[ottdmk]

Tonight I just got thinking about how much I love the e-reading experience. I absolutely love it.

Part of it is just e-ink. Mind you, the Touch is the first e-reader I've ever used, so I'm a bit spoiled as it has a Pearl. But... it's text. It's not light masquerading as text... it's actual bounce-light-off-of-it text, just like I've been reading with p-books for over thirty years. It's easy on my eyes. I can (and have) read for hours with my Touch. Can't imagine doing that with a tablet.

Part of it is just e-readers in general. I love the weight & size of the Touch, but other readers are similar. I read a lot of fantasy paperbacks that can get pretty thick. The Touch weighs less then the books I'm used to. I can hold it in one hand for hours.

That's another thing. This may sound silly, but do you have any idea how much I love that you can put the reader down and you don't lose your page? I've put my Touch on a table and sat there reading it, just poking at it when needed to flip the page. You simply can't do that with a paperback.

Bookmarking is another nice thing. Never need to remember to use one. (To be honest, I pretty much never do with a p-book.) Every time I turn on the Touch it'll open up my current book to the right page. Or, if I've been flipping between books... it remembers 'em all.

I can even do custom bookmarks in my gaming PDFs. Which comes in handy at the table. PDF support on the Touch just *works* for me. I was hoping it would be ok for gaming, and it is. I have a light, portable gizmo that I can take and it has all my Deadlands pdfs on it. And I never worry "did I charge it beforehand?" The odds of it being so run down I have to worry about it dying at the gaming table are slim indeed.

As for the Touch itself... with 2.1.5 I really like it. I like the home screen, with my five most recent reads or add ons. I like that Die Trying is sitting there, reminding me that yeah this is a library book that I should get around to reading.

I've looked at the Discover section a few times, and I'm glad I did. Had no idea that Dave Duncan had done a follow-up to his Seventh Sword series. Thanks for that, Kobo.

Shelves are great for me. Got my Exalted pdfs on one shelf, Deadlands on another, Hell On Earth on a third. Sweet.

I love the epub support. It's one of the main reasons I bought the Touch. With epubs & Adobe come libraries. And do I ever love the ability to use my local library without leaving my house or worrying about a late return.

I like the web browser. It's not much, but it means if I'm lying in bed and want to check the weather forecast without getting up, I can. It's nice. And I know I can use it to get another Guntenberg book any time I want to. That's nice too.

I love that I've got over eighty books on this thing, including a lot of pdfs, and I'm not even at the half-way point of the internal storage. I can't imagine filling it up, let alone filling up the two gig SD card I keep stuck in it just in case.

Overall, this is a gizmo that aids and abets my main vice, reading. Really glad my wife got it for me. Next is to save up and get a Glo... :-P