eBook Readers

I've been following the eBook trail for a couple of years now and the first eBook reader I had my hands on was the Gemstar eBook reader. This was several years ago and I recall liking the soft glow of the screen which made reading rather easy. In those days, the memory that came with the device was a mere 8MB and though you could carry a dozen or so books on it, it didn't seem like enough to me. I wanted a whole library. I liken the Gemstar to the first Rio MP3 player - while the idea is good, something else was needed to spark off a revolution, a catalyst. For MP3 players, this turned out to be the iPod which brought sleek looks, an intuitive interface, and off course the Apple brand name.

Now, I doubt Apple is going to go into the eBook reader market, judging from the sentiments of the many Apple watchers in the industry, although one can never tell. Steve Jobs alluded as much when he said that "people don't read anymore". In any case, MP3 players are different from eBook readers in many ways, and creating an eBook reader into something like an MP3 "must-have" device is a tall order. There are many reasons, but I won't dwell in my short blog. I'm sure you can think of some obvious ones. However, I will say that book readers are not the same as music listeners. Pretty obvious, huh? You can listen to a music album time and again which you don't with a book (maybe some months later you re-read the book, but that's not the same). You can do other things at the same time as listening to music. You can't do that with a book. And the list goes on.

So the closest one can get to creating a "must-have" ebook reader is to create a device that makes the reading experience as close as possible to reading a real book. That would appeal to a lot of people who otherwise would not consider an eBook reader, I reckon. Then there are people like me. I already read eBooks on my computer, on my Palm and on my mobile phone. I'm already sold on these gadgets, so having an eBook reader that simulates the real book reading experience would be nice. So, I reckon for both these groups, the bottom line on getting an eBook reader is the kind of content you can get into it, meaning is content readily available, and price.

Content-wise I don't find a real problem, there's lots of content out there from Fictionwise.com, free books from the Guntenburg project, Baen Books, Dymocks and others. Price-wise, well new technology doesn't come cheap, but prices should fall as the technology gets widespread.

So what eBook readers are there? If anything, I think the past year has seen a resurgence in eBook readers, mostly due to the development of a new screen technology called e-Ink. e-Ink simulates the look of a printed paper. It's used in the new eBook readers that came out over the past year, like Amazon's Kindle, the Cybook Gen 3, the iRex iLiad and the BeBook.

Unless you're a US resident, you probably won't consider the Kindle. The Kindle downloads content over Amazon Whispernet which uses the Sprint EVDO mobile data network so you can only buy books wirelessly - no hooking up to the PC required. All that's pretty good and makes buying content a breeze. Unfortunately, the way it works pretty much means it's US-centric and you'll be hard-pressed to get content outside of the US. Anyway, the Kindle isn't available in Australia, Europe or elsewhere. So that pretty much takes care of it.

The Cybook, iLiad and BeBook can be purchased online and shipped internationally. In fact, the Cybook and iLiad are sold here in Australia at Dymocks. Steep pricing though, at A$899 for the iLiad and A$599 for the Cybook. May be a little cheaper if you buy direct from their websites online and have it shipped over.

The BeBook is the cheapest of the lot at A$365 (A$37 shipping). Better yet, you get 25 euro off (well, it's a European company) the price when you put in this email bundera@gmail.com as a discount coupon during checkout. In my book (pun intended), the BeBook offers the best price if you want to get an eBook reader.

As for content, the Cybook and iLiad already offer Mobipocket support and I consider Mobipocket essential if you want to buy commercial books, as it's a widely used DRM format. BeBook doesn't yet have Mobipocket support but they promise a software update anytime now. In fact, I just read that peter@bebooks.com promised the update this week - see his post of 14th Sept at Teleread where he says, "This week we’ll release the RSS + Mobipocket support update. (Free!)".

These are exciting times for eBook readers and I'm sure more devices will be coming on the market in the next year, and hopefully prices will start to fall sooner than later. The Cybook, iLiad and Bebook all look pretty good and there's a wealth of online reviews you can check up on. But you do have to put out quite a bit of moola for what essentially is a one-trick pony reading device. Well, to be fair, they do play MP3 files and the iLiad has a touch screen for scrawling notes. Then you consider that for the same money you can buy an Asus eeePC or a low-cost discount laptop that can do so much more than just read ebooks.

But anyhow, if you really want an eBook reader now and you're not born of independently wealthy parents, I'll say go for the Bebook.