eBooks are brilliant

I'm a big fan of books. Real, old-fashioned paper books. They don't require any power, you can take them everywhere and paper's incredibly easy to read under any lighting conditions. I also love the smell and feel of paper. So, when I first heard about epaper, I thought it sounded interesting and then paid it no more attention.

That was, at least, until I went on holiday to Vegas and was sitting around the pool in bright sunlight. There I saw loads of people reading their Kindle eBook readers and I was surprised to find how good they looked. Walking past people, wearing my sunglasses, I found that I could read the Kindle's screen; something that you can't do with a traditional laptop or smartphone, as the polarising lenses in sunglasses block some of the light from the screen and make them hard to read.

After that point, I thought differently about eBooks and decided I wanted one. After weighing up the possibilities, I decided that I wasn't going to wait for Amazon to release the Kindle over here. Its wireless delivery system is nice, but I rarely travel for long periods without a computer, so I don't need that. I'm also not a big fan of the content protection system used and want to have full control over what I put onto my eBook.

So, I decided on the Sony Reader PRS-505 (it got a Best Buy in Computer Shopper), as I can manually select which titles I want to put on it and it supports PDF files and the ePub format. In fact, as of the end of this year, Sony will only use ePub and will be ditching its proprietary format for good.

I have to say that I'm stunningly impressed with this product. The screen is unbelievably good. Reading from it seems a little strange at first as it looks like print, but your brain's telling you that it's a computer screen and there should be light coming from it and, after prolonged use, a bit of eye-strain. Once you settle down, it's incredible and every-bit as readable as a normal book.

The PRS-5050 is quick to turn a page, unlike some other devices we've seen, so you can plough your way through an un-put-downable novel as fast as you can read without ever getting frustrated or having to wait.

A lot of things that you can do with a book exist on the Reader, too. So, you can 'fold' down a page with something interesting on it and jump to that bookmark later on. You can even type in page numbers if you know which page you want to look at. The menu system lets you quickly find a book, too, no matter how many titles are stored on the device.

Most of all, though, the Reader lets me carry a holiday's worth of books in a device smaller and lighter than one paperback. With an SD card inserted, I could even carry around a few years' worth of reading. This is incredible and means that I'll never be in the situation where travelling where I finish one book and haven't got another one handy.

Battery life's nothing to worry about, either. The screen requires no power to keep the image, it only draws power when you turn a page. Even then, at around 7,500 page turns on a full charge, you're unlikely to run out of juice on even the longest flight.

Thanks to Sony's support for eBook formats, I can stock up on all of the classics at Project Gutenberg, where a large portion of the 30,000 books are available in ePub format for free. It's not quite perfect and some titles I've tried, such as Tom Brown's Schooldays, have parts of the chapter titles disappearing off the screen, although the main text is always readable.

Of course, eBooks are available to buy from most leading book stores, including Waterstones. The only problem is that they're the same price, or more expensive as you don't get the three-for-two paper deals, as real books. As time goes on, this is bound to change.

Paper still has its place. There's nothing like getting one of your favourite books out and flicking through its pages, and houses would look a little strange if there were empty shelves where books once stood, but there's room for both. I for one have been converted: eBooks and readers are incredible devices that mean I can enjoy the books I want, where and when I want. Try it yourself; I'm sure you'll be impressed.