A reader to carry your weighty tomes in

I usually lug around two or three books with me when I travel out. Mostly one is a hardcover edition that tends to have the effect of doubling the weight of the hand luggage. Moreover, I have noted over time that I rarely read more than a small portion of one book.

I have often wondered whether, to use the words of digital guru Nicholas Negroponte, I could carry the books around in 'bit' form and convert them into 'atoms' when wanting to read them. The advantages are obvious""I can 'lug' around many more books digitally without having to worry about weight.

Sony's Reader addresses this problem, at least in theory. The Reader could hold (if you go by Sony's estimates) around 80 books with a battery life of 7,500 continuous page turns. So the good news is that instead of three books I struggle with, I can now potentially carry 80 in a 250 gm, slim, book-sized gadget with a 6 inch display.

Before I come to the rest of the news, a few words on the display. As a sceptic of such products, I must admit I was impressed with the Reader that I saw last week. The fonts, characters and size are amazingly close to the real thing "" down to the black text on dull-white paper.

The screen does not flicker and shine like a computer screen would, it uses power only when the image changes (The proprietory technology comes from a company called EInk). Flipping back and forth is with a click of button.

The problem is the old one. The rustle of paper is missing, as is the smell of an old or new book that wafts up as you read. I am not saying you have to smell to read but it sure is part of the experience ! A digital solution such as this cannot merely replicate a physical experience. Meaning that you can read something on a LCD screen but that is not a screen masquerading as a book.

What about the books themselves ? Sony has been moving quite quickly here. A few days ago, for instance, Sony and book chain Borders agreed to work together to offer digital downloads of e-books.

Borders began selling Readers in 2006 in some 270 stores. The online store will offer some 20,000 titles covering contemporary authors like Dean Koontz, Khaled Hosseini and Michael Connelly. Prices could vary from $4 to $20 as I understood it.

Compared to the universe of paper books, this is a insignificant number but it's likely that most new popular fiction titles will come in ebook format as well. Assuming there are no major hiccups with the product.

So which ebook ? My feeling is that this is something you want to feel and touch before you decide. I mean whether an ebook before which ebook. I feel that some of us will relate to it instantly, others not at all. And there are more Readers coming.

Amazon is expected to launch the Kindle in October. The Kindle could be priced between $400 and $500 and will wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon's site. Google is also set to launch a product on these lines. There are other options as well.

The present Sony PRS 500 version costs around $280. But there is a newer version called the PRS 505SC that is coming soon. Its expected to cost around $300 and boasts of more memory (160 books) and a finer display.

So if you are convinced that you want the Sony, then might make sense to wait for the 505SC. The only thing I am not sure is whether I can let a Reader (or Kindle) fall from my hands as I drop off to sleep.