Nobody expects books on paper to go the way of LP records and film cameras — at least not soon. And yet in the last few years, electronic readers have evolved from curiosities to mainstream gadgets high on holiday shopping lists.
There are many reasons the readers have become so popular: You can carry a boatload of books, periodicals and documents when you travel. You can change fonts and type sizes, look up definitions on the fly, search for text and more.
Research firm Gartner expects “connected” e-reader sales of 6.6 million units worldwide this year, up 79.8 percent from 2009. In 2011, worldwide e-reader sales are projected to surpass 11 million units.
Amazon’s Kindle was mostly responsible for kick-starting a nascent market when it arrived about three years ago. Today, Kindle still generates the most buzz in the e-reader/tablet category, according to Zeta Interactive, which scans blogs and online sites to form buzz rankings. That places Kindle ahead of the Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iPad, and Samsung Galaxy Tab.
Indeed, competition for the affection of bookworms is fierce and becoming even more so. Some things to think about when it comes to choosing an e-reader:
Tablet vs. Dedicated Reader?
Do you want to buy a device whose singular purpose is reading? Would you rather purchase something that’ll let you spend a fair amount of time browsing, playing music and games, watching videos and, oh yeah, reading, too? In a nutshell that’s the difference between dedicated readers — such as Kindle, Sony Reader and Nook — and the iPad and other tablets. Of course, there are trade-offs that come with the extra flexibility of a fully featured tablet, starting with the price. The entry-level iPad costs $499, compared with just $139 for the entry-level Kindle.
Barnes & Noble is marketing Nook Color as a hybrid between…