When was the last time you curled up with a paperback novel and didn’t move from the couch until you had finished it? Can you imagine curling up to read an electronic book? Not quite the same thing, is it?
While reading news articles and emails online for relatively short periods of time is something everyone does, reading a full length novel in digital format is an idea that just doesn’t have the same appeal. For a long time, people have argued that e-books will never take off, because, for the avid reader, they just don’t offer the same experience as a physical book. Not, at least, until a device is created that can provide the same comfort level and ease of use.
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Not an easy task. Books surpass any gadget easily. Their batteries never die, and you don’t need a manual to use them. No fidgety buttons and knobs are required to turn a page. You can read in bed for hours, and they won’t hurt your eyes with the glare from a tiny screen. And even apart from all that, true bibliophiles know that absolutely nothing compares to a real book - they cherish the look and feel, even the smell of one.
Of course, the convenience of being able to carry around hundreds of books in a single device and read them anywhere would take precedence for most people. But even so, any device that is ambitious enough to attempt to replace the book must be at least as good, if not better. With the e-book reader technologies emerging today, this is just a few years away.
An e-book reader is a dedicated device that lets you read books in digital format. So what would be the features that you would look for in your e-book reader, to be convinced that it was better than a real book?
The most visible thing, of course, would be its size and shape. It should be big enough to allow for a fairly large screen size for comfortable reading, yet not too bulky or heavy to carry unnoticed in your backpack or purse. It needs to be light enough to hold in one hand.
The interface and controls should be intuitive and easy to use, preferably allowing for one handed navigation. The battery life should be long - really long. (Whoever heard of anyone not being able to read a real book because of a dead battery!) And the display should be bright enough to let you read comfortably, but should not strain your eyes. The last hurdle is file format compatibility.
Your ideal reader should be able to support all known text formats. There is nothing worse than buying an e-book and then being unable to read it because your reader does not recognise the format it is in.
While most e-book readers on the market cannot lay claim to fulfilling all the criteria mentioned above, they do have most of them covered. As for the rest—they’re getting there. Some pretty sleek models have been seen over the past few years, and better ones are expected to come soon. But most are still too expensive for the average reader.
