The Sony Reader that I ordered last week has finally arrived and I’m quite impressed with the little gadget. The best feature of it is probably the screen. It’s unbelievably easy to read. If you’ve ever used LCD/CRT-based screens to read e-books, you know what I’m talking about. The screen uses E-ink technology that eliminates flicker altogether. In addition, it doesn’t need any power to keep displaying a page, but only draws power when a screen needs to be repainted. And it’s built-in Lithium ion battery lasts for approximately 7500 page flips. It also includes an mp3 player, which might have been best left out. It comes preloaded with 1984, which I’ve wanted to read for sometime, having lost the paperback in a tragic traveling incident.

Coming back to the screen, it has no backlight, so reading in the dark is out of the question, but considering the long battery life, I have no complains. The angle of vision is excellent and causes very little glare, so it’s quite easy to read in even bright conditions. The downside is that it’s grayscale, but colour screens are probably just around the corner.

And then there’s the fact that it’s running a great operating system.