How to choose an e-book reader

Book readers seem to be the in gadget of the year. This is understandable considering their wide usage today. However, despite the growing popularity of e-book readers, these devices are not quite standard yet. It is however becoming increasingly clear that these devices will take off in a big way in the near future. Book readers will probably become the gadget to carry around, after your iPod or iPhone. Why is this the case?

For once, people love to read. The problem is that books may not be very convenient to carry around and they may take up a lot of space. More and more people want the convenience of being able to carry their books and read them whenever they want. E-books and book readers allow people this convenience since a space that would otherwise have been occupied by one paperback publication can now be used to carry hundreds of books. A little device makes this possible. In addition, everything these days is becoming electronic. It therefore makes little sense to hold on to old hardbacks that sooner or later are going to be replaced anyway. Try going to a book store and looking up the price of a book on the back cover. You will be shocked at how much books are going for today.

Thus, book readers are convenient, user-friendly and on top of that, are cheaper in the long run. There are many things to consider when buying a book reader. One of these is location. For example, if you live in the U.K or Alaska, wireless downloads of reading material by use of the Amazon Kindle 2 may not be possible. Some other e-book readers are country specific too. Examples include BeBook in Netherlands and Fujitsu Flepia which is currently available only in Japan.

Consider also access to content. Most e-book manufacturers have their own online stores. The size of these stores will also determine the number of books you can find. Think of it as trying to buy music from iTunes using a different music player like SanDisk. You would be in for tough times.

Consider also the formats supported. Almost all book readers today have support for HTML, JPG, txt and MP3 files. However some readers may not support the ePub format that many publishers make their books available in. Amazon uses .azw as its propriety format. You thus have to determine which side of the fence you are on. Other things to consider would include the use of the book reader beyond books, the price and brand. E-book readers will likely become one of those gadgets you cant leave behind once you purchase one.