I really wanted to have a small internet appliance like this but I am finding that the small print is just too small for my 55 year old eyes. Of course it is easier to read the print when expanded but then the pages go out of whack. Is there something that I am missing to make the reading less of a hassle?

In the browser you can zoom the text using the first and third buttons on the top of the 770/N800. Or you can zoom text via the menu (80%, 100%, 120%, etc.)

Try optimized view. ( view menu -> optimized view )
This feature eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling when zoomed in. It may mess up the formating on some pages.

you could hack the opera.ini file and set the minimum font size to 16 or higher. do a search, its been discussed before

Stronger reading glasses?

I'm not being flip - as the years went by, I found small print harder and harder to read. But my distance vision is still fine. As I kept stepping up to stronger and stronger drugstore glasses, the annoyance of putting them on, taking them off, leaving them places just got worse and worse.

Finally this year (I'm 56) I bit the bullet and got a great set of prescription progressive lenses (no-line trifocals). Light as a feather and I can wear them all day. The bottom line is even tiny print on the N800 is crisp, clear and a joy to read.

Optics to the rescue!

Yup, every person with normal sight eventually needs reading glasses - the transition being some time in the thirties or fourties.

While there are workarounds like bright lighting and big typefaces, they don't apply easily to a handheld. Extremely bright screen backlighting would eat more batteries than desirable, a large screen would make it a laptop, and at least the primary steps towards optimizing web sites for the far sighted would have to happen at the authors - the current fashion of three-column layouts with fixed pixel ratio sidebars defies any attempt to increase the font size to a suitable scale...

Sevo