Considering the quickstart, there were not many surprises in the PDFs. Character conversion from 1st edition to 2nd should be pretty easy overall. Atttributes, departments, values and talents are all the same numbers, so you just have to get updated talents, add species abilities and pastimes and that’s it.
Spaceframes are a little different, but not too much. They have less overall points in systems, mission profiles incorporate not just departments, but one point in systems as well. Galaxy would have the same points overall, Akira one less, to mention two examples.
The spaceframes and species are solid. Overall I like the species ability which is in addition to the species trait and two optional talents per species. As has been mentioned, the species ability is not in all cases species defining, but it is something players can use with solid mechanics.
Spaceframes often come with special rules like pulsephaser cannons on the Defiant class or a better shuttlebay for the Akira class that allows small crafts extra minor actions after launch and the ability to take cover close to the Akira.
Overall I like what I read so far. I didn’t get to talents and starship combat tough.
On the downside, there is no Orion spaceframe despite playable Orions and Orion starship sheets. And a lot of species from the 1st edition books are still missing. The toolkit is 40 pages + 16 sides reference sheets (8 doubles) and the GM screen and comes at the price of a full book. I don’t regret buying in, since I bought some of the 1st edition books mostly for more options as well and the toolkit delivers with additional rules and spaceframes but I feel that maybe 10 or 15 pages more for 1-3 spaceframes and some additional core species like Benzite, Bolian, Caitian and Reman would be more reasonable for a 40 Euro “book”.
I am not very much into art, so I didn’t analyse it too much. I’d say it looks good or at least fine in most cases. Some pictures like the Andorian species image are recycled from 1st edition but most are new. The images are a mix of styles from various shows and movies. I would have prefered if they sticked with TNG/DS9 aesthetics, but since the CRB is for every era it makes sense and did not bother me too much. The only art I did not like were the species images for Cardassians (I get diversity, but a black Cardassian?) and Klingons (a Discovery season one Klingon).
That’s my first impressions from flipping through the book and toolkit so far. Overall I like both quite a lot.