Jon Richfield wrote: [snip]
Walter and Michael made good points about screen sizes and changing standards, but the reason for my interest is that it is all very well to be satisfied with tiny screens, but it does bad things to one's capacity for effortless, comfortable, non-injurious, reading for hours and hours. Alex made a good pitch, but I think that between simple cell-phone costs and few-inch screens, as Jim pointed out, Kindle currently sounds like the best bet, though his HTC sounds nice for those who need it.
It seems to me that the flaw in your argument is (as we say in the business) "it assumes facts not in evidence," to wit, in assumes that reading on PDA-size screens "does bad things to one's capacity for effortless, comfortable, non-injurious, reading for hours and hours." In my own case, it has done nothing bad to my capacity for "effortless, comfortable, non-injurious, reading for hours and hours." And while I have had no direct experience with the Kindle, I can tell you that I prefer reading on my LCD PDA than on my son's e-paper Sony Reader. And the other testimony which has been presented here seems to confirm my experience. It seems a logical conclusion that reading on a Kindle would be preferable to reading on a PDA (including cell-phone-enabled PDAs), but the logical conclusion does not seem to be born out by the evidence. So far, all the testimony presented is that PDA-sized screens are not an impediment to "effortless, comfortable, non-injurious, reading for hours and hours." Of course, YMMV, but it seems to me that the Kindle's attempt to mimic the paper experience is more important in its marketing than in its use, and the Kindle fails to take advantage of many of the other benefits of reading on an electronic device.