Having resisted going to the the Apple store over the weekend, tonight I went to Best Buy to check the iPad out. I already have a Macbook Pro so my interest was primarily as an ebook reader.

I spent maybe 20 - 30 minutes with it. It had numerous applications already installed but I searched for the iBook app. (BTW if you think it tough finding your icons on the iPhone or iTouch wait till you see the iPad.) I opened it up and was greeted with the nice wood bookshelf. I chose Winnie, of course. The opening and illustrations were wonderful but when I reached the beginning text I stared for a minute, then closed by eyes thinking something was wrong, hoping to clear whatever must have gotten into them, the opened them again. But the page hadn't changed. What I noticed is that the fonts were, well, crappy. No they were horrible.

I thought to my self "No this can't be right. The settings must be wrong." I checked the settings, what there were, but couldn't see how to improve them. So I began changing the font types. Baskerville, Palatino, Times, Verdana. All the fonts were horrible: blurry, unclear, parts of them disappeared like the horizontal part in the letter e. Then I began to change the font size. Remarkably the fonts did not get better as the size increased.
(There is a close-up of the iPad's display versus the Kindle DX in the excellent Ars Technica review which illustrates e-ink's vastly superior fonts.)

I am relieved now that I don't need to or want to spend the $ for this toy. But I am also disappointed that the iPad is not a good ereader, at least for me. I demand good font clarity in these devices. It is very slick and would be great for games and web surfing. Two handed typing was easier than I thought it would be. But for books it would be taking me in a direction away from where I want to go, namely a pleasant reading experience. The iPad's font presentation has killed [most of] my desire.

So my search continues...