I think the most terrible thing about reading a screen is their PPI or DPI (WTF! I hate different terms).

No, seriously, I mean, Thats on of the things that will change in the future. The iPhone for example, has a 160 PPI resolution. I never saw one screen like that, but maybe thats the future of the reading screens...

this is very nice technology. i am waiting a while for it to be perfected and then i will get one. i would love to be able to download books in this format: lightweight and portable, easy to read in any lighting, good contrast, independent of view angle, and flicker-free.

You have to see e-ink to "get" the easy-on-the-eyes effect, intended to reflect light (like a proper book) more than generate it (like a screen.) Looking at the specs — four levels of grey, refresh rate from hell — doesn't do it justice.

AHH oh god the da vinci code I got some of it in my eye what do I do??

Feel...soo...cold...

I have enjoyed eBooks for many years - currently on a JasJar with a 4" VGA screen. Legibility and refresh rates have never been an issue and with a colour screen it's possible to highlight and make notes or drawings on the text that would have earned me ruler pain in grade school. Even a used Toshiba 800 makes for a great reader. I'm not sure why someone would spend hundreds of dollars on a standalone unit like this ... perhaps libaries or schools

libraries

@ANoel
I'd buy the standalone device based on e-ink. I haven't seen one in person, but from reading about it, i get the idea that the technology is easier on the eyes than a regular LCD... not to mention that it requires a lot less power. That would be enough to convince me to fork over. I would like it if the device, including batteries, were about the size and weight of a paperback. But one caveat: i hope the industrial designers make it pretty rugged, since it will be carried around in a backpack all the time. The case and screen will be subjected to a lot of wear, and the innards need to be able to withstand repeated knocks.

but... you raise a very interesting point. you would think that having all your gadgets integrated into one device would be the best plan. for example, a cellphone, pda, gps, music player, pedometer, .... but i wonder if sometimes having a dedicated device for a specific function isn't more practical. for example, my cellphone can play mp3s but i still carry an ipod nano for that.

so when does integration of multiple functions into one device begin to get cumbersome?

@craighyatt... personally it depends on the activity - as a public transit commuter one device to read eBooks compose email listen to mp3 or watch vids is just tidy. While doing physical stuff a shuffle is more practical. I try to avoid the cell as much as possible. Your question reminds me of how many gizmos I actually have! =o|

Buy a damn book! People, what is wrong with you all? Walls lined with full bookshelves is a great thing. Why pay so much and then keep paying to use it? Buy a book, read it, keep it nice and cozy on it's shelf. You have it forever and it makes you look smarter than you probably are. Besides, that hot brainy girl with the thick glasses next door may lay you for using your Anne Rice collection.

I'd buy it if I could buy new "books" at a discount, ie cheaper than a paperback. But what would really sell me is the ability to load up on all the blogs/news sites that I visit every morning. Imagine reading Gizmodo at the breakfast table like you were reading the newspaper.

I'm holding out for an eBook reader that actually reads the book to me. If only some device like that already existed...

@landtat, lots of books on shelves do look great. But not so much fun trying to move 4 large bookcases of books. I'm constantly running out of stuff to read on the train. i'd rather carry an e-reader than two books and a magazine.

My fiance has the Sony eReader pictured above and she's quite happy with it. She has a huge eBook collection (and too many paperbacks to count) and this is a convenient way for her to cart all of them around.

The quality of the display really is pretty remarkable. It's much easier to read than a standard LCD, and is almost as easy on the eyes as a paper book. The refresh rate is pretty slow, though.

The only problem with the Sony device is the software (surprise!). It only allows you to create one level of subfolders, so while you can arrange books by author or by genre, you can't do both.

@Landtat...

Dunno if that hot brainy girl will end up laying you if you can't back up the whole looking smart thing. It's better to be something than to look something :D

@Landtat
About buying books... in some ways I prefer having a paper book to flip through as opposed to a screen. OTOH, there are some disadvantages to paper books: Cost... (i hope) e-books will be cheaper since paper textbooks cost $100-$150US. Paper books are heavy to lug around in my backpack. In some cases paper books are good to keep as references or to re-read, but many fiction paperbacks are only worth reading once and then they just take up space and collect dust until i give them to charity. Finally, it seems to me that a reader like that could also be used for other media like news from cnn.com and so forth. Unlike a newspaper, it's compact and searchable.

craighyatt, this reader does exactly what you're asking for. it's only 9 ounces and about the size of a paperback. I was an early adopter of this and love it. I have a 2gb sd card in it for storing my music to listen to while reading. Looking at the screen is no different than looking at a paper book. The refresh rate doesn't really matter in this application because it's only notice when changing the page (which takes about .5 seconds). The refresh rate increase will only make e-ink more viable for other applications. I could care less about having a bunch of books on my shelf. I need the space for my other gizmos. I'm just about done converting my entire hard/paperback library to the proper format for my ebook reader and am loving it. I'll probably never read another paperback again. I think the current size is perfect for an ebook reader. I do agree with JesseX that Sony needs to update the software a bit. It's amazing difficult to change songs while reading a book (you have to leave the book, navigate through the menus, get into the player and then change it. Then you have to reverse the process to get back into the book). For the price, I find my reader well worth it.

Well no one has mentioned touchy feely Earth angle yet, if it saves us cutting down more trees for books/magazines/newspapers that must be a good thing. Because if we ever reach a point where paper being a limited resource is uber expensive I cannot see the ebook being a replacement for my two ply (minimum) toilet paper replacement.

I have this Sony Qreader and it's really good. No need for color or anything. It's just a book! But I do use it only for reading manga, which is quite difficult considering most manga are in .jpg or .png format and that stupid thing keeps having to generate thumbnails for each image (a 10 volume manga has about 2000+ images...took me 2 hours for DeathNote to load). I would prefer Sony to just do some firmware or software update. The product is good enough.

The real problem with the sony ebook reader is that it isn't useful for anything. Even as it stands now, the display is razor sharp, but you can't do anything except look at pdfs

Ehh, I still contend that a cheap PDA with some reader software is the way to go. I've never had any problems with my Tungsten E and a good 512MB SD card for books plus any other supplemental data I need to carry around. Bought the whole lot for USD $50 and haven't looked back since.