How often and why do you read? These questions are crucial when contemplating the iPad’s iBooks app – Apple’s attempt to wrestle readers away from their Kindles and paperbacks.

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I’ve read a number of giddy reviews of iBooks in recent days, praising its layout, page turn animations and speed. This is the problem with asking a technology journalist to review an eBook reader. Nine times out of ten we’re going to review the technology, rather than the reading experience.

I can understand the giddiness, as the technology behind iBooks is wonderful. Colour illustrations are crisp and beautiful, the page animation allows you to slowly tug the corner of a page across the screen until it turns. The live search facility picks out all paragraphs with the keyword in, and updates immediately as you type, while font size can be smoothly altered by rolling your fingertip up and down a slider.

It’s the closest we’ve come to seeing the advantages of computers brought to books, and that illusion holds until you sit down with a lengthy text. At which point you’re stuffed.

The most immediate problem is that the iPad is far too heavy to comfortably read a book on. Amazon’s Kindle 2 weighs a comfortable 289g. The iPad weighs 680g without the 3G module, and 730g with one installed. That’s a lot of bulk to hold in the hand for a prolonged period.

I’m also wary of the screen’s contrast – which is astonishing for watching movies, viewing pictures and browsing the web – but becomes uncomfortable after ten minutes of reading. You can lower the contrast, but I struggled to find a balance between eyeball sizzle and eyeball strain. It’s also going to be a problem when you venture outdoors, with the glare making reading almost impossible.

I mentioned earlier that your reason for reading will be crucial to your enjoyment of iBooks. Anybody who enjoys spending their evenings absorbed in a book will struggle to read on the iPad, and for those people looking to make the technological leap, I’d still recommend a dedicated eBook reader, namely the Kindle or Sony Reader Pocket Edition.

But while it may not be an enjoyable reading experience it’s certainly tolerable in short bursts, and anybody reading a few pages on a bus, or just quickly scanning through text for research, will find it perfectly acceptable.