[NatCh]

A set of number buttons, for entering page numbers, and a miniature joystick, for navigating menus, are the only other input devices.

Wow, in a week he found a way to enter page numbers? Wish he'd share that with us, we've been after it for 10 weeks.

But the Reader's display has one fatal shortcoming that makes even that kind of quick reading impossible. Every time you turn a virtual page, the screen must reconfigure its microcapsules, so that it momentarily displays a negative of the page to come, a whiteon-black image that hovers for a second and then winks out. The disruption is so headache-inducing and hard on the eyes as to cancel out the benefits of the "E Ink" display.

And isn't that an extraordinary statement? No one else seems to react so strongly to the flash once they use it more than a few pages. Most folks say it just fades out of notice. But I suppose that in the multitude of humanity, there must be a few that would have that experience.

Umm hmmm, then the usual stuff about the Connect store sucking (which it does ), no notice that you can get stuff elsewhere, though. Probably just doesn't know himself -- lots of folks don't.

Ah, there's a new one:

Thomas Friedman's bestseller "The World Is Flat," for instance, costs $12, which is less than half the price of the hardcover, but still feels like a lot for a bunch of pixels. (emphasis added)

Yeah, since that "bunch of pixels" didn't cost anything to make, why should inconsequential people like the author get any compensation for their part? Everyone knows that electronic is synonymous with free, right? And I love the idea that because you pay for the hardware, you shouldn't have to pay for the content. I notice nobody tries that on the Cable company: "you know, I've paid a lot of money for my TV, you should lower your prices on your service, Mr. ComCast."

If you want to say that you think the Reader is expensive, say it -- most folks wouldn't even argue with you -- but the comparison to how many p-books you could buy is a bit of a red-herring. No one is going to buy an e-reader unless they're already interested in e-reading, so they already see something desirable in not buying the paper. Just like folks who don't want or need a computer aren't going to buy one, nor will they buy software to run on it.

Then he finishes up with a paragraph implying that we're all just interested in electronic reading because we're knee-jerk techno-junkies (possibly so, speaking for myself ) with an ingrained fear of being branded as luddites (I carry a pocket watch, I'm clearly not worried about the Luddite thing). Followed by four paragraphs explaining that we're all just missing the point that paper books are so wonderful that they'll never change, because they don't need to. He particularly includes the point that because they're not electronic, no one can secretly change them on us. Did I mention that one of his earlier criticisms is that the Reader doesn't do enough computery things like text searching?

So it'll fail 'cause it's not computery enough and because it's too computery?

I think this really sums up not his review, but his view:

Seeing as the rise of the book coincided with the rise of humanism itself, it is not idle to worry that abolishing the first will mean abandoning the second. We can still feel the truth of Petrarch's paean to the book, written seven centuries ago: "Gold, silver, gems, fine raiment, a marble palace, well-cultivated fields, paintings, a splendidly caparisoned horse — such things as these give one nothing more than a mute and superficial pleasure. Books delight us through and through, they converse with us, they give us good advice; they become living and lively companions to us." Somehow, with the Sony Reader, it's just not the same.

It seems to me that this is not so much a review of the Sony Reader as it is an editorial about the whole concept of e-reading in general. He could make most of the same comments about a device that had unlimited, cheap content, allowed for completely free-form accessing and annotation, had a leather cover and paper-textured casing, and cost $1.50. Oh, and didn't flash on page changes.