E-books already work quite well on PDA's (Score 1)

It's amazing how the article mentions nothing about the current, best machanism - I found that e-books work very well on PDA's.

It started as PeanutPress, but is now known as http://www.ereader.com/ has a free e-reader that works on Palm and Pocket PC PDA's as well as Mac and Windows desktops/notebooks.

They have a pretty good selection of current titles as well as a lot of classics.

As far as the reading experience goes, I think the current standard of Palm PDA's (320x320 or 320x480) works just fine. In fact I find that I much prefer to read on the PDA than the dead-tree version. It's lighter, smaller, it's always with me (fits in my pocket) (bit of geek factor - sigh). I can change the font size as might sight degrades with age :-). It has a built in back light - no more disturbing the spoulsal overunit.

I read "The Count of Monte Cristo" not long ago which is 1,000 pages or so (on par with "War and Peace"). I never would have finished it if not for the the PDA version. The book is huge. I was able to get a lot of reading done in the kids room while they were drifting off to sleep, or while waiting to pick them up, or while commuting.

There has been this misguided notion that the device needs to have the same look and feel as a book to succeed. Nonsense. In this case, the PDA form factor is much better regarding size and heft. The text width is much like reading a newspaper column - very natural. In fact, when I was sick for a spell, I found I could read much longer with a PDA than a "real" book. It's an easy one handed job (I suppose that may bring up other advantages) and I could roll over an many positions.

I even found their DRM to be pretty much a non-issue. You have a library on their web sight that includes every book that you purchaced. If you ever need to re-download it to a new device, it is all right there. The book is encrypted using your name and credit card number as keys. Thus you can open the book on any device that you have the free e-reader on.

The downsides?

1) Yes, I can't lend it to a friend, or sell it used.

2) I can't impress my friends with my impressive bookshelf when they come over. But how many among us actually have friends that come over :-)

3) They are often a bit less expensive than dead tree versions, but I think that they ought to be even less expensive given the lack of material, manufacturing and storage costs. Then again, shipping is always free - and really d*mn fast.

Cheers,

Steve