Sony Reader preview by Associated Press

[doctorow]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Techno...036573260.html (and many other news sites that link to AP content)

The negative points are perhaps of special interest:

• First of all, navigation is fairly clumsy. You can't just enter the page number and jump to the page, nor can you enter a word or phrase to search for, as you can when reading a book on a PC. To get around, there are 10 buttons that will each take you a 10th of the way through text. You can also jump to chapter starts, or return to bookmarks. Still, this is very much a one-way device, designed for reading a book straight through from cover to cover. This lack of interactivity is partly because the screen is slow to change, since it takes time for the pigments to move through the capsules. It takes about a second to display a new page. That means no scrolling through pages, and no note-taking on the screen _ imagine having to wait a second for each letter you write to appear.
• Secondly, and less importantly, the Reader handles PDFs poorly. It doesn't allow you to zoom in on them, so if they're formatted for standard 8.5-inch-by-11-inch pages, the text will be illegibly small.
• Thirdly, the Reader doesn't have a built-in light source, unlike PCs and personal digital assistants. A small clip-on light of the kind sold for books should work well, though.