Having written about the Apple iPod Touch and wondered about its suitability as a ebook reader, now the Register has a review of the Archos 605 wifi which looks like a grown up N800. You have to pay extra for the web browser (why?) but a 4GB flash version is still cheaper than an iPod or an N800 and it would take a lot of books.
Unlike the iPod I have no doubt about the screen resolution on this - it is the same as the N800 and may even be identical in size. If not it's is about 1cm diagonal smaller. Like the iPod and unlike the N800 it seems to have decent battery life. It looks pretty good to me and is something that I will definitely be having a look at assuming they are at IBC next week.
In the comments to the previous post the Palm TX is recommended. This seems to suffer from iPod touch screen resolution and N800 lack of memory. It is also more expensive than the 4GB Archos costing about as much as the 30GB one (although right this second it has a €60 rebate if bought on line). On the other hand it does a lot more office PDA things and doesn't play videos. One benefit that I can see is that it supports bluetooth which should make syncing it with a laptop rather simpler and of course it has a real keyboard as an accessory which I could see being useful for tasks other than reading books.
Choices choices choices. The really really good news is that portable devices capable of being eReaders are becoming ever more affordable although the eInk ones still cost a fortune.
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