Reading is one of those things that people can’t help but be fascinated by. Whether it’s reading over your shoulder on the tube, or browsing the books on your shelf, the written word has a draw that no one can resist. The trouble with books, newspapers and magazines is that they are heavy, take up much needed space in your bag and if you’re studying, you could end up carrying quite a lot of them. Now the world is going digital all these problems could be over.

The iRiver eBook is a digital book I’ve been carrying for the last few days. All white in colour, it’s as tall as the average paperback, as thin as an iPhone and about as heavy as a tall glass of water. The iRiver gives a very natural experience of reading. Sit down right now with a book in your hands and that’s what you’ll get. Light enough to hold for a good hour, the pages are a dull off-white and it allows you to ‘turn’ the pages with both the right and left thumbs.

The iRiver isn’t just one book of course, it’s potentially a whole library! Capable of holding up to 1600 books, the iRiver means you could carry around books that you may never read with no extra effort. Of course there’s more to life than books, so the iRiver also gives you the option of comics, music, memo’s, your own documents, recordings, a diary and (the bit that got me really excited) Audio books! The last would be particularly useful for long, boring journeys as you can plug in your headset and close your eyes.

The iRiver charges up through a USB port on your laptop or computer. If you’re planning on being away from your laptop for quite a while, the iRiver battery takes a while to run down as it only uses power when you turn the page. Apparently you get up to 7000 page turns on a fully charged battery. The instructions for the iRiver are brief, so its lucky that the ebook is fairly easy to navigate. The USB port is neatly hidden away at the base of the eBook along with an SD slot. Under the screen is a QWERTY keyboard and on each side of the ebook are the page-turning controls which are perfectly placed for your thumbs. The ‘page’ itself doesn’t emit light like a computer screen, which is a bonus for me as my eyes tire when staring at my laptop for hours. The most fabulous thing is that you can rotate the page, something you could never do with a real book!

My only criticism of this book is that all of the text, on both the pages and the instructions, are grey on grey. Fine for me as my eyesight is pretty good. My mother however, with her failing eyesight and tendency to lose her glasses, would struggle with the iRiver.

I’m very impressed. Finally an opportunity to clear out my bookshelves and replace them with... er.. shoes?

Check out iRiver.com for more information

RRP: £229.
Available from WHSmiths and Waterstones