the way they said it should. I was going to rate it after I finished my course but then about a couple weeks in my app completely stopped working. Before I would read my book and play my audio when I could in my car from my phone. Now I can’t read my book or play audio from my phone. The only way I can read my book is on my iPad which is obviously not as mobile as my phone so I feel this is really hindering my ability to thrive in my class. On top of all this you can’t write notes on your text, you can’t choose how your pages turn and there’s just random glitches in the whole app. Overall really terrible if I could write less than zero stars I would.

by Flacomedina147

Revel is horrible, The reason being is because you can’t even take proper notes on it. It doesn’t highlight the right stuff or sometimes a certain color to stop in for the highlighting option and you can’t even change it I have to shut off my phone and turn it back on just for Revel to work and this is on an iPhone 11 Pro Max iOS 14 like come on they can’t even make an app that works properly. Please fix this issue it’s so annoying when I’m just trying to finish my online school work.

Update: looks like even after all this time they still can’t fix the issue with highlighting and taking notes. If it wasn’t for school and that I do over nights I would not bother with Revel that they don’t seem to care about fixing.

by 7HEW0R1D

3 things that particularly annoyed me when using Revel .
1: Auto rotate, I use my iPad in landscape mode 99% of the time, but Revel are just partly designed to have landscape options. When reading, every time I met a quiz or something, it rotate back to portrait and won’t go back.
2: Hightlighting, to be honest, you won’t be able to select the lines you want 9 out of 10 times, the curser will move to the line above or below, depending on how you select.
3: Audio, I like the thing that I can listen to my textbooks, but the audio tab is weird, I cannot click the next page button if I’m listening to something.

by Doublenae

While I like the convenience of having my mandatory e-textbook available to read on my ipad, the update after ios 11 has definitely been a step back. I have to keep logging in... no not with my touch id, actually log in like I do online. There isn’t even a choice to keep me signed in. I can take the smallest break during a chapter by just checking my email, but when I go back to the this app app, I have to log in yet again, AND they don’t save my spot, so I have to go back to the table of contents to find the chapter I was on and then relocate the page I was taking notes on. Quite ironic to have a horrible user interface when I’m using Revel for a computer programming course.

by Liaih92

The intention of the update where the read aloud option goes uninterrupted may seem more convenient but in fact it was the opposite. It may be convenient if you have the time to sit down and read entire chapters but if you are like me and like to read small sections at a time whether it be during a lunch break at work or in between classes, this new feature makes it extremely inconvenient to navigate back to the section at a future time. It makes it so you have to fast forward through the entire section to pick up where you left off rather than just press play at the top of the page. Another issue is the playback speed resets back to default 1x after every page which is extremely frustrating. The new “uninterrupted read aloud” causes more interruptions than the previous versions.

by _julesmv

I love the concept of Revel and severely appreciate the effort that was expended into creating it. However, I have encountered the same issue consistently: I cannot download my book so I can listen to the audio without WiFi. I’ll press the “download button,” and it will say it’s been downloaded, but I still can’t listen to the audio unless connected to the internet. I have very limited data and work full time, so I rely heavily on the idea of listening to my textbooks on the drive to and from my job, but I can’t get Revel to work. The first time I tried it, I thought it worked, but it was actually running on my data of which I ended up using all of, all while driving to work. :(

I just want to be able to download the audio so I can listen to it offline.

by Seanosaur

I have had no overwhelming issues with Revel , audio and reading both seem to work. However, to get Revel to something I'd actually find useful, there are a few quality of life things that need to be fixed. (1) Highlighting - when highlighting text the pop up that lets you choose a color is poorly placed. More often than not, it pops up directly over what I intend to highlight. A better solution would be to have it always appear above my initial selection. (2) Notes export - when exporting notes, this app truncates the note after around 150 characters. Anything after that does not get exported, which often makes note export to PDF useless. Removing the truncation from note export will make it a feature that can actually be used. (3) Sync across devices either takes too long or simply doesn’t work. Fixing this to operate like other digital textbook platforms would put this top of class.

by Classysassy917

I like having my text book on my laptop/phone but what is the point if the highlight feature that was implemented only works at times.. I like to read the text, highlight the important stuff as I go, then go back to it and take notes when i finish that whole section. On numerous occasions I have came back my highlights/notes were not saved. I am double majoring, dont have a lot of time to have to go back to re read and highlight what I ALREADY did. please fix that. the few times the highlighting works it’s not up to it’s full potential, for ex. — I highlight stuff on Revel /website but if I switch over from one to the other it & it isn’t there — I highlight on phone thru Revel OR laptop highlight thru website, then switch to other device its not on THAT device if that makes sense. so I have to switch back to my device I original took notes on to see my work on that section. that also should be fixed. other than that, great.

by IvarMace

Although Revel is fantastic on many levels, there is one particular bug that I wish would be worked out as soon as possible. I have an iPad Pro, and with it I like to take hand written notes while simultaneously viewing the work. iPad Pro offers the ability to open two windows at a time. The this app app does not allow you to use this feature to its fullest extent, as it does not shrink/fit into a workable window when working side by side with a note taking application. If you could remedy that, I would give it a full 5 stars. Seeing, however, that this is seriously hindering my note taking ability, it is to frustrating not to knock it down a couple stars, since it is an educational app.

Fix this, and I will change it to 5 stars.

by Sgmk1976

Since I ran the update, that I was forced to, Revel has not run the same. It will not proceed to the next module with out exited and scrolling through previously read modules. On the first quiz I took, the program glitched and told me I had the wrong answer. The hint did not come up to show the Learning Objective either. So I work my way through the other three answers, even though I was only suppose to be given 3 tries only to realize that the first answer I gave was correct therefore losing points on the quiz. I am working through this as an instructor before my students do. How can I depend on this to work and grade correctly for them? Please fix! I would have given it 5 stars before this happened

by Brittanella

Love the option that I can listen to my text book during my commutes, but Revel always locks up/freezes and logs me out (but is somehow still playing) and I can’t pause it when I reach my destination. I then have to close the whole app and find later where I was at. Not sure if this is a bug? It would also be nice to have an option to bookmark where I left off listening, or have it automatically remember - it takes so much time having to find my way where I was, especially because it doesn’t ever allow me to start the audio where I want it to begin. If you can get all the read aloud features fixed, this would be a great app!

by Anxious&Obsessed

I actually love Revel a lot, but I was really disappointed when I downloaded a textbook for listening while I was out and found out that you need internet to hear the audio. Don’t advertise it as learning everywhere, on or offline, if I need internet to learn the way that’s best for me. In general, this is an amazing app that offers a really great way to use textbooks, and I love the ability to take notes, make journal entries, watch videos, etc. I highly recommend it. But please fix the narration, and add a zoom option for reading!

by AaronMG95

I use Revel on my iPad and any time I come up to an exam it changes my screen orientation from landscape to portrait. When i move on to the next section it remains in portrait and I have to lift my iPad from its stand and lay it back on its side to go back to landscape. This happens even when i have the screen lock on. Please fix this! Also, probably at no fault of Revel creator, in my current course i have found things out of order. For example I will have a section of reading and then a quiz right after that goes over a future section. This is a huge problem as it negatively effects my grade.

by NathanLiechty

It’s super nice having a digital textbook but sometimes the functions glitch out and act super weird, especially highlighting and the concept maps. It’s annoying how it takes me back to the top when I change the color of highlights and sometimes doing that makes it drag all the way to the top and I can’t scroll down again. This goes away when I close Revel and open it again, but still weird. As for the concept maps, I click on the first thing and there’s often a text box that doesn’t go away, covering up other text. Sometimes tapping it works but usually not.
Thanks for making this stuff work as well as it does and I hope my feedback is helpful! I appreciate having a textbook on my phone and computer.

by Jeanie :)

I like the way Revel is set up and everything, but sometimes the audio function does not want to play and you have to press the play button like ten times to get it to work — not the best for commuters. Another inconvenience is that sometimes it will read through the whole chapter, whereas other times the audio will stop after every page — again, very annoying when you’re driving or multitasking. Finally, I would like to see an assignments tab that clearly lists the writing assignments still left to do. Right now they are located sporadically at the bottom of the pages which makes it difficult to see what you need to get done, especially when listening to the audio. Please address these problems and this will be an excellent app!

by YumYumSing

I’m really intelligent, but I’m also dyslexic which means that the text-to-speech feature is VITALLY important. The feature works within the main chapter introductions but is not functional in the chapter subheadings, for example 1.1 Key Features in the Dynamic Child. However the feature is available in the desktop version, but that doesn’t help when you aren’t in front of your desk computer or laptop. It’s annoying also that somehow Revel has disabled the cut/paste feature because I could use my phones text to speech feature that way. But alas, that isn’t a possibility. I’m am very annoyed and it’s going to interfere with my ability to learn this material in a way that is useful and accommodating to someone who has a LD.