iRex's iLiad e-reader goes on sale online

The alpha to Sony's e-ink omega, iRex's iLiad e-reader, hasn't only looked like a viable alternative to Sony's device, it's threatened to come in first (and cheaper). Well, cheaper may no longer be the case, but it looks like the iRex is set to ship this month in Europe for a princely €649 ($820 US). That's a pretty spicy meatball, we know, but we ain't never said early adoption was for the destitute or faint of heart.

[Thanks, PanMan and Oliver]

[david galbraith @ Jun 16th 2006 8:52AM]

does it have large talons?

[dale @ Jan 26th 2007 4:10PM]

I don't understand a word you just said.

[John from Buffalo @ Jun 16th 2006 8:58AM]

Why does a freegen eBook machine cost more than a traditional laptop these days?! That's what blows my mind. Its a black and white UI on a low density light screen. Sure has a few ports and some sh1t to make you get hard over, but that stuff was basically 1978. What sets the price apart from a PDA like a Clie' from ebay for 14$ from this piece o crap? Seriously, point of entry into market is $800?!?!?

[John from Buffalo @ Jun 16th 2006 9:02AM]

I re-affirm my flame from previous statement. It's like a freegen card reader, with USB hookup and wifi. I could get a Newton and crack-head myself for $150 with all the shitz and giggles.

I have NO clue why this eReader (or any for that matter) even made it above 250$. I think they are totally pricing themselves out of the market value and cost of entry. Someone f'd up the business model on this one.

[Fredi Bach @ Jun 16th 2006 9:10AM]

John from Buffalo never heard of electronic paper. Not that I will buy something like this for more than $400, but new technology always costs more at first before it becomes consumer friendly.

Fredi

[Alibo @ Jun 16th 2006 9:21AM]

650EUR is the B2B price before discount.
The individual targeted version will ship in september. Hopefully it's cheaper then. For bout 200-300EUR it'd be a real nice consumarismas gift.

[Brian Baigorri @ Jun 16th 2006 9:29AM]

I'm with Fredi.

Yes, it is WAY overpriced, but you can't compare an e-book reader with a laptop or PDA. Its like apples and oranges. E-book readers are MUCH more comfortable to read on, and have a battery life many times that of your typical PDA/tablet/laptop. It would be near impossible to read a novel on anything but an e-bookreader without stopping to recharge the batteries. And again, they are not harsh on the eyes.

That said, I do agree that the price is probably above what early adopters are even willing to pay. Drop it a couple hundred and I'm game (sure beats lugging my textbooks around). Maybe iLiad can drop some of the over the top tech specs (and get a new name whyile they are at it).

[Tom @ Jun 16th 2006 10:18AM]

On the plus side, at least it's competition for the Sony e-Reader. That should cause prices to go down at least a little bit after the initial release. I don't think I'm into this enough to pay the "early adopter fee", but I still really want a device like this.

I'm also wondering if these devices are going to come in different sizes. This size seems great for novels, but I'd like a nice big 8.5 x 11 screen for reading my textbooks.

[Tomas @ Jun 16th 2006 10:21AM]

It looks great. Unfortunately, it's about $420 too great.

[Yvan @ Jun 16th 2006 11:07AM]

The price of the reader is the equivalent of around 100 novels. Add to that the fact that you have to buy the rights to the said e-novels at about 70% of their paper price. You'd have to read a lot to make it worthwhile ! Then again the sketching part of It's functions makes It appealing. I'd pay $500.00. Oh! and don't forget shipping from Europe and all the lovely taxes...$1200.00 ? no way !!!

[alienhead_69 @ Jun 16th 2006 11:10AM]

I wouldn't pay over $99. period. I'll read books on ppc, thanks.

[tiuk @ Jun 16th 2006 11:47AM]

I'm with alienhead_69, until they're basically disposable, forget it.

[David @ Jun 16th 2006 11:49AM]

Yeah, it's a great idea, but not worth the price. A nice playtoy for the rich. But as Yvan says above, you could but a lot of books for the money, and that doesn't even include any content. Who has that much extra cash sitting around?

[apa @ Jun 16th 2006 11:53AM]

The "Read:" link is broken.

[apa @ Jun 16th 2006 12:02PM]

I am very interested in the Sony Reader, yes , it's expensive, but it's a new display technology and very easy on the eyes. And it's not about saving money, it's about convenience, I'd rather carry one of these instead of two or three books and a novel.
Th IRex has more features, like Wifi, and writing capabillities, that's why it costs more.

[Brian Baigorri @ Jun 16th 2006 12:14PM]

Ok, I'm understanding everyone who is just into reading their favorite Hardy Boy novel digitally, and is complaining about the price. But think about students. In 4 years of college you easily spend a couple thousand on textbooks. At 70% off for digital copies, the price of the reader (along with its convenience) is quickly taken care of. And lets not forget about professional post grad degrees - law school and med school - where you can run past $1000 in book expenses PER YEAR, not to mention the convenience of not having to lug around a 1600 page text for each class. Also consider professionals with subscriptions to journals that run over $100 a year. By subscribing digitally, you can have an extensive archive of your professions journal at your fingertipsAND save some cash to boot.

I'm all for it. Just let the price drop a couple pesos.

[Axel Roest @ Jun 16th 2006 1:29PM]

I've seen & held the irex iliad. It's great. I agree it's a steep price, and I'm still contemplating of buying one but, do not forget:
it contains 512 MB. ALL your O'Reilly books will fit on it, a lot of reference PDFs and more. It's actually more convenient than a pocketbook, since it stays flat and it's a lot lighter than most books I have. Couple that with a battery that last for at least a week (I hope mucho longer if you don't use the wifi option too much), and you can fit a 50 kg library in a 390 g package.
Oh, and readability in full sunlight is excellent. Now for the waterproof version and you can use it to read books on the beach.

[Josh Warner @ Jun 16th 2006 1:45PM]

You're right Brian - but the problem is that nobody will sell you textbooks for 70% off *and let you keep them*.

Given that, I'll pay the 30% extra and take actual books which can be sold back, have value, don't freaking expire after 6 months, and could be used for the rest of my life. No DRM-laden textbooks for me.

Not to mention backward-compatability issues in the future (Word 97 files in 2003? good luck, and that's just 6 years...). English will not change significantly over my lifetime, but file formats certainly will - will any ebooks be able to be read 20 years from now? How about 50?

Not that it wouldn't be convenient and cool. I'd gladly use it, but only if open, DRM-free ebooks became widely available. Otherwise, I agree with Yvan and say just go buy novels that will have none of these huge problems (wait, I meant "innovative features" in megacorporation-speak).

[Jeff Lewis @ Jun 16th 2006 2:07PM]

And you guys were complaining of a UMPC priced at $850!

Good lord. Perhaps the eInk screen is easier to read - but I read books on my PDA all the time and it's just not *that* hard on the eyes, and the screen is much smaller.

This sort of speciality reader will only be cost effective if subsidised (say, by a university for students or a business for their staff), or if it gets below $350. Heck, even that may be too high - there have been other ebook readers that died at $350.

[Brian Baigorri @ Jun 16th 2006 2:17PM]

Josh-
Some good points, but are you really going to keep that Cellular and Molecular Biology Textbook for many years as a reference? Or what about a textbook highlighting NYC Real Estate Laws? The answer is no, because textbooks are constantly outdated and rewritten. Besides that, the electronic format might not expire at all. They might just have DRM protecting the file from sharing (lets not even begin to mention how many texts are available for *ahem* 'free' on torrent sites if you are into that). And since when are new programs not backward compatible with old files? I'm pretty sure my office 2003 can open files from 2000. It just doesn't work vice versa.

That said, I do see your point in buying a book and then selling it for (when there is even a demand) half price, thereby saving a few dollars over the digital format. But, thats neither irex's nor sony's problem. Publishers need to accept the fact that they will be saving a bundle on printing, storage, shipping, and intermediaries, and then 'pay it foward.' They are the ones who can really make this a success (yes, a bit utopian).

[DarkSol @ Jun 16th 2006 2:48PM]

Jeff Lewis:

But here's the thing, you are saying that there is some discomfort from reading from your PDA. Imagine having no discomfort, being able to read from a very wide viewing angle, not having a battery drain extremely fast due to the battery only being used when you change the page, and etc...

The benefits of an e-ink reader are extremely high, unfortunately so are the prices. As the technology becomes more viable, the prices will come down. Personally, I'm very excited about this since I love to read and I go to the Gutenburg Project a lot and download free books to read as well as other PDF files that I have related to work and e-books that I own.

[Russ @ Jun 16th 2006 3:21PM]

This is great, but I'm really waiting for the Sony Reader. I messed around with the Sony Librie a few weeks ago and found the screen and supposed batterly life better than I expected. The Sony Reader is smaller than the iRex, and will probably be cheaper ($500 perhaps?). Since they're planning to sell it at Borders, they'll probably have to settle on a mass-market price...

[bk @ Jun 16th 2006 3:24PM]

There are 3 things for which i like the Iliad more than the Sony Reader:
1. No DRM-only or proprietary-files-only device.
2. rumors that Irex will deliver a SDK (so I would think homebrew "Viewers" or apps will appear)
3. rumors that the Iliad is running on a Linux OS, which implies parts of the software would be GPL-licensed and in that case Irex would be forced to publish the sources for this software

Downside is the high price. But remember what some other posters said, it's pretty new technology in there, its not a common LCD display.

But as with every new technology, the price will go down. (And even if Irex would die, in the case the OS is indeed a Linux, there may be developers or resources to keep a Iliad running.)

[tonydatigeryo @ Jun 16th 2006 4:49PM]

I thought iRex was the company, and the iLiad was the product name?

[gristle @ Jun 16th 2006 7:10PM]

I hope they bring this out in A4. I have literally thousands and thousands of journal papers which I regularly need to reread and reference. They fill up about 4 whole bookcases. I have them all in pdf format, but there is no way I'd read them on a computer screen. It would do my head in. If I could store and read them all on a device like this, it would save a massive amout of paper.

[Axel Roest @ Jun 17th 2006 4:27AM]

From what I've heard from one of the iliad developers, they are definitely going to publish an SDK for it.

[Bryan @ Jun 17th 2006 6:56AM]

I *want* one of these.

But I *also* need some relatively cheap way to take all my current paper books and references down to some bookmaw that will render the p-books into two products: pulp out one end and e-books into my nifty new e-ink reader device. I'd go as high as $500 for the reader and $5 per book for that...

Already noted are the long-life batteries and the display that's just WAY better than what we have now - I remember lots of people scoffing at flatscreen monitors when they were new, but they are now clearly the preferred monitor.

Not highlighted well enough is that the iLiad isn't just a display. You can write on it, and save your scribblings. That capability alone accounts for $300 in the price I am willing to pay for this thing.

About college texts: I'm 41 now. If I had been able to keep my college texts *without* having to schlep several hundred pounds of paper through every houshold move, and assign several square feet to them for the rest of my life, I'd be damn glad to have them around still!

[LC @ Jun 17th 2006 7:39AM]

As Alibo stated, this is the direct price with their B2B partners before discount. Come sometime around September and these vendors should sell them for considerably less. Probably more than the Sony reader, but it should be much less than $850.

Still, the specs are better than Sony's with more readable formats. I am still hopeful that their negotiations with Mobipocket come through as I will now have my new news reader device.

One advantage for me is the PDF reading ability. SInce most software and consumer electronics devices have their manuals as a PDF file, I would rather have them all on one device that is easy to travel with then having to go to my pc to open up.

[Andre K @ Jun 18th 2006 9:10PM]

The Sony Reader handles PDFs natively, just like the iLiad. The iLiad's advantage is its 1024 x 768 resolution, which at 158 dpi will probably render A4 PDFs must more elegantly than the Sony Reader's 800 x 640 resolution at 170 dpi.

But the Sony's smaller size does make is more portable. Before my Librie got stolen I used to carry it in my coat pocket. The Reader, sans keyboard, is even smaller.

[Jim Leemann @ Jun 19th 2006 1:09PM]

As a university professor, I have been tracking the progress of the Iliad and the Sony eReader since they were first announced. All of you on this blog make excellent points with respect to functionality and costs.

I recognize textbook publishers need to sell their textbooks to make money and stay in business, but how about rethinking how they sell textbooks. I find in my classes I'll want students to read only specific chapters and the remaining chapters are for their interest. Being realistic, how many of those other chapters did you ever read? Probably, none.

Publishers need to consider selling their textbooks by the chapter. They already have the textbook in electronic format, which can readily be converted into PDF and downloaded into an eReader. Frankly, in the end, I would bet more professors would utilize a greater variety of textbooks if they had the option to pick and choose the chapters they needed for teaching. The publishers can figure out how to make their money in this situation. Frankly, they run the potential of making more money and forcing the creation of a more competitive environment in the textbook publishing world. Textbook authors could become much more focused on the material they are writing about versus devoting chapters that provide little to the literature, but are required in order to sell the textbook.

As far as costs, I would speculate iRex will want to sell the Iliad through the various electronic academic stores, such as AcademicSuperstore.com, efollet.com and JourneyEd.com, at a discounted price if they want to reach students and faculty. Sony already has products that are available through these outlets. At least for students and faculty, products on these websites are deeply discounted.

As far as costs for industry, even if the reader is $1,000, industry will probably be early adapters due to the flexibility it will bring to the factory floor worker not having to run back to his/her computer to check a spec or procedure resulting in significant productivity improvement. It is all about having access to knowledge anytime and anywhere at your finger tips. Applications in industry and health care are limitless.

As far as cost to the everyday consumer, indeed the prices I have seen so far will make both readers a novelty in the near term, but with time, costs should come down significantly if they are a success.

Thanks to all of you for your insights. They have been quite helpful.

[Shig @ Jun 22nd 2006 9:03AM]

If you don't want one of these, then don't buy one; For me, this device and the SDK are going to be indispensible. You might ask, 'why not buy a laptop?' Well, I have one. I also have 2 desktops and a server, but what I don't have is a decent PDA and that's not for the want of looking for one.

I will buy one of these, and even if it doesn't turn out to be as good as I hope, early adopters like me are going to pave the way for future ePaper devices with greater functionality.

[Edwin de Kock @ Jun 23rd 2006 12:16PM]

As a writer, I look forward to e-paper readers: Iliad, Sony Reader, HanLin V8, and others. Competition will improve such products and also bring down the price. Such devices are not only easier on the eyes but can also enable authors to bypass publishers, printers, and book shops, eliminating much of the extra cost that these add to the price of a book. On, say, a work that retails for $20.00, the author usually earns only a royalty of $2.00 or $3.00. Because of additional expenses, like paying an editor and so forth, the e-book price could-—with direct marketing-—come down to 25% and sell at about $5.00. That would be a reasonable price, to which potential readers could not reasonably object. –Edwin

[spud @ Jun 26th 2006 10:39AM]

I have a Clie and am wary of Sony. I really want a good ereader to take on trips...9 to 14 ounces is far more portable than 3,500 paper back pages; and less costly now that air lines are charging for more than 50 pounds. Add the ability to take notes, do a simple sketch and connect wirelessly - WOW! I hadn't even thought of the wonderful academic (except when unit fails at 3am before a 9am exam or paper deadline) and industrial uses.

[bob @ Jul 3rd 2006 10:39AM]

For all of you who are complaining about the price of this, I just spent US$240 on a book shelf that holds probably 350-400 books and will be buying a second in the near future. That coupled with the space they take up (let's not forget that in a rental situation you usually pay monthly by the sq ft.) this does not seem like that much cash. I will probably wait until the price falls but I will have one of these. Now I just need to get all of my out of print books into PDFs.

[Mike @ Jul 19th 2006 6:21PM]

OK I read the posts and I have a few points.

First this is new technology, like most of you have mentioned. Does anyone know what O-LED is? The color version of e-Ink. It will soon replace you LCD monitor, TV Screen and just about anything that projects a pisture. You think this is pricey, think again. O-LED is the way to go, power comsumption is reduced as with eInk to next to nothing. No need for a back light. They are still developing it, but it is the next big thing in monitors. The power saving alone over the life of the product will or should pay for it.

I bring this up because nowhere have I seen the page turn rate in anything I have read either about the Sony or the iRex, except one that stated the rate at about 2 seconds. For a speed reader this is a lot of time and could be the one major disadvantage to the whole niche.

I agree whole heartedly with all those whose posts were a long the lines of reduced weight and space, reduced publishing costs and the ability of authors to publish on their own and receive the majority of the profit while reducing the cost to the consumer.

I want one. I like the idea and yes I have a laptop and a PDA. Have any of you who are so upset about the price and think you can do this on a PDA ever really tried to read an ebook on a PDA???? Or try to pull out your laptop on an air plane and read just before take off. If you were using it in the waiting area, and have your setting correct, you may have two to four hours of battery life left. With an ereader like this, you can make the notes, book mark the page (try that with any PDA or Laptop), search and update your files and down load them when you get to your next destination. Try doing that with a PDA or a laptop and still not have to charge it for a week. Please.

Yes the cost is steep but imagine spending $1 on a paper only to throw it away daily. Thats $365 every year or so. And then if you find something relavent in your reading you have to scan it in to keep the reference. Same with journals and college text books.

The price will come down within a few months. If not then I opt out until one shows up used on eBay.

Bottom Line this is an Awesome advance for eBooks. And while the price is more on the B2B side of things now, once they get out into the market and the price drops, apps are built and connectivity is increased many many people will own one. They only make since.

And I still want to know how fast does it turn the page?

[Andrew Spencer @ Sep 7th 2006 11:58PM]

It's way too expensive. I had my heart set on gifting myself one for finishing my second degree, but I'm not spending this much on it. I would be willing to go up to 400 Euros, so it's overpriced by about 250.

However, once these gadgets come down in price and are massively distributed, they will revolutionise the academic workplace.

[Amalthia @ Dec 14th 2006 10:16PM]

I'm interested in the Irex because of all the formats it will read. I read a lot of html documents and so far Sony Reader does not seem to support html.

I think this would be worth the price because I love reading and a lot of what I read is online and it would be nice to not be chained to my computer to read stories and etc...

[DC @ Dec 17th 2006 4:02PM]

The big problem here is no one like apple has come up with a product like the ipod for e-reading. Once the infrastructure for easy and cheap ebook purchasing is set up, then these readers will become a viability, but before hand its not likely that any of these readers will be even moderately successful.

[Jonathan @ Dec 17th 2006 10:38PM]

Does this thing have a calendar and browser. I could see spending $800 for a pda that provides internet access. I'm going to by a PS3 once they are available and connect to Google Docs&Spreadsheets and Picasa through it's browser. I don't work with databases and edit illustrations at home. Who's going to need a computer at home in five years. Similarly, if this were had some no frills UMPC capability, $800 isn't bad. Basically, for $800, I want to be able to do more than read books at the beach. And if I were back in school and could download my syllabus off of the classroom Wi-Fi network, leave my bookbag at home, and have notes from all of my classes on one device, this would be a no brainer.

DRM problems are also a critical issue. Audible.com sells audio books that can be downloaded to any music device and are stored in an online locker to be re-downloaded at any time. So I'm comfortable that they will always be there regardless of what happens to my iPod or hard disk. Publishers need to realize that the average user doesn't want to figure out how to download torrent files any more than they want to read a manual in what their DRM rights are. Imagine how difficult it would be to sell paperbacks if every time you accidentally left your novel on the metro or airplane your whole library disappeared. Or if every time your wife took a book out to read in the park, your book case slammed shut until you decided whether they were all her books or all yours. DRM problems are the reason I still buy CDs and transfer them to my iPod.

[Geroge Thomas @ Apr 7th 2007 10:50AM]

I have to say, after following e reader divices now for five years. They have come and gone. Mainly due to lack of advertisement, compatibility, and price. One thing is that you really have to perform a lot of searches on the web to even find them. At present, I am looking for an e reading device that is colour and has the compatibility to download many formats of books. The prices for e reading devices so far are overpriced and it looks like they too, will become extinct like all the rest.

[Andrew @ May 3rd 2007 12:13AM]

Can we get the media agencies to pay the upfront cost for the reader in return for the media agencies delivering their content daily for a subscription fee? Then we can get the hackers to make this an awesome product (I'd like to use it as my carry everywhere notepad and be able to store the pages where I want for quick reference)

[BGlassman @ Aug 5th 2007 8:10AM]

There should be a connection between the price of a technology and the size of the problem it solves, or advantage it confers. For me, and I think for a lot of potential adopters (early and not-so-early) the problem with this technology is that it does not address our single greatest reading load -- the reports, drafts (often marked up by hand) and journal articles that arrive at our desks on good old paper.

As a result, we end up with briefcases full of paper, plus a computer, plus, now, an ereader? Perhaps if ordinary email clients offered the one-click option of "Send this attachment to my ereader" it would begin to look like a viable option. And if reasonably priced scanners could remove staples from drafts and turn journal pages and send the result to the "My documents that have to be read and commented on by tomorrow morning" folder on the ereader, this technology would have me genuinely excited. For now, its market will be limited to people for whom the preponderance of their reading is from novels, textbooks, manuals, reference works and the like, and to members of organizations that can somehow mandate that all material coming in, or sent between members of the organization, be in electronic form. That is undoubtedly a whole lot of people, but I doubt that it is a substantial portion of the people who can most afford it.

And for those of us who, on vacation, sit and read and fall asleep with the novel on our laps, only to be awakened as the novel falls to the concrete apron around the pool, well...

/bg

[Spence @ Oct 5th 2007 3:29PM]

There are two basic issues with the Iliad. 1) The Price is Disgusting. You can buy a low end laptop with a slow processor for that now. 2)The processor is unbelievably SLOW. I mean painfully slow. You would think for this kind of money it would work better but forget it. It's $701.00 (US) delivered to the US.

Also, there may be a mechanical hard drive as opposed to memory drive. You would think they could put a decent amount of storage using memory drive or even a small hard drive. The Wireless is difficult to setup. I'm still reading manuals to figure out what is wrong (and I that for a living!). The wired was OK but a little weird to get setup. Was able to do the update using the wired connection without problems.

The main thing I use this for is PDFs and HTML. I especially like the HTML because you can increase the letter size very easily to read the document. PDFs is a little more trouble, especially if you don't create the PDF yourself and whoever did used 10 or 12 point text. Sometimes using PDF, when you try to zoom to read it, it's really difficult to see what you want in the size you want. Almost as if it just makes a window on the page MUCH bigger and you have a difficult time moving that window around to see more stuff. Especially because the blasted processor is SO SLOW!!!

Also, large files take FOREVER to load. I mean really, FOREVER! You can literally start to load a file and just head off to lunch someplace, come back and it MIGHT be finished.

Don't forget also, it's like reading a book. Meaning there is no back light. If you can't read a paperback in available light, you won't be able to read this either.

There is a PIN function that locks the machine when not in use, but if you have anything on the removable memory card then that is just plain files. No encryption or anything like that. So keep confidential stuff on the Iliad and the non-confidential stuff on memory cards. Also, they mention memory stick. Don't confuse that with Sony memory sticks. This is actually a standard USB port to plug in what you probably think of as a "thumb drive" type device.

The other advantage to this over the Sony eBook reader is the 16 color gray scale. The Sony has 4. Pictures look sort of OK on the Iliad and look awful on the Sony. Also the PDF usage on the Sony is VERY BAD.

Well, I hope this is useful to anything thinking they have $700.00 laying around that they just have to spend!

[Spence @ Oct 16th 2007 7:30PM]

After a couple of weeks with the Iliad, it's working much faster (after updating it) and I've gotten the Wi-Fi to work at work and at home. The problem is that besides updates, there is really precious little content at iRex for the Iliad. There is one Belgian (I think) newspaper that I can't even find a copy of to get an idea of what it looks like with a newspaper type content and that's it.

If you believe that you will be mostly using an e-reader for reading text, and not so much for graphics, then you will do much better to get the Sony eReader. It's about 1/3 the cost and while it is only 4 tones of gray scale, it still is fine for just reading text.

[leo maxwell @ Dec 4th 2007 6:07PM]

Well, we bought one for trial with one of our field engineers.
This thing costs a little more than our existing engineers HTC phone PDAs running windows mobile(which are priced at £350 plus VAT )
Thing is, our service manuals and parts lists (in PDF) are unreadable on the HTC- screen too small, not useable in daylight, too power hungry.A laptop is too unwieldy and slow, they already have a heavy toolcase to carry.
The iLiad is perfect for this application, easy to read, simple zoom for diagrams, large screen, long battery life, portable and comfortable to use as a book or a notepad.Replaces a car boot full of manuals.
In fact, our engineer doesn't want to give it back!

[Mauro @ Dec 16th 2007 3:39PM]

The iLiad is great for someone working overseas in remote locations, where books are not available at all, but an internet connection is. This is the only way I can buy books while on assignments in Africa and the Middle East. Regardless of the cost, to me it is a "must have" gadget (so is the iPod, by the way, which does the same job for music). And forget PDAs and laptops. You will need a new prescription by the time you finish reading a book in a PDA. Ditto for a laptop. Electronic paper is much easier on the eyes.

The Sony ebook reader is not available outside the US (with a few exceptions), and even if one can get one, the Sony store restricts sales to customers with US credit cards with a US billing address. Why they do that is beyond me...