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The popularity of e-book readers has been on the rise for quite some time. It’s probably true to suggest that the Amazon Kindle reader has been a very important factor in the growth of the market for e-book readers. The Kindle may not have been first to market when it was originally released in November of 2007, but it was a significant improvement on other readers available on the market at that time.

Amazon made good use of customer feedback and firmly established its market leadership position with the launch of the Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009. The large format Kindle DX followed in the summer of the same year and August 2010 saw Amazon release the third generation Kindle reader.

The Kindle is Amazon’s top selling product. Amazon recently advised that they are selling more Kindle books than hardback books – 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcovers. It can only be a matter of time before Kindle books start outselling paperbacks – and they will eventually outsell both paperbacks and hardbacks combined.

There’s little doubt that e-book readers, and the e-books to be read on them, are here to stay. The future of reading seems to be digital. Some book lovers will have an attachment to conventional physical books, which is perfectly understandable of course. Some people are unsure as to whether or not an e-book reader would be a good option for them. Some book lovers fear that they will miss the feel, and even the smell, of a real book. Others wonder if they will enjoy reading on an e-ink display, or if the page turns will spoil their enjoyment.

It’s not always easy to form an opinion. It may soon be available in selected retails stores but, for the moment, the main outlet for the Amazon Kindle is online, so – unless you know someone who owns one – it can be hard to see it working in order to form an opinion. You can find any number of reviews on the internet – but many of these seem to be chiefly concerned with the technical aspects rather than the user experience. For the majority of prospective first time buyers, how an e-book reader compares with reading traditional books will be of more interest than how it stacks up alongside other e-book readers.

So, if you’re wondering whether or not an e-book reader would be right for you, here are a few points to consider

1. Due to the fact that they are small and lightweight, e-book readers are ideal for one handed use. This means that reading on a crowded bus, subway or plane is easy – as is reading propped up in bed or relaxing on the sofa.

2. The e-ink technology display is very much better to read on than a back-lit computer screen. It’s just like reading text printed on paper – but with a light grey background as opposed to white.

3, When you “turn the page”, there will be a momentary flicker. The screen momentarily goes blank. However, this really is extremely fast and – after you’ve been using your reader for an hour or two – you won’t even notice this.

4. The selling prices of e-books is usually lower than that of printed books – due to the fact that they use no paper, ink or bindings. They also don’t need to be mailed or transported by road.

5. E-books cost less than printed books – due to the fact that they use no paper, ink or bindings. They also don’t need to be delivered by road transport.

6. Because e-books use no paper, ink or bindings – and because there’s no physical product to be shipped – they are much kinder to the environment than traditional books.

7. Battery life, with the Wi-Fi turned off, is three to four weeks.

8. It’s very easy to download Kindle books. It really does take less than 60 seconds. As long as you are in an area with coverage – pretty much everywhere these days – you can buy a new book whatever the time of day. You’ll never find yourself in a hotel room with jet lag and nothing to read at two o’clock in the morning again.

9. You can download the first chapter of Kindle books for free – so you’ll be able to tell if you like a book before you buy it.

10. You can “try before you buy” by downloading the first chapter of Kindle books for free.

A recent survey found that 80% of U.S. based e-book reader owners preferred reading e-books to traditional books. It’s hardly surprising, when you look at the list of benefits above. If you are a book lover, then the Amazon Kindle reader may be the perfect gadget for you.

Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

At this time last year, the market for e-book readers was buoyant. Following the enormous success which Amazon had achieved with its Kindle reader – first with the Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 and then with the large display DX model in the summer of the same year – a small army of personal electronics firms seemed to be developing, releasing or updating e-book readers of their own in order to grab a share of the new and rapidly developing market.

Sony and Barnes and Noble were working feverishly to get their new readers to market in advance of the 2009 festive season and Plastic Logic, Asus and a number of others were rushing to get their readers released as quickly as they could manage. The Computer Electronics Show (CES), held in Las Vegas in early 2010, had a dedicated e-book reader section for the first time ever. E-book readers were a hot new emerging market.

However, just a few months later, it’s a very different scene. The price of e-book reader hardware has been in free fall. The latest third generation Kindle now has a Wi-Fi only entry level model available for only $ 139 – less than 40% of the $ 359 price which the Kindle 2.0 launched. The price of the Nook reader from Barnes and Noble has also been slashed to just $ 149 – and a further cut before the festive season arrives seems highly likely.

A number of e-book readers in development – including Plastic Logic’s Que – have been shelved. The market seems to be entering a new stage in its development – and whether there is any place in it for pure electronics manufacturers or not is highly debatable. Amazon’s business model is very well suited to selling lower priced reader hardware and making a profit on the follow up sales of Kindle books. Barnes and Noble could employ a similar strategy – but it’s somewhat debatable as to whether or not they could make use of economies of scale in the same way that Amazon can.

The launch of Apple’s iPad has clearly been an important factor in these latest developments. There’s no doubt that the price of e-book reader hardware was going to fall anyway – but the arrival of the iPad on the scene has certainly hurried things along. However, considering that the third generation Kindles sold out almost immediately after launch – even today customers are facing a three to four week wait for their Kindles to ship – it doesn’t look like the iPad is the long awaited Kindle Killer that it was widely forecast to be.

Even putting the debate about e-ink displays being easier to read on than back-lit screens to one side, there is – at this time – enough of a gap between the price of the Kindle and the price of the entry level iPad to ensure that the Kindle will continue to be the more attractive option for anyone who just wants to read books. The fact that the iPad has a monthly download/connection fee will not please everyone.

It does seem that there is enough room in the market for both the Amazon Kindle and the iPad to co-exist – for the short term future at any rate. Other manufacturers of e-book readers, including major players like Barnes and Noble and Sony, may well find things starting to get tough as reader prices keep falling.

Find out more about the Kindle ebook reader for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

It’s not that long since Amazon announced that they were selling more Kindle books than hardback editions. They are now advising that Kindle books are even outselling paperbacks. It can only be a matter of time before Kindle book sales are higher than both hardbacks and paperbacks combined.

It has a certain air of inevitability when you think about it. Anyone who is prepared to pay over $ 100 for an e-book reader is probably going to be the type of person who reads a good number of books, surely? Of course, there will always be some book lovers who prefer reading a traditional printed book – but, over the piece, we do appear to be heading towards a scenario where e-books assume increasingly more importance in the publishing world.

There’s certainly no shortage of Kindle books for prospective customers to choose from. Currently there are in excess of 800,000 Kindle books on sale on Amazon’s Kindle store. This number is growing daily – and there are a further 1.8 million out of copyright books which can be downloaded for free. These include titles by the likes of Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Homer, Virgil among others.

Amazon has also released a variety of free apps which allow Kindle books to be read without the use of a Kindle reader. These exist for the PC, the Mac, the Apple iPad, the iPod Touch, the Blackberry smart phone and any device which runs Android. An app for the HP tablet computer is believed to be imminent. What this means is that users needn’t worry about their Kindle becoming obsolete. Each app also serves as an additional retail outlet for Amazon.

Amazon are estimated to enjoy around about a 90% share of the current e-book market. Obviously that can’t continue, and industry analysts are forecasting an approximately equal three way split between Amazon, Google and Apple by 2015. However, those are the same analysts who forecast that the launch of the Apple iPad would be the death of the Kindle, and they got that wrong didn’t they?

As a matter of fact, the latest third generation Kindle reader is selling better than ever before. It was Amazon’s best selling product (again) during the 2010 Christmas sales period, and the Kindle has now been Amazon’s best selling product for 18 months. 2011 sales forecasts have been increased from 5 million Kindles to 8 million, based upon recent sales returns. Some market rationalisation seems inevitable in future, but there’s nothing to suggest any reduction in the Kindle’s dominance in the short to medium term.

Learn all about the Kindle 3 for yourself. It’s the future of reading – you can even play games on the Amazon Kindle – some games are even free!

There are plenty of reviews on Amazon’s Kindle reader available right now. It’s way ahead of the other e-book readers available right now, and is very much the “must have” gadget of the moment. Most reviews concentrate on the Kindle’s technical aspects, which is quite understandable. It’s a piece of high tech personal electronics after all. Even so, a brief look at the actual user experience with the Kindle might not be a bad idea.

Firstly though, a very brief examination of the spec. The Kindle 2.0 costs $ 259. It’s about the same size as a typical paperback book and about as thick as a monthly magazine. It weighs just over 10 ounces and has enough memory to store 1500 books – give or take (depending upon the size of them and the number of illustrations, if any). One of the most important features is the e-ink display. This provides a very good reading experience and doesn’t strain your eyes. It also requires less power.

My first impression, when I got my Kindle a few weeks ago, was that the button positioning wasn’t right. There are two buttons on the left hand side – “prev page” and “next page”. There are a further two buttons on the right hand side – “home” and “next page” (again). At first I thought that one of the “next page” buttons was redundant. I thought that the left hand one wasn’t required.

After using the Kindle for no more than a matter of minutes it made sense though. Lying on a sofa reading, sitting in a cramped seat on a plane, or drinking coffee in McDonald’s, it’s perfect. You can hold the Kindle in one hand and leaf forwards and backwards through the pages using your thumb. It’s considerably easier to use one handed than a real book.

Before I got hold of my Kindle reader, I had tried out an e-book reader which was on display in my local book shop. To be honest, I didn’t really take to the way the page flickered slightly when it was “turned”. Once again, after I had been using the Kindle for no more than a few minutes, I quickly became used to this. For me, it feels just like turning the pages in a traditional book now.

When it comes to the actual reading experience itself, the e-ink display is fantastic. The background is a light grey instead of the traditional white or cream of paper – but you get used to this very quickly. Compared to reading on a back-lit PC monitor, it produces a lot less eye strain. All I can say is that, whenever I’m reading a good book on the Kindle, I’m totally oblivious to the fact that I’m using it rather than reading a conventional book.

The e-ink display’s low power requirement is another big plus point. I’m a fairly heavy user – I read a lot – and I find that, with the wireless turned off, the Kindle will last for about three weeks before it needs recharging. I only turn the wireless connection on if I want to buy a book. On the subject of buying books, the process is very simple, in fact it may be a little too efficient, I know I have made a few impulse buys. The Amazon publicity for the Kindle says that books download in just under a minute. I would say, based upon my own experience, that it takes a lot less than a minute for a typical book which isn’t packed with illustrations. It may not be a big deal – but it is all part of the positive user experience.

In summary, to try to give you an idea of just what a pleasant experience reading on the Kindle is, a couple of days ago I received an e-mail from Amazon which told me that my order had been shipped. I knew that I hadn’t ordered anything, so I went to check what had happened. I turned out that I had pre-ordered a book by one of my favourite authors some weeks ago and then forgotten about it. In all honesty, the idea of going back to reading a large heavy printed book (it’s a fairly hefty volume), albeit one written by an author that I really enjoy, is something of a disappointment. The thought of holding a big, clumsy book in my left hand and flipping pages with my right seems downright antiquated to me now.

Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.