I think I can’t give up physical books completely either. That’s mainly because some books aren’t available electronically or the format is not conducive to the reader, like reference books and textbooks. I ran out of space a long time ago though because I share space with my sisters!

I think you might like the e-ink screens. They aren’t shiny and the words look nice and crisp. Plus, when you get older, you can easily increase the font size that is displayed for easy reading! I hope you get to try one out sometime. Maybe there is a Sony store near you?

ps. I have a friend who is Slovenian!

I’ve been wondering about e-book readers for a while, the LCD monitors are too shiny for me too!

Don’t like being tied to one format only either, and since this is Slovenia, we might not get everything here either.
Can you get books from Amazon okay too?

I found I’ve bought a lot of books recently and am running out of space a bit (while still finding new and new awesome books ‘out there’!) so it’s a thing I’ve considered. I’d need to test a few first, to see if the glare wouldn’t be too much.. I’d also love to have the ability to copy and add notes/bookmarks etc.
I love the feel of a book though, so will probably never switch completely. I’m very visual and love physical bookmarks to interesting sections too..
I’m sort-of allergic to some inks and papers or combos too (they ‘smell’ bad – even or especially new books!), some are okay…

I think you are right about responsiveness too. The refresh time on ereaders have also been a big point of comparison as far as I know (people do extensive side by side tests).

I like your idea of being able to copy into a notepad seamlessly. That, along with dictionary lookup and multitouch gestures, would really enhance the reading experience. I hope that this does eventually become possible!

I haven’t done any actual research into this, so this is pure speculation on my part, but I think the major factor limiting the public’s interest in the Sony Reader Touch was response speed. A touchscreen isn’t really an improvement if the display doesn’t update immediately and you don’t feel like you’re actually interacting with the page; it’s more like you’re just repositioning the buttons from the outside of the screen onto the middle of it.

However, imagine an e-reader with instant response time; with the ability to redraw fast enough that you could feel like you were turning the pages with your fingers. And where you could use multi-touch to zoom or scroll down. And where you could do certain gestures to perform certain actions (say, highlighting a phrase by simultaneously tapping the beginning of the word with one finger and the end of the word with another finger to Google/dictionary search the phrase or save it to a clipboard). And then pull up a notepad by dragging a bar up from the bottom of the screen to expand the notepad window. And then double-tapping in the empty notepad to paste what you’d just copied. Then you drag the notepad window back down and get back to reading, and can go back to your notepad easily and instantly whenever you want to.

This would be a vast improvement on any of the “bookmark” or “note” tools I’ve seen built into the UI of e-readers I’ve played with. It just takes split-second e-ink redraw (which we’ll have soon!) and UI designers clever enough to make it simple.

I am only able to say that I’ve read reviews comparing Sony’s touchscreen reader to their non-touchscreen reader, and the differences may not have been very significant. But that was a while ago, so it might be much better now than it was. I think the experience from e-ink touchscreen technology (by comparing it to other e-ink displays) is different from what you’ve experienced in other gadgets, but I might be wrong.

High-end touchscreens don’t really affect the clarity of the image at all, in my experience. I don’t think that’s really a concern, as evidenced by smaller displays on a few toys I’ve played with (iPhones, G1s, and DSes).

I think color e-ink would be cool too, but for me I don’t think it would be something I need. If I read more textbooks and reference books on an ereader, that might change my mind though. I’ve heard that adding the touchscreen makes some screens less clear or contrast-y. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from now on though. One of the newer Sony Reader models has touchscreen, but I haven’t seen one or tried one and I think it is limited in functionality as compared with say the Nook or iPad.

Yeah, I’m sad that I can’t read my old books without feeling itchy and stuff. I’m not sure if I’m officially allergic to the dust (I haven’t asked a doctor or anyone about it), but it sure feels like it. But with my reader, I can read and re-read to my heart’s content!

What I’m really looking forward to is color e-ink with fast rewrite rates and full-screen touchscreens. All of these things are technically possible and apparently already exist in prototypes, but it’ll be a while before the price comes down. But full-screen touchscreens allow for better UIs, which will make eReaders far more useful for harder reading tasks such as reference book usage and casual browsing. I predict that Apple’s creativity in terms of UI might manifest itself in some e-reading optimizations in the iPad, which could in turn be copied/improved upon for e-ink displays.

I didn’t know you were allergic to dust from old books! That’s really crappy. But it’s a good thing you have an alternative!