Sony announced a new Reader Digital Book last week. What sets the PRS-700 from the popular Amazon Kindle is that it has a touchscreen (for easy highlighting and annotating) and the ability to read in landscape mode.
(images from the PRS-700 press release)
The very next day, pictures of the Amazon Kindle 2 made its way to The Boy Genius Report. (What impeccible timing! Did Amazon “accidentally” release the photos?)
Me rikey the new design!
As much as analysts tout e-readers as “the next generation of books,” I’m still not sold. Don’t get me wrong – I love technology and new gadgets. I’ve seen the Kindle live, in action, and think it’s pretty dope.
However, nothing can replace the tactile feel of a book. The dry rustling pages between your fingers. The rich texture of leather-bound copies. The smell of newly inked books. The smell of old, musty books. The sharp pain across your fingertips as you mishandle a book and receive a paper cut (sorry, I had to throw that in there because I’m such a klutz).
What do you think? Will books soon become obsolete in your life?
I like books, gadgets, spicy food, and art. I dislike shopping, hot weather, and the laws of entropy. Although I am a self-proclaimed computer nerd, I still have a love for handbags and makeup... and I am always teetering on high heels. To learn more about me, visit the 
I don’t think books will ever be given up. While I like the gadgety-ness of the Kindle there’s no way i’m going to give up my anachronistic pieces of paper (unless the Kindle one day allows me to scan my books into it in some sort of simple fashion that didn’t involve me scanning books in page by page).
Like you, I love the feel of books, the sound of pages rustling, and the smell of books. What I DON’T like doing is moving from apartment to apartment with my huge and tremendously heavy collection of books, of de-dusting my gigantic bookshelf (which always makes me sneeze and itch for the next half hour), and squeezing book storage space into tiny apartments. I think I will be slowly, as I can afford it, converting my book collection to electronic format. On the plus side, reading while traveling will be much more pleasant.