Sony Reader "not all that"

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

And for total impunity, who's brave enough (as not to attract lightning) to hollow out a bible. bad boy bad bad!

The paper's usually too thin for that to work very well.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by seamusfp

As soon as you put a light on the reader you have have the same problem as LCD's with regards to battery life. You have a huge quiescent draw turning electrons into photons. While LCD's are not image stable like E Ink, most of the battery issues come from backlighting. Granted you could only use the light when needed, unlike most LCD's.

My iPAQ allows me to adjust the backlight from 100% to off - and the supplied battery lasts for many days with my usage habits (reading for a few hours and using it as an alarm clock). If that isn't long enough, a variety of larger-capacity batteries are available for it.

[William Moates]

I think that adding a LightWedge-like feature would draw less power than LCD backlighting. According to a product description, the LightWedge provides "40 hours of light on four AAA batteries". That's with about 1100 mA·h, and the Reader's battery probably has more mA·h. The LightWedge uses bright LEDs, so you don't have to worry about them burning out, and they require much less electricity than light bulbs. I'm guessing that if a LightWedge-like feature was built into the Reader it would provide 24-48 hours of light. That sounds like a good lifetime on one charge.