E-Book reader!

I've been thinking over the last few days/weeks/months, that when I get
to PNG, I might like to have an ebook reader so I don't have the weight
of tens of books to carry around with me. This lead me to start
investigating the prospects of ebook readers on the market currently.

The first one that I knew about was the Amazon Kindle
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle) The electronic paper that
is used on the high end ebook readers looks sharp, and leads to long
lasting battery life. However there were some complaints from the user
reviews that didn't like the new Kindle 2 because it doesn't have the
expansion slot for SD card and that the contrast one the '2' was worse
than the original... not the direction you'd like to see out of and
updated version. Then of course is the price. At $359 for the Kindle 2
makes it pretty hard on the pocket book... You do get ebooks downloaded
for free over 3G networks when you download/buy books from Amazon, but
that won't work in PNG... so, final verdict? Let's see what else is out
there...

The next ebook reader that looked good was the Hanlin V3
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlin_eReader) which gets re-distributed
under various other name brands, here it's called the "Astak EZ Reader".
There is also a V5 version that is out/will be out shortly. The cool
thing about the Hanlin is it says it has battery life based on page
turns... somewhere between 1,000 to 8,000... unfortunately quite the
wide range, but it probably has something to do with rendering pictures
and the like. It has a slot for an SD card and an internal memory of
512Mb. The biggest problem that I've seen is that it's so hard to tell
the differences between the versions. Not much was updated from the V3
to the V5, and the prices are still about the same. ($299 for V3 & $250
for V5... yeah, you got me on that one) I haven't been able to locate
where to buy the V5 yet, but this website is a great one for looking up
information on ereaders: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Hanlin_V5

Anyway, the V5 is still more than I was hoping to spend on the
conveyance of reading my books on an electronic device. Well, lucky for
me there is another option...the XO laptop: (http://laptop.org) Since I
happened to participate in the Give 1 Get 1 a few years ago, the
opportunity to use this computer as something special has just come to
mind. It is a low power laptop for kids in developing nations around
the world... A cool project with a lofty goal of delivering a laptop
for every child in the world.

The XO laptop has a Gb of storage, and can lower the back light to a
gray scale for outdoor use, a full keyboard (although very small for
anything but a child's hands), wireless networking (802.11b/g/s), and an
SD slot... The downsides of using it as an ebook reader is that it's
rather large and the interface is a little slow compared to a device
that is built for a dedicated purpose. However, I already own this
one... ;-)

Would I guy it just for an ebook reader? Nope... Would I buy it again to
support the G1G1 project? Yeah, but unfortunately that program isn't
going on right now. You might just have to wait for the XO2...
http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo2/

Here's a review of the XO as an ebook reader:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/02/with-some-polis/
and the XO website: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO

Happy reading!