E-readers seen as holiday hit, presage tablet PCs
Electronic readers could be the hottest gift this holiday season as a new crop of portable media devices begins to join iPods and other music players as must-have tech accessories.
We already know about ebooks which we now read and create in forms like PDF, Ms Word, and what have you. But the limitation was often to read it on the personal computers or your laptops. Although mobile, it is still considered quite bulky to carry a laptop around, if you main purpose was just to do some simple reading on the move.
That is where electronic readers start to fill in the gap. By using electronic readers, you have at your hands a hand held device that is totally portable, and can be read under most lightning conditions, and also to highlight the longer battery life which allows the user to read up to ~ 6000 pages at one go, as boasted by some manufacturers. There appears to have significant advantages over existing handheld technologies which are often high energy consuming, and lower battery life relatively.![500x_2VIEWS[1]](http://www.1reviewcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/500x_2VIEWS1.jpg "500x_2VIEWS[1]")
The apparent driving forces for the growth of this technology will be the ever growing resources of digital ebooks, which are both cost effective to produce, and easy to distribute through the WWW web. With production costs driving down, the ease and cheaper selling price will mean higher adoption rates, and increase in demand for this ereader tool.
ISuppli expects global sales of e-readers to top 5 million this year from about 1 million last year. It remains to be seen whether the current crop of readers morph into something with richer features, or tablets swoop in to define the market.
“There is tremendous potential for these devices to become more multi-function,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research.
Holiday shoppers will be able to buy e-readers in stores owned by Wal-Mart and Best Buy. In May, Forrester predicted 2 million e-readers would be sold in the U.S. this year, but the research group now expects sales to far exceed that forecast.
However, the market is still small. Around 225 million portable music players are expected to ship this year, according to research firm In-Stat.
But e-readers are growing in popularity. A study by Retrevo, a website specializing in consumer electronics, found they beat the perennial favorite, MP3 players, on the holiday wish list this year, with 20 percent of respondents planning to buy an e-reader.
Amazon’s Kindle is the dominant device, with an estimated 60 percent U.S. market share. The Kindle 2 retails at $299 and costs about $186 to make, according to iSuppli, giving Amazon a nice margin.
But the market is getting increasingly crowded. Sony, which pioneered e-reading devices but was eclipsed by Amazon, has been adding new models, including one for $199. Both will see competition from iRex Technologies, to be sold through Best Buy. Taiwan’s Asustek, pioneer of netbook PCS, is also reportedly launching a reader, perhaps this year.
For now, analysts say e-readers continue to appeal to a particular slice of the market by offering an experience that many find equal or even better than reading a real book. They have long-lasting batteries and mimic the appearance of the printed page, easing eyestrain.
Do you think you will adopt a e-reader any time soon, or any concerns you might have ? We would love to hear your views / comments on this e-reader technologies.
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