Amazon Kindle, which was launched in 2007, has revived interest in eBook Readers. It has received good response from users and has also attracted a lot of media attention. However, Kindle is a gray-scale Reader and cannot display colors. But, it appears that the wait for color eBook readers may end soon. Sometime in 2010, color eBook readers will start flooding the market. In fact, Fujitsu already has a color reader FLEPia in the form of a Japanese-only release.
With color readers for eBooks, the market for eBook is likely to get the final push. It will facilitate more legible graphics, images, photographs and charts which would also be pleasing to your eyes with multi-color splashes. Reading an eBook would definitely be an entirely different experience then. It may also attract advertisers to the eBook market that would make a larger number of free eBooks being available.
The advantage of an eBook Reader is that it can be used without a computer. Moreover, it is ultra-light, book-size and fully portable. It is designed to give you an experience similar to the one you have while reading a physical book. Though eBooks and eBook Readers have been in the market for last few years, when Amazon launched its Kindle on November 19, 2007, the market dynamics changed completely. Kindle combines hardware and software, is wireless-enabled, and it can download content from Amazon. Later on, Amazon also launched much improved versions of Kindle, namely Kindle 2 and Kindle DX.
Kindle DX is very thin, just over 1/3 of an inch (about 0.85 cm), which is thinner than most books and as thin as most of the magazines. It is a 9.7 inch (24.6 cm) device with a resolution of 824 x 1200 pixels. It has a 4 GB memory which can allow you to easily carry your library with up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents. Kindle DX also offers native support for PDF documents. You can use 3G wireless to download books from your Kindle DX, anytime and anywhere. A long battery life enables you to keep reading in Kindle DX for days together.
However, as already mentioned, a big limitation with Kindle is that it has no color display; for example, Kindle DX supports only 16 shades of gray. Don’t you feel like having gone back to the early computer days when monochrome monitors ruled the computer world?
Well, that is what is going to change soon with the launch of color eBook Readers. It may ultimately turn out to be the beginning of the end of the physical books, newspapers, etc., though the actual demise of paper industry may take much longer. The way Google has been trying hard to digitize all books in the world can give an indication of the future of physical books; Google is investing in future.
What is an eBook?
An eBook, also called electronic book, is basically the electronic or digital equivalent of a conventional printed book. It can be read on computers or smart phones, or an eBook Reader. Some of the mobile phones can also be used to read eBooks.
An eBook offers following advantages over a conventional paper book:
(1) An eBook can be stored on an eBook reader. An eBook reader is very handy, being light-weight and having small dimensions. Its weight and dimensions could even be less than those of a single physical book. Consider this in the light of the fact that a single eBook reader can store thousands of eBooks. Imagine carrying thousands of physical books to your office every day or to your holiday resort! However, you can carry thousands of eBooks in a very convenient way wherever you go. Moreover, if you can use removable memory with your eBook reader, you can carry still a much larger number of eBooks with you.
(2) In fact, even in your home, an eBook Reader can save a lot of space by storing thousands of eBooks in a small device.
(3) An eBook is generally cheaper than a regular physical book. In fact, many eBooks are absolutely free. Just to illustrate, almost all fiction prior to the year 1900 is generally available for free download in digital form. In future, it is expected that advertisers will start taking interest in eBooks which is likely to further increase the number of free eBooks. Of course, it is true that an eBook with ads may affect the reading experience. But, it also depends on how the ads are placed in the book. An over-use of anything is bad.
(4) The authors can publish their own eBooks, thereby reducing their prices due to removal of one intermediary. Moreover, an author can directly sell his eBooks from his website which can further lower down the prices due to reduction in the number of intermediaries.
(5) It goes without saying that to publish an eBook requires much less costs and efforts as those for a physical book, thereby saving the costs.
(6) An eBook allows you to search text and moreover, you can click on hyperlinks to conveniently access cross-referenced text.
(7) You can immediately download eBooks with wireless connectivity to your eBook reader anytime anywhere. This easy and fast delivery of information is unlike a physical book that would require 2-3 weeks to ship.
(8) An eBook allows you to highlight and annotate the contents, which can even be modified or removed at a later stage.
(9) You can adjust font-size and font-face in an eBook as per your convenience unlike a physical book. Moreover, an eBook may also contain animated images or multimedia clips. A color eBook Reader may allow color adjustments, may be including use of different themes in future.
(10) Depending on the device being used, an eBook may be read in low light or even total darkness.
(11) You can use text-to-speech software to listen to its contents instead of reading it.
(12) Generally speaking, it should be easier and cheaper to make a back-up of your eBook. Of course, it would depend upon the DRM (digital rights management) restrictions imposed on it by its publisher / author with regard to whether an eBook can be copied, transferred, etc. Backing up your eBook will protect you from the risk of an eBook being lost or damaged. In fact, the publisher may even allow you to obtain a free new copy on the same device.
(13) Last but not the least, eBooks would be much more environment-friendly. Imagine thousands of eBooks being stored in a single reader or a memory stick. How much quantity of paper can be saved by this, which in turn saves the environment! And, this is only for one person!!
One only hopes that cost of owning an eBook Reader would also come down in future. Right now, the price of US$ 300 to 500 is on the higher side. If it can come down drastically, an eBook Reader can become a popular device, something similar to what happened to mobile phones and MP3 music devices. One does not know whether an eBook Reader with enhanced features of a browser, editor, may replace laptops or netbooks in future. Or may be, we may see the fusion of eBook readers with laptops and mobile devices.
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