There was a viral article from the BBC that appeared on news sites around the world a few weeks ago. A 13-year-old boy was asked to trade his second-generation iPod Nano for his father’s 30-year-old Sony Walkman for a week and compare the two. The resulting article was hilarious, the poor guy had no idea what he was dealing with, apparently it took him a whole day to figure out that he had to physically eject the tape cassette and manually spin it to hear more music.
With the eBook reader industry growing steadily, one has to wonder if 30 years from now, any teenager will have a hard time reading a paperback without pressing a forward/back button. Although not yet as mass market as the iPod, the popularity of the e-book reader is growing.
For most people, the first line of eBook readers that comes to mind is the Amazon Kindle line. Amazon’s Kindle 2 fixed many of the annoying little glitches that the original Kindle had and is a real joy to handle and read. The Amazon DX is the latest addition to the line, its 9+-inch screen designed more for textbook use than anything else, and Amazon envisions that in the very near future they’ll be able to let the average student forego their bulky backpacks. in favor of an Amazon Kindle 2.
However, the Kindle is far from the only good line of eBook readers on the market. Its biggest competitor is Sony’s e-book reader. The Sony PRS 505 and Sony PRS-700 are up there with the Kindle line in almost every way with the exception of internal memory, a battle the Kindle is winning by a mile (512 MB for the Sony PRS-700 high-end). versus 4GB for Amazon’s Kindle DX). However, the consumer does pay for that memory capacity, as the Amazon Kindle DX currently retails for $100 more than the Sony PRS-700.
There are also other good contenders on the field. A company that was previously best known for its security cameras, Astak, has a three-model line of e-book readers called the Mentor line that makes the same great use of E Ink technology that makes the big ones so popular, but for a price that is a bit more reasonable. The Iliad allows the user to make physical bookmarks on the electronic page, a useful feature for students and academics.
While there are few differences in hardware between many of these eBook readers, the issue of available content may be the main reason the Amazon Kindle 2 continues to lead the pack. There are thousands of free titles available to download for all eBook readers, but these aren’t the best sellers that most of us want to read at least once in a while. Such content is protected by DRM and some eBook readers do not support the format. Others, like Iliad, are tied to the mobypocket system which, while it has 40,000 titles available, is still not as extensive as the content offered for the Kindle 2.
Price remains an object for many who would like to try an eBook reader but haven’t yet. With the cheapest versions still costing as much or a little more than the top-of-the-line iPod touch, it may still be a while before e-book readers become as familiar a site as an iPod or MP3 player.