What you want you will get on e-Books at reasonable price. It has the ability to store hundreds of books, similar in size to the average paperback, and also offers Internet and email access. Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader are becoming extremely popular. LED lighting, touch screens, and the read to me feature on the Kindle 2 make reading a pleasure.

Amazon claims to have the biggest range of titles, boasting over 285,000 popular books, while e-Books. com is a feasible substitute. It is the first to achieve mass market success; while Sony's more recent models are more compatible with all books on eBooks, as well as open source books on the web.

Virtually all eBook readers support HTML, .txt, MP3 and JPG files. Amazon's Kindle 2 has a slightly smaller, not full touch screen, and a slightly shorter battery life. Both models have 3G wireless Internet connectivity and make use of E-ink technology and you can get all this at a very low cost. Kindle 2 is being priced around £200 and Sony's Daily Edition at £245.