[mogui]

Are you kidding me?
I am not sure. I have a talent for kidding myself at times. So I will try to explain why this is an upgrade.

I travel often, so I carry my Sony reader for reading in absolute comfort while lounging on a hotel bed or on an airplane. I have my Treo 650 for the PIM functions, the phone, and the ability to read books on the run. Then I carry a laptop so I can have connectivity and do a few other nerdish things on the road.

The Sony Reader is wonderful, but I have had it a year now and find that the battery doesn't hold up qute as long, and I miss backlighting. Still, I take it with me always.

Of course the Treo is always in my pocket. It stays beside me when I sleep. When I am in the shower it is on the sink counter. More and more I am relying on it for book reading when I am in a taxi, or just having a dull moment in a restaurant when nobody else speaks English. I plug it in every night, so battery life has not been an issue. And, yes, I like reading on it. The backlight is adjustable right from the keyboard, so I never feel eyestrain.

The laptop has been a headache. it is an older HP. It needs external prostheses to accomplish modernity such as WiFi and Bluetooth and even USB 2.0. So I carry a bag of wires and dongles.

I found myself in Shanghai the other day, and with nothing important to do I asked myself, "Self, why don't you buy you a new computer?" I had been tempted by the EEE for some time. It has the portability I need. It hardly makes a lump in a backpack. It is the size of a hardback novel and as easy to hold. It has better WiFi than the HP.

So I bought it. Yesterday was rainy so I played with the Xandros Linux. There is no icon for FBReader, so I navigated the File Manager to the /usr/bin directory and made FBReader a favorite so I can get to it easily whenever. I did the same for a couple of other handy apps. I could aways open them from the terminal (ctl-alt-t) but the File manager pops up anyway because the EEE detects my 4G SDHC card on power-up.

FBReader looks OK so far. You can rotate the screen and hold the EEE like a book. It is light and comfortable this way. Others report that FBReader is quite good. I will see for myself in the next few days.

So will I carry three reading devices? I must have my Treo, and I surely do need a laptop. Maybe the Sony Reader will get left behind on the next journey. Sorry old friend. The EEE has a long power cord, so reading at home or hotel is easy and battery life is not an issue. For air travel, I may pick up a spare battery for my Treo as I do take the occasional 14 hour flight.