Sony Reader

Waterstone's today released the new version of the Sony Reader (actually two versions - one with a touch screen and a smaller 'Pocket' model).

Anyone who knows me knows that I do like a gadget. I've had Psion Organisers (every model!), PDA's, Smart phones...you name it. Yes, I have an iPhone. Yes, I use Windows 7. Remember the Cambridge Z88? - Yes - I have one of those as well somewhere. My family tolerates my tinkering with Windows Media Centre at home, even though it would be simpler to just plug the telly into the arial socket and be done with it - It only ever seems to be tuned to CBeebies anyway....

I'd resisted e-Readers because the right one never seemed to be available. The old Sony model from Waterstones was always blighted by the fact that I knew Sony had already replaced it in the US, and things like the Kindle are not sold over here.

This lunchtime, I trotted round to my nearest Waterstones to have a look at the new models. I was all ready to love it - I WANTED to love it.

Nah.

I love the idea of a thin tablet with ginormous battery life that can hold hundreds of books (with a second life as a portable reference manual for my work). However, the technology just isn't there yet.

The 6" screen is OK, but not as big as a 'proper' paperback book, so it feels just a little cramped.

The ePaper text is OK, but it's still dark-grey text on a light-grey backgound - I want black on white. This model is actually slightly worse that the OLD model because of the addition of the touch-sensitivity layer.

The page transitions were a real problem, the screen 'flashes' to black for a second before the next page appears, and this is just slow enough to be distracting and throw you out of the flow of your reading.

The touch screen on the bigger Sony is more of a 'press-screen' than a 'touch-screen' - compared to the iPhone's responsiveness, it was just too painful to use.

Sony have released a 'Daily' model in the US with an integrated free 3G data connection - it can be made to automatically download things like news stories from the web and buy e-books for immediate download. It could be a genuine electronic newspaper that was always up to date whenever you picked it up on the way to the train station. Sadly, they've seen fit not to make that available here. THAT would have sold it for me, but the knowledge that any purchase today would inevitably be supplanted in a few months again was a bit of a killer.

..and finally - £249! That's A QUARTER OF A GRAND!
TO READ A BOOK!
BADLY!

Nah!