I just recieved that book and had a first look. No in-depth comparison yet, and no use in the field yet, so obviously some superficial impressions only:
- Format is quite portable, close to the concise edition of the Robson and much smaller than the full Robson version. Unfortunately, the compact format is somewhat impaired by the thickness of the hard cover and the pointy protruding edges that will be be bothering and wear off fast if used in the field. Not sure if a paperback version is planned, but this would be much preferable. Can't understand why publishers still offer such clumsy hard cover versions for field guides?
- Plates are surprisingly good. I like them overall, a bit strong colors but nothing too much off I think. I also like the consistency throughout, which is good compared to the ones in Robson, which are of very variable quality (due to different artists involved I think). I didn't really challenge the plates for ID of tricky species yet, so can't say anything on how good they really are. Plates are often very croweded and drawings small, and usually at max there are females and males shown, not more plumage variants or different positions (e.g. birds are rarely shown in flight), so obvious limitations in this sense.
- Species accounts are extremly brief, but complement the plates very well I think. I have the impression that the author carefully avoided descriptions that could be deduced from the plates as well, in order to not be redundant. In the extreme, for example for Phyllos warblers, the text does not give any info on plumage features at all, but solely describes behaviour. Overall, texts may often be too short to be reliable as sole ID resource, but they seem useful nevertheless and make good use of space.
- Range maps are given for most species in the back of the book. The numbering system makes it straight forward to find the plates, still it is much less comfortable than with maps being given togehter with text and plates, as it should be. However, as the only competition here (Robson) has no maps at all, maps in the back of the book are still an advantage. The text also gives short range info in similar style as the Robson (e.g. NC Thailand, S Laos), which seems a bit redundant to me. Why not leave the text out and use saved space for putting the maps on the same page? According to the (very brief) introduction, the maps are based on info from Robson, birdlife and ebird.
- I was surprised to see that the area covered by the book included large parts of China, in addition to mainland SE Asia (as in Robson). I like this, as it provides some added value to me (I will use this book in combination to the Robson). But of course the many species included are the reason for short texts and crowed plates.
As a summary, I'm pleasantly surprised by the book so far. Plates look good and the book is quite portable. Texts seem quite useful for ID in the field. But it is clearly more of an illustrated checklist, than a detailed field guide of reference book. As a single resource, I would still go for the Robson (2008). But I can imagine to use the Arlott guide as book in the field (replacing the concise version of Robson), in addition to the large Robson book, which still needs to be in the luggage.
