When compared to the latter device, the Archos 7od eReader has much more storage plus an explansion slot, and a colour screen. It also has a bigger display and doesn't take as long to charge. And yet despite all of this, we can't unequivocally recommend the Archos to the average ebook fan. See also: .

For one thing, that decent-sized, colour screen is a backlit TFT, more suited to watching video or playing games than to reading books. It may be 7in across, and it is matte and totally free from reflections, but the resolution of 480 x 800 displays just how good it is (not very). And it is really uncomfortable to read on.

There are some people who will tell you that reading on anything other than an e-ink display is painful, but I am not one of those. As a full-fledged bookworm I do all my leisure reading on a . I'm not against reading on a backlit screen, far from it. Indeed I actively advocate it for the pleasure of reading in bed with the lights off.

But this display renders text in a fuzzy manner when held at anything less than arm's length, and it soon becomes distractingly annoying to read. The only display-changing option is brightness. In fact, the reading experience is akin to using the Kindle app on a . There's a sensor to change the orientation from portrait to landscape and vice versa, but it is annoyingly jerky and takes a while to transition, and you are unlikely to want to hold this narrow strip of a screen in landscape to read.

Other victims of the low, low price are store support and wireless connectivity. Both are conspicuous by their absence: to get books on to your eReader, you need to purchase and download them from the internet, then drag and drop them on to your device via Windows Explorer or Apple OS X's Finder. This won't be a bad thing in everyone's eyes, although you won't be able to surf the web on this device.