E-readers

I see in a story in yesterday's Financial Times that eReaders may be about to take off, as a mass market product, in a big way.

The FT quotes John Rose, the global leader of the Boston Consulting Group's "media practice." Says Rose, a recent survey "suggests that e-readers and tablets are not a niche product for early adopters but could become the MP3 ... players of this decade. Grandmothers will soon be carrying them around."

There's a hitch, though. Mass adoption will depend on price, and Rose expects price to break downward. He expects the Kindle or Sony Reader (or presumably the Nook, though the story doesn't mention that one specifically) to be selling for $100 to $150 in order to bring about that grandmotherly interest.

A nook now costs $259. A kindle? Also $259. A Sony Reader? The pocket edition sells for $199. The touch edition for $299. The Daily edition $349.

I'm wavering between going for the lowest price Sony Reader on the one hand or waiting for the prices of the whole category to drop on the other. I'm not tempted by the iPad. It is more than I need. This is the problem with the iPad generally, as I see it. There are general-interest computers, such as the one I'm using now. And there are special interest digital devices, like my iPod or Blackberry. Which one is an iPad? It seems to fall in between the two stoools. I'll get special task devices as they seem necessary or convenient, and I'll keep my desktop for everything that is worth sitting down as a desk for.

eBooks

I'm thinking of buying an eBook reader. This would be my latest step into the 21st century.

What do you think, dear blog readers? Should I do it? Are the devices easy to read and use? Are there really enough books available in these formats to make the investment worthwhile? Should I wait until the technology develops further, to avoid buyers' remorse?

I'm thinking especially of Amazon's Kindle on the one hand and Barnes & Noble's nook, on the other. Yes, I understand that Apple has come out with something too, but from what I've heard the iPad is higher-priced and more complicated than what I have in mind. Besides, I don'tlike that snarky guy who plays "the Mac" in all those ads, poking fun at dorky PC. SO let's stick with the narrowly-targeted eBook devices for now.

I'm a bibliophile. And, yes, I love the feel and smell of the real thing. But keeping a lot of them takes up a good deal of shelf space. I'm always picking out the ones to which I feel least attached and donating them to a library, school, or other good home. And then regretting the fact, when I say, "Hmmmm, didn't I have a copy of Lawrence Kaplan's biography of Alexander Hamilton around here somewhere? There was a great passage in there about the old Dutch families in the Hudson Valley in revolutionary times. I'm sure I could find the page if only I could find that book." At around that point in my musings I slap my forehead with my hand and realize that this was one of those books I had given away so generously.

So on behalf of preserving space, I might have to sacrifice the physical aspect of bibliphilia, and advance the easy-reference aspect thereof.

A quick and uncritical check of the relevant webpages shows that B&N claims more than 1 million titles available through its nook. Amazon claims 'only' 400,000 through the Kindle. That may mean greater variety through the nook: or it may mean that B&N is hyping its numbers through the inclusion of various non-book titles.

Amazon says the single Kindle can hold a virtual librray of up to 1,500 books. B&N says its nook can hold ... the same number, 1,500.

Anybody know of any other comparative factors I might weigh? What about the frequency with which these things have to be re-charged.