An Introduction to Popular E-book Readers

Last year, there were more sales for e-books than printed books. On March 5 this year, Barnes & Noble, the world's largest chain of bookstores, acquired online e-book vendor, Fictionwise. President of BN, William J Linch said: "The market hasn't been that developed to date. We think it's a big growth area going forward."

Many people like to purchase and read e-books and e-magazines through lightweight handheld readers today. Several companies have come up with innovative, standalone e-book readers, such as Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Hanlin eReader (aka Endless Ideas BeBook), etc; these thin elegant gadgets can take people back to the era of reading. Let's have a look at some of these readers in this article.

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E-books and E-magazines: How Do They Work?

E-books can be of two types: those which can be read on a computer and those which require special devices to read. There are several formats for e-books including Adobe PDF, Microsoft LIT, Palm PDB, etc. In order to buy an e-book, you go to the online vendor of the e-book, pay and register your reader for DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection, and download the e-book to the registered reader. Since only the registered e-book reader can read this e-book, the author and the publisher are protected from piracy. Digital copying is not possible with DRM protection.

Popular E-book Readers

There are many reading devices available in the market, and most of them work with electronic paper technology by E Ink Corporation.

In 2008, an Apple iPhone app for reading e-books in iPhone had a surge of sales (even more than the sales total of Amazon Kindle). This made iPhone one of the popular devices to read e-books. But in this article, we will be looking only at specialized e-book readers.

1. Amazon Kindle

Perhaps the most popular of e-book readers, Amazon Kindle had a sales total of 380,000 units in 2008 in the US alone. Kindle is now in the next generation with the advent of Amazon Kindle 2 and Kindle DX this year (DX is already out of stock). K-DX offers native PDF support, has an iPhone-like accelerometer that changes the orientation of the screen when you rotate the Reader and is more suitable for reading electronic versions of newspapers, magazines, and formatted books. With the ability to keep thousands of e-books in storage and easy access to the online Amazon e-book store, Kindle is perhaps the first choice of anyone looking for a standalone e-book reader.

The display is like normal paper and easy to read. Kindle has wireless capabilities to access the online book store and magazine store of Amazon. Kindle 2 has a 600 x 800 (6 inch) display. It can receive books through the high-speed Sprint 3G network, nationally available. Supported formats include the Amazon proprietary format, AZW (DRM-restricted), PRC, TXT, and PDF (some of these formats may need to be converted to AZW).

2. Sony Reader

Sony Digital Book Reader is the popular e-book reader from Sony, and there have been already three editions of this-PRS-500, PRS-505, and PRS-700.

The reader has a 600 x 800 pixel electronic paper display (EPD), similar to Kindle, and the display is 8-level grayscale. PRS-700 edition, unlike others, sports a touch screen. The supported e-book formats include BBeB book (from Marlin), TXT, RTF, ePub, Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word (DOC). It supports JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP for images; and MP3 and AAC for audio.

3. iRex iLiad

iRex iLiad, similar to Kindle and Sony Reader, makes use of the electronic paper display and comes at 768 x 1024 (8 inches) resolution. It has 16-level grayscale screen.

Through Wi-Fi, LAN, USB connectivity, or a network using a MyiRex account, you can transfer e-books to the reader. The supported e-book formats include Adobe PDF, MOBI, PRC, HTML, and TXT.

4. Hanlin eReader

Hanlin eReader, known in various brand names across the world, such as Endless Ideas BeBook, is a popular e-book reader. It has a 600 x 800 resolution, 4-level grayscale display. It connects through a USB port.

Unlike other readers mentioned above, this reader supports almost all popular file formats for e-books-Adobe PDF, CHM, DJVU, DOC, ePub, FB2, HTM, LIT, MOBI, PPT, PRC, RTF, TXT, WOLF. It also supports archiving formats like ZIP and RAR; image formats like BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF; and audio format, MP3.

Conclusion

Most of these e-book readers come with revolutionary E-Ink technology developed by E Ink Corporation. This is a digital paper display, which gives the experience of reading actual paper. With the storage space for thousands of e-books and ability to keep battery power for thousands of page turns or several hours, these e-book readers can be regarded as portable libraries. Since they can connect to some network to purchase and download popular fiction and non-fiction from online e-book vendors, they can provide great reading experience when you are on a long-distance journey.

An Introduction to Popular E-book Readers

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E-Book Reader Introduction

E-book readers have emerged as incredibly widespread products over the last few years and more and more devices nowadays come with the capability to view digital books and also pdf files on the move.

The newest that will offer this is the iPad and iPhone by the Apple company. Hand-held gadgets currently have achieved the top of popularity over the past couple of years. Consequently, the most in demand gift product over the Christmas holiday is no other than those electronic book readers which seem to be gaining attractiveness steadily over time.

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The Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook and Sony Reader, are some very well regarded products in the e-book reader industry. Because they are produced by various makers, not surprisingly, they are really unique in many areas. They differ in specs, pricing along with level of privacy issues. Hence, these factors matter once planning any decision to purchase any of these types of gadgets.

The first thing which Amazon presented to their consumers had been the advantages from owning an on line book shop which fundamentally erased the previous process of personally going to a shop to be able to buy an individual's favourite book. Soon after, Amazon developed their Kindle, the initial e-book reader that considerably evolved the reading experience of a lot of individuals.

Following that, it has been then superseded because of the far more enhanced and more advanced Wi-Fi e-reader, known as the Kindle 2.

As time moves on far more kind of functionality has also been applied to e-book viewers and also enhancements for older units will be prepared for the near future. For example it should not possibly be very long until Amazon.com expose their color Kindle and the Apple iPad is a very innovative e-reader that also offers many other uses as a PC.

E-Book Reader Introduction

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Guide to Buying An E-Book Reader

Electronic book, or often called as e-book, is one of the most revolutionary inventions of the last 50 years. The first e-book was made in the 70's and now millions of e-book transfers take place on the internet every day. E-book is cheap, very practical, and it saves space. It is the perfect substitute for printed books. It can be read on any kind of computer, but now there are also many dedicated e-book reading devices available in the market.

Nowadays, e-book readers are also equipped with other interesting features such as internet connectivity and music player. These gadgets are marketed under different brands such as Amazon Kindle, BeBook, Barnes & Noble Nook, jetBook and many others. With many choices available in the market, buying a reader can be confusing. Here is a list of things you need to consider when buying an e-book reader.

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1. Size

What size screen do you want? Screen size varies between manufacturers, ranging from 5-inch to 10.2-inch. Each has their own pros and cons. Smaller readers do not take up a lot of space, but bigger ones are easier to read.

2. Wi-fi Connectivity

The internet has become an important part of our daily lives. Some e-book readers are equipped with wi-fi connectivity, allowing you to stay connected to the internet. You can purchase and download e-books online anywhere, as long as there is wi-fi coverage.

3. Availability of Integrated Dictionary

Some e-book readers come with an integrated dictionary feature. Many e-books are sold in English but if your English comprehension is not that good, an integrated dictionary will be of great help for you.

4. Size of internal storage

The average size of an e-book file is 2 MB. If you are an avid book reader, you should get an e-book reader with a big internal storage size. Storage size varies from just 10 MB up to 4 GB. With 4GB storage capacity, you can save hundreds and even thousands of e-book in one gadget.

5. Availability of Card Reader Slot

This feature is especially useful if you want to store more e-books in your reader. With a memory card, you still can save more files when you run out of internal storage.

6. Removable Battery

Reading an e-book often takes hours to finish. If your reader comes with a removable battery pack, you can purchase an additional pack. Therefore, when you run out of power, you can easily change the battery and pick up where you left off.

7. Capability to Support Any Kind of File Formats

E-book comes in many different types of file format. You should get an e-book reader that comes with the ability to support various formats.

Guide to Buying An E-Book Reader

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