For Christmas I convinced the vast majority of my relatives to get my book tokens. I am an avid reader to everyone knew that they would be appreciated. Rather than buying a book however I decided to take a leap into the twenty first century and purchase one of the new eReader’s from Sony

I have to say, after using it for three months now, that I am impressed for the most part. Over the next few paragraphs I’ll give you my impressions of this interesting little bit of kit.

The Reader – Same size as your average paperback. Thinking about it probably weighs about the same as well. I’ve found that when reading though there are number of buttons to access the various menus and search functions I tend just to use forward and back.

The Software – The goods news is that Sony seem to have learned from previous mistakes on this one. I have had mp3 players from Sony in the past and the big let down for me has been the software package used to manage tracks. The eReader can handle multiple file formats as well as audio and pictures so the eLibrary needed to be simple yet robust enough to copy. Now I’m not saying that it’s attractive link the sort of stuff you get from Apple but the software does do the job. So far no gripes.

The Verdict – I suppose the I only have two minor complaints with the reader. One is that the tactile sensation when turning a page is missing. Now I know that might sound a bit wanky but I have also enjoyed that as part of reading. Secondly no wi-fi capability. Unfortunately I think this second point will direct a lot of potential users towards the Kindle when it is launched in the UK. Its a shame because overall the eReader is a nice little bit of tech.

What Next? – Well if i was Sony I would look into colour in a big way. If you are going to include the capacity for pics then there has to be a colour option. I think increasing the internal hard disk to 4-8GB rather than 200MB might be an idea as well. If they want people to use this to replace their mp3 player as well as traditional books then more storage is required as standard.

Until next time

Laters