e-reader on the trail

[Powder River]

Does anybody have any experience with the new e-ink devices? I read constantly and am planning a thru-hike in 08. I am planning to bring a compact bible (10 ounces) and also some other book at all times (also around 10 ounces). This is a lot of weight, but I don't consider NOT reading for 6 months an option.

I am intrigued with these new devices. They use something called e-ink, which is basically an LCD screen that is not back-lit, and once a page is displayed, it requires no power to maintain. (kind of like a watch display) Therefore they get super good battery life, like 8,000 page turns before recharging. They are also light, from 6 to 9 ounces. The recharger could be sent in a bounce box, and the memory could hold hundreds of books. Here are links to the Sony and Bookeen devices:
http://www.bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16184

There are a few other manufacturers making these, but I was mostly wondering if anyone has ever used one. They are expensive but I am trying to get both the bulk and weight of my pack down.

[Uncle Silly]

i think if you take real books you can do lots better than 6-9 oz (for example, by tearing a large paperback into sections and only carrying one section at a time; or by selecting smaller books). i like the concept of e-ink technologies but i suspect it's still a little new: meaning current devices will be expensive and feature-poor. i'm also very suspicious of e-reader companies -- ebooks are widely available but often in proprietary formats. there's lots of free options (via project gutenberg, among others) but they may not have the content you want.

i love the concept of a device that carries many many books, tho the description of "stores 160 books" sounds a little ... well, small, capacity-wise.

i'd have a lot of questions, about how easy it is to bookmark your place; browse another book, then return to your position in the first book; zoom in if the text isn't as big as you might like; things like that. unfortunately these devices aren't quite common enough that you can just borrow one from a friend to try it out.

[Powder River]

From what I can gather of both of these devices, they work a lot like the readers on a PDA. I used to use microsoft reader and now I have mobipocket on my smartphone. It saves your place in any book you are reading, and you can access the library with something like a home button.

Both of them them are expandable with memory cards, so you potentially could carry thousands of books with just a cheap 1 gb card. The Sony of course, only uses their own proprietary book format and of course the sony memory stick. I don't like that at all, but it is cheaper and comes with 100 free titles right now. The Bookeen can handle mobipocket files as well as .txt and even html, and takes SD cards. That is much better, and it is also much lighter at 6 ounces vs. 9 ounces for the Sony. The only problem is the Bookeen is more expensive.

[Uncle Silly]

the Cybook also handles PDF files. (dunno about the Sony, but that should be easy to confirm or deny.)

[paradoxb3]

I don't have any experience with these devices, and I'm not a big reader either, however I AM a tech entheusiast and have heard nothing but positive things about the sony from the TWiT (This Week in Tech) podcast hosted by former TechTV members such as Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton. Leo and Steve Gibson of GRC.com cant seem to talk enough about the things, and not because they're being paid by sony, but rather because they're big travelers (airline) and read constantly.

I'll admit, if I read alot, I'd definately consider carrying one, rather than packing on paper books. I see no disadvantage. You'd have to keep it dry i would imagine, but you'd have to do the same with paperback to keep from ruining it. If you mailed yourself books "chunk" at a time, if one part got lost in the mail, then your reading basically stops there since you wont know what happened in the story by the time u get the next chapters. They also said u can read thru "War and Peace" like 3 or 4 times before needing a recharge. lol. if you read that much, you're probably not doing alot of hiking.

[mtnkngxt]

I wouldn't mind having one if we could get say guidebooks and even maps on them. Especially if they have a zoom feature. It would be alot easier to carry a 6oz reader than bounce box a couple of guidebooks and saved space in my pack would be great.