eReaders

Just some thoughts on eReaders, I downloaded Stanza last week for my iPhone and have read 2 books on it since.
The books were 'Alice in Wonderland' which came with the eReader app and 'On Basilik Station' which is available on the Baen Free Library. The interesting thing is that I read both books in about a week which is unusual for me these days. I have a lot of distractions (usually the net ) and I tend to be slow reading books unless the book really grips me and I was wondering about that. It occurred to me as I was reading books on the iPhone that I had returned to a reading pattern that I had as a teenager when I always had a paperback in my pocket and I took it out and read it whenever I had a quite moment alone. In this fashion I got through quite a few books. 
My reading rate did not really diminish until I left college and most dramatically when I left fulltime farming and entered the computer industry as a developer. At that time the commutes were longer, I was reading more technical books in my spare time and paperback were no longer in a size that one could put in a pocket.
I also developed an addiction to fanfiction and D&D forums, that did not help either but the size of the books was a big issue. Now the books sit in my room and occasionally I read the book but when it is put down it could stay there for a couple of days.
Now as to reading on an iPhone, well what is it like? I hear you say (maybe not, not sure if anyone really reads this :)) I was somewhat surprised, it was not bad. 'Alice in Wonderland' lost something as the drawings were really too small on the iPhone screen to have any real impact but 'On Basilisk Station' was fine.
I could see me reading a lot more on the iPhone, though I will be sticking to free stuff for the while. 
I have not tried reading in the iPhone outdoors but so far it works pretty well in all indoors conditions that I tried it out in.
 So overall verdict, I could see myself doing most of my reading on the iPhone only buying hardcopy for books I really like and want to permanently add to my collection. I could also see me buying books and reading the electronic versions. I would like a larger screen but I have a feeling that the iPad is possibly a bit too large. I really want something about the size of a paperback.

iPhone Rave

Treated myself to an iPhone over the Christmas and decided to post a few comments on it. Well it is a wonderful gadget. The UI is pretty slick and the touch interface is very good. It is a good music player and a pretty good video player. I have even watched some movies on it. Calendar, email,  messages are all pretty slick and easier to use than on a regular phone, though one with a keyboard may or may not be better to use.

All in all it is a pretty good PDA and a pretty good phone. As a phone voice quality is generally pertty good though it looses connection and reports poorer connections than the Nokias I was using before I got an iPhone.
Battery life is fairly good and depends on what you are doing. Bluetooth chews up battery like nothing else and is my biggest source of complaint. I have trouble detecting other bluetooth devices and really dislike that I cannot have bluetooth enabled in a hidden mode. After that the working alot with data is the next biggest draw on battery. Normal usage, now I get perhaps 36 hours or so between recharges.

One thing that I have tried that really does not work is the voice recognition, it does not understand me at all and there does not appear to be anyway to train it. Not that I have tried to hard to find out. Overall I am pertty pleased, now if only iTunes would behave itself and not lock up every so often.