Ready to Curl up with an eReader?

Sony's long-touted, newest portable electronic book reader is on the market, but whether it will change the way we read is still anybody's guess.

Lots of reviewers have been drooling over the Sony Reader since it was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. It's been trumpeted as the triumphant resurrection of the eBook, but it seems a hard sell with the rest of us who have not been craving a separate (and not inexpensive) electronic reader.

The Sony Reader is small and light like a paperback book. The six-inch screen is more amenable to reading than its unsuccessful ebook predecessors with LCD screens. What sets the Sony Reader apart from past readers is how well it mimics the look of real ink and paper. Electronically charged particles of white and black ink give the screen the closest possible electronic version of the printed page.

This AP review on Yahoo! says it's a more comfortable reading medium than any other electronic display. The text is easy on the eyes in almost any light you could read a book by. Nice. But there are still a lot of questions about the Sony Reader's real-world use that make its widespread adoption suspect.

Here's a look at some of the good and the bad:

Good: The internal memory holds about 100 books, depending on their size, but the memory can be easily expanded with inexpensive SD cards.

Downloaded books are "pay-to-own" with no time limit. You can view the books on up to six devices you have registered with the Sony store. However, you cannot share the books with other eReader owners who have accounts with the Sony Connect store.

In addition to downloading books, you can transfer Word documents, PDF files, and your favorite RSS feeds through a cable that connects the eReader to your computer, for reading on the go. And MP3 files and audiobook files for listening on the go. All great features for heavy-duty business and recreational travelers.

You can enlarge the text up to 200 percent, which makes it useful for vision-impaired readers.

Bad: The price is high at $350, weeding out lots of curious readers who would otherwise try out the eReader to read books and work documents on the train to work, or on vacations.

No wireless access. You can't download from the Sony Connect online store to the eReader without going through your computer. You need to install software on your computer to connect to the store, and then download separate software if you want to download from the Sony music store.

It's unknown whether the DRM (digital rights management) rules will change down the road and if that will mean passing on more cost to the consumer instead of price reductions. If books cost more to download than buy and hold, where's the incentive?

That said, where do you stand? Are you eager to add an eReader to your reading pile, or will you give this latest version another pass?