Many of my classes post all of our readings online. Then I have to decide whether to print them out so I can annotate them and avoid eyestrain, or save paper + time spent printing and collating, and read them on my computer. Neither option is that great.

Thus, I have been more obsessed than ever with my dream gadget: a combination tablet/e-book reader. It seemed like an obvious idea, but since I never saw reader-writer devices advertised, I assumed that it must be prohibitively expensive or technologically impossible to combine E-Ink screens with a touch screen.

But I was wrong! First while browsing the E-Ink website I came across the iRex iLiad, which has actually been around for awhile but is quite expensive and apparently doesn’t have such a great interface.

Then I noticed a link to this Sony press release on the E-Ink homepage, announcing the Sony Reader Touch Edition.

Here is a video from the Mobile Tech Review.

It would be nicer to have a larger screen, colors, no visible lags when using the stylus (an inherent quality of the E-ink screen), and better contrast. But it still looks totally awesome, considering that it is half the price of the iRex products and looks like it has a better interface.