Sony's Reader: Beware the Prints of Darkness

A friend of mine used to hole up at the Indiana Dunes for a couple weeks every year with a suitcase full of books. He would read night and day, ran or shone, for the duration of his vacation. It was his idea of heaven.
Sony’s Portable Reader System, the PRS-500, would seem to hold promise for voracious readers like him--who want to travel light. The half-inch thick, 8.8-ounce, is supposed to hold up to 160 e-books.
I gave it a spin on a transatlantic flight. I went the Connect bookstore, sort of like a literary iTunes store, where a huge variety of books were available for reasonable prices. I got an e-copy of “Kite Runner” I also went to a free e-book store and picked up Dracula by Bram Stoker. After all, I was heading to Dublin, where Bram wrote the book.
I also put back-up copies of my passport and hotels in the device.
On the darkened plane, on an overnight flight, I really was looking forward to reading about the Prince of Darkness. Instead, I got the Print of Darkness.
Sony claims the pages display on the six-inch LCD screen look like ink on paper. On its Web site, Sony says: “Viewing text on the Reader Digital Book's screen is just like reading text on paper. Unlike the display of a laptop screen which is backlit and can strain your eyes, viewing pages on the Reader Digital Book is as comfortable as on a real book. But unlike a real book, the Reader Digital Book's text is scalable, conveniently allowing you to adjust the size of text.”
Maybe. But I found the display extremely disappointing.
Years ago, I tried out some e-books. One of them had added illumination that brightened the page.
If the $300 did such a great job of displaying pages, why would Sony be selling a $15 book light as an accessory?
I noticed that Accenture had an early e-book on  display in its Chicago lab as an example of a faulty technology.
Sony needs to do better with its Reader or else it’s destined for a spot on that wall of shame.
Meanwhile, readers, my advice is to leave the e-book at home. Just take an old-fashioned analog-type book…if you still support that technology.