Why I’m not recommending an eBook reader this Christmas

This hol­i­day sea­son it seems that the eBook reader is the must-have tech gift.

I can under­stand why:

• Port­able — it’s easier to carry one eReader loaded with a few hun­dred (or thou­sand!) books
• Search­able — some of the eRead­ers can  scan and search for text pas­sages, let­ting you book­mark them for future reference
• Annota­tions — in addi­tion to book­mark­ing your pages, some eRead­ers let you make notes ‘in the mar­gin’ so to speak. These can be saved out, expor­ted to other docs for use

But even though eRead­ers are the rage — you may want to wait another few months before you invest;

• Tech­no­logy is improv­ing — the nifty eInk pro­cess used to dis­play highly read­able text on an LCD-like screen is improv­ing. The refresh rate and pixel res­ol­u­tion is improv­ing, so the annoy­ing (to me, at least) flicker when you flip pages will be reduced when eBooks adopt newer eInk tech.
• More options — Barnes & Nobel has integ­rated a col­our touch screen in their Nook eReader — in addi­tion to the eInk text display.
• More choice — Apple’s much pre­dicted (yet never announced) Tab­let device could arrive in the first half of next year. If so, this’ll be the ‘must-have’ eReader. Not only an eBook reader, the device will likely have all the func­tions of a cur­rent gen­er­a­tion iPod Touch. If you think of it as a port­able com­puter then you’ve got it. Though, many don’t like the back­lit dis­play of the iPhone and iPod touch for read­ing — too bright and hard on the eyes for long-term use — I’ve not noticed a prob­lem in long session’s I’ve had.
• Cur­rent eRead­ers are not dis­coun­ted — In this Com­puter­World art­icle, it seems that eBook read­ers have the highest markup of all tech­no­logy avail­able this hol­i­day sea­son:
  E-book read­ers aren’t really get­ting swept up in the cost cut­ting. While some stores are actu­ally pay­ing you to take free Black­Berry phones, for example, e-book read­ers still cost hun­dreds of dollars.
• Pro­pri­et­ary eBook stores — I’m not sure how this will shake down. Google, Sony, Amazon all have (or will soon have) online eBook shops, and there’s a host of inde­pend­ent ones too. The selec­tion of books avail­able at (or lim­ited to) cer­tain eBook stores may decide which unit you get…but it shouldn’t. I’d look for some­thing that sup­ports the widely accep­ted  ePub standard.

My recom­mend­a­tion — if you don’t already have one, wait a bit. You’ll get new fea­tures, per­haps a bet­ter price, per­haps a bet­ter unit, and more selec­tion to choose from.

Tagged as: Christmas, ebook, eBook Reader, eInk, eText, Lifestyle Technology, Opinion, reader