I've collected stacks of books in .PDF form and don't want to be tied to a computer screen to study them. I want to read them around the house, read them in bed, out in the sunshine, in the dentist's surgery, even beside the computer like a regular textbook when I'm working.

A few weeks back I though: OK I'll have a surf and then select a suitable LCD type reader that displays an A5 and maybe even an A4 page at good contrast even in sunlight. Trans-reflective screen technology is good enough for this these days - my old PDA and phone prove this, and I'd expect these types of displays have been improved since then. I don't want to write on the device, or play music, or videos. I don't need a power-chomping backlight. I just want it to be good to read .PDF files in daylight and at near normal book page size. No WiFi, no Bluetooth, no loudspeaker, just a navigating and page turning button, and as thin and light as possible.

So what's out there? Essentialy b****r all!

• Amazon Kindle: proprietary format, no new ones available anyway.
  
• Send a bank draft off to China and hope that someday you will get something usable back.
  
• A Canadian book club that won't send their cheap (but too undersized, and looking rather dated) device outside North America.
  
• And a Sony offering which is, too little, too dear, and er... too too Sonyfied!
  

Someone sell me a zero featured eBook reader that's not part of someone's devious scheme to corner the market for the printed page. One that is thin, light, and can be read in all conditions a printed page can be read. In the process you will meet a huge unmet demand and make yourself a fortune!

Has anyone registered iBook?

Ah now this is looking more interesting!

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/ebook/index.php

Looks like no SDHC support, but you can get an awful lot of .PDFs onto a 4GB SD. Wonder if you can buy them in Europe?

And this most certainly isn't it!:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wirel...n/dp/B00154JDAI

Best part of £300 and not even got an SD slot! Only an American mega-corporation could be so dumb. And why would you need power chomping WiFi - except to tie the thing into a keep-on-paying-us business model?

Come on Alan Sugar; these things can be produced in China for <£50 this year. In five years time every serious reader will have one. In seven or eight years they'll be given away as incentives to subscribe to Which?. Someone will make a fortune hitting the right spot in the market, and my bet is that it's nearer £100 than £200 to £300.