There is something very pleasing about a book. It feels right in my hands. Text on paper is pleasing and if it's a paperback, it can be shoved in my purse or knapsack in case I have some waiting time while I'm out. The experience of quietly sitting reading a book is something that can't be replaced easily with an e-book reader. It's also a case of getting away from technology for a time.

Not to point out the obvious, but a few years ago you could have written this article and titled it "Why MP# players are a dead end (for now, anyway)."

...and it would have been accurate (for a time, anyway).

From my perspective, there are a number of good devices out there, but no great ones. Many of them do good things, but there's no one device that puts all the great features and interface together in an appealing package.

If Jobs were insane and decided to bring out an entry for this market, I can almost guarantee that it would fulfill 95% of what we all want out of a hardware ebook reader.

It's a matter of time, though.

@ #1
I have to agree with you Sue, the tactile experience of hauling a small paperback around with you is a good one. I myself haul around several books, all the time for various reasons. Unfortunately, I tend to buy hardcovers because I can't stand the 6-month wait for the paperback, so my satchel weighs a ton... and it's a little embarrassing to have everyone knowing exactly what I'm reading, all the time.

If the physical experience of reading a book is better than the physical experience of reading from an ebook reader, that just tells me that the ebook reader isn't good enough yet, not that it never will be.

Meh. Probably accurate. I'm a bookophile, and even though my hard drive's littered with .txts and .pdfs, I generally just pick up a physical copy of a given book. It's the size, the orientation, and the fact that I don't have to swap batteries or worry about plugging a book in every N hours. Even with that, I might get an ebook reader if they weren't DRM and/or proprietary-format laden. My PalmIIc with a straight text-to-Palm-readable-format converter was the closest I've found to what I want, but sadly, it crapped out on me years ago.

I wonder if it's also that there are more people who want to talk on the phone or play games than there are who want to read a book.

I agree that it's not a case of "never will be better." Eventually ebook readers will have screens that are clear enough you don't get eye-strain from them, the batteries will last long enough, the interface will be intuitive and mostly invisible, and the price will be cheap enough to get people's interest. I still think that they are better used with things like reference books, dictionaries and textbooks.

A book never needs a power source, is easily stored with full access and no restraints at anytime. I don't see the benefit in e-readers other than for publishers; who will reduce their distribution costs significantly.

Books do not have an analogy with audio or video - in that the broadcaster AND the receiver requires power to operate. Crystal radios and photographic prints excepting - the consumer needs an energy source to enjoy them.

Pardon me for harshing your paperback-love, but as the possessor of two small libraries myself - one digital - I find the ebooks quite a lot easier to tote around, and less in the way when not in use.

There are basically two ways a paperback beats a PDF. A reflective rather than radiative viewing area, and a cheap power drain (amortized over the expense of transport). Those are technological problems - can you be certain they won't be solved in the next half decade? I certainly am not.

I read a LOT of paperbacks and I live in a small third world country, so finding new stock at a lot of bookshops can be difficult. Being able to buy books conveniently off the internet would really be a live saver for me however I think the real way they will take off will be via non-fiction where a single reader is really competing with 200+ heavy reference books which suddenly makes it VERY attractive. The Kindle’s searching ability would be great for this if Amazon’s business model wasn’t so insane.


All the lawyers I know go through several forests worth of paper every year reading contracts, making changes and re-printing the contracts etc. Get them comfortable with the technology and the potential cash savings alone will convert half the legal profession in 6 months.


As for the manufacturing issues: The Chinese factories make a lot of small batch run products already anyway. One more won’t matter and a lot of the internal ebook reader technology is off the shelf stuff anyway.


Finally I think that the people who rave the feeling and smell of paper books don’t read a lot of second hand novels. Paper absorbs all sorts of things from the environment around it. A book that was previously owned by a smoker can be a really smelly thing, and I don’t even want to think about second-hand porn novels …

Why don't ebooks actually use the medium people already have? In Japan, you can read books or manga on your cell phone. Why can't you get an ebook for the PSP or the DS? That sure can't be harder to do than a game, can it?
Another thing I always ask myself when this discussion comes up: Is there actually a demand for ebooks? While I quite enjoy searching through Shakespeare and Goethe on gutenberg.org when I'm wondering where to find that quote, I'm rather fond of books. I like the look, the feel, the smell, the touch, signed copies, copies signed by friends, things I underlined when I was 14 and very enthusiastic about something, the very old leather bound volume I found in that shop on this-and-that occasion.
But then again, the same could be said about newspapers, and I haven't read the paper version of a newspaper since 2000 or so.

I love reading books off of my phone. At night I snuggle into bed, switch off the light and I am still able to read. My phone fits nicely in my hand and is lighter than most books (though heavier than most other phones). Turning a page requires only a slight twitch of my thumb.
And when I'm getting tired enough to go to sleep, It takes just another twitch of my thumb to switch it off, and I can slide the phone under my pillow without fear of it getting donkey ears or a broken back.

I have used Plucker in the past and am using Vademecum (a Plucker replacement on Winmob) and MobiPocket now. These make reading very easy and convenient.

#8- I love paper books, and buy & read a lot of second-hand novels. Yes, smoker's books are smelly, but I actually enjoy seeing the previous reader's influence. New books seem somewhat characterless and anodyne in comparison.

Incidentally, second-hand porn magazines used to be a staple of a certain kind of junk-shop here in the UK- a shop I know in Cambridge still had a boxful when I was there last year. But no, I wouldn't much fancy buying those.

I've tried to read books on my Newton some years ago. Then I read a lot of books on my several pocket pcs, and palms (the last and best one as reading experience is concerned being my clié NX70).
In the maintime, I also read a LOT of pbooks. But I must say that I'm not displeased at all with my Sony Reader.
I don't know if you would put it as expensive (I brought it second-hand for less than 150€), or badly made (even if there are always possible improvements, I find it quite nice), or out-of-stock (you can buy one easily, new or second-hand), but for me : it just does the trick :)

@Mkultra, #2. I concur, completely. I go further: DRM-free ebooks will be as important as paper books in less than a generation. That's why I've put mine online for free download. (* plug *)

Who knows what sort of ebook-display people will be using in 2020? Some will want a dedicated display; others will use their phone, their PDA, or some other all-in-one device not yet even dreamt of. Who knows how they'll even read? Maybe their ebooks will read aloud.

Predicting the future is a waste of time.

Well, I for one am pretty happy with my (admittedly old) ebook reader (the eBookwise). I get no eye strain from it - except for that time when I read about 10 hours straight on a loong bus trip, but I would've had the same problem with a dead treee book -, it has no isssues with DRM (I can convert several formats to the stuff it can read), it's not much heavier than a book & it's the same size as a trade paperback... The only issue is that the upload process is a bit too complicated for my laziness (if something requires me to plug a cable in and start software, it's complicated). And it was only $125.

I like 'real' books, a lot, but living in a non-English speaking country means that you can't find many English books and, when you can, they're pretty expensive. So ebooks are the salvation :)

True digital paper has been a loooooong time coming, in fact 10 years ago I thought it'd be here in 2.

Although I use my Palm Lifedrive to read a lot of articles, I don't think I'd read a novel on it...but a bendable, paper-like device with a (optionally?) passive display and which doesn't feel like a phone/PDA/MP3/navigator could change that pretty quickly.

The only way I see an e-book working is with the merging of a few products. A motion device like in the Wii where if you would wave your hand the device would flip page. Next a major thing, color. The Kindle just does not do it for me. If I am going to spend money like that there better be color. This device should look like those picture frames that you load pictures in. They can stay on your table and you can prop it up and read it, and motion your hand when you want to flip a page like you are reading a newspaper. Have it wi-fi ready each morning, no mouse, nothing attached and newspapers and magazines would already be downloaded when you wake up. Have coffee and read your e-book device. Bring it with you everywhere you want, no wires or anything just an easy device. The simpler it is and full of color and sound, you have a winner. Then again a laptop can do all of that, it's the portability issue with ease that will make it a winner. Now here is the biggest one, quality, not many good books written out there and the price issue of the e-books you download. Once you have all those things ready, I will be game. If not I will stick with my laptop.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Kindle and Sony Reader from a hardware perspective. I look forward to their future versions, like color e-ink displays, faster refresh, and even less bezel for more screen, but they get the job done as is.

The only problem is price and that'll change soon enough. Amazon in particular is trying to milk the early adopters, I suspect, or at least is unwilling to take a loss on the Kindle since they're paying so much for marketing. But the price will drop soon enough. When the Kindle is around the same price of similar portable devices, say the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP, it'll be hard to argue against. Reading on an e-ink display is more pleasant than reading on an LCD. The refresh rate is only ever-so-slightly annoying, but you get used to it. The built-in radio over which to buy books is fantastic when you're in an airport, say, and the longer I've used mine, the more full it's become of books I intend to read in the future. (Including those Tor books; I read Scalzi's Old Man's War for the first time on the Kindle. I doubt I would have plowed through it so quickly on a laptop, especially considering the distractions of reading on a PC.)

A $100 eBook reader filled with a few hundred of your favorite books does provide advantages that other devices (including paper books) do not. I, too, am skeptical ebook readers will be a big breakout hit in the short term, but I think once the price falls they'll be able to carve out a healthy niche, especially with book lovers.

Hm, yeah, well, the thing is, I love my Kindle.

I got it for Xmas, and I've used it a lot. But, then I spent a couple weeks away from it while I read a normal book. I really missed using my Kindle during that time. The real book was kind of annoying to use.

Now, I'm back to using my Kindle again, and I'm happy.

I hope you're wrong, because if the market for Kindle dies, I'll be very unhappy.

This is a fairly uninformed entry

1- it ignore the ever increasing popularity of e-books, recently boosted by Amazon's kindle.

2- ignores the imminent release of highly anticipated new generations of A4 sized e-books, which are expected to cost around $100 by 2010.

3- all these portable devices will receive the equivalent of a steroid shot by the new very low power consumption processors (like Intel's Atom). Combination of next-to-zero power consumption epaper with these processor babies, will produce extremely feature rich e-books that will go for days without charging.

4- most importantly, it's based on unforgivable ignorance of basic economics - Not to go into details, I assure you, there is a market for e-paper, and the Chinese will be more than happy to mass produce them.

Cheap, portable ebook readers are available all over the place - I have 3 for under ~$250. I picked up a second hand Palm IIIx a couple of years ago for $20. A couple of rechargeable AAA batteries and it's good for 15-20 hours of reading without the back light. I upgraded to a Palm M505 for $30 last summer - lasts even longer, and it has colour. Both of the Palms handle multiple formats once I drop them through Dropbook for conversion. Recently I got an XO, and it is an amazing ebook reader -native PDF display in full colour, rrs feeds of web pages, .txt, pretty much anything that will show up in a browser. The screen folds over into tablet mode and with the back light off I've gotten 7 hours of reading time out of it (and once I hack together a little charger out of a windup flashlight I'm untethered from the grid forever!). On both the Palms and the XO reading text with the back light off was easy on the eyes, and I can carry a couple dozen books, text books, or documents for reading on the go without having to lug around dead trees.

As soon as someone designs a mediatronic book that looks like a thin, flexible novella, and you can bring up any book that is loaded and read the book off the "paper" pages, then you'll have a ebook reader that people will buy. And it will have the ability to store your entire library, so no more storage issues.

The thing with having the paper books on the shelf has more to do with fetishistic behavior than anything else. I'm going to go touch my Cory Doctorow books now! Then I'll sniff them, and then lick them....

I can't imagine e-book readers, or e-books for that matter, catching on until you can get a decent and simple reader for under £100.

Still, that isn't stopping some people pursuing the digital book market. Here's one author who is offering copies of his novel for download onto mobile phones -

Would you read a book on your mobile?

In some ways a great solution to spreading e-books (no need to purchase a new device), but I can't imagine it catching on....

We need device convergence here.

A laptop, a cell phone, a watch, a camera, and an ebook reader? How about an Asus Eee with a webcam and an eInk display instead.

The experience of quietly sitting reading a book is something that can't be replaced easily with an e-book reader.

I think Sue's completely right on this one. Books require no plugs or wifi.

The experience of quietly sitting reading a book is something that can't be replaced easily with an e-book reader.

Is there something about an eBook reader that precludes sitting quietly in a chair? I do it all the time.

In a comment to a recent article of mine on the same subject, http://cwoehrl.de/?q=node/120 (German), someone spoke about the "organoleptic" qualities of printed books, and even though I agree some used books can stink rather than just smell, that's one thing that still draws me to oldfashioned printed stuff.

More important to me, the physical qualities of different printed books (weight, paper quality, typography, cover art) have an impact on my memory in a way an e-book reader probably never can: For a lot of my favourite books, I can tell how they look and feel in my hands after 10 years or more, and that knowledge also helps to keep my memory of the books' contents alive.

In contrast, an e-book reader always feels the same regardless of what I'm reading, be it 14th century or contemporary stuff. Thus the reader will level out secondary characteristic differences of books and make them less distinguishable. In short, it values itself more than the content it's supposed to deliver...

I love Cory, but I have to call shenanigans here. E-paper-based ebook readers have not been around long enough to become cheap. Phones and game consoles have.

Ray Kurzweil says that it's hard to see the exponential because it's so shallow at first. Just you wait :)

I'd buy one in a millisecond, if I could find one that is:

1) cheap enough for me; I'm not paying $400.
2) capable of displaying Cyrillic text; half of my e-books are in Russian.
3) capable of displaying DRM'd books in several different formats; a lot of my e-books are in the PalmReader format, and encrypted. I know, I know.
4) has a lot of books available for it, not just the brainless bestseller-of-the-month.
5) ergonomically designed so I don't strain my hand pressing those buttons - the Sony Reader, especially, has hard-to-press buttons, and I have repetitive stress injuries in my hands.

I'm waiting for such a gadget with a lot of eagerness; I move a lot, and every move involves heavy book boxes, and I'd love to not lug as many heavy book boxes anymore. But the Kindle is not it, so I'm not getting one.

I have a nearly two year old kid. So, I can't read anymore anyway.

I really want to be able to download and read books on my iPhone.

I got the Sony PRS 505 for Christmas. I knew I'd like it in a gadget-loving kind of way, but I thought it would remain more of a novelty than anything else. Boy, was I wrong!

Portability: I've got close to 90 books stored in it, thanks to a 2GB SD card, and it isn't anywhere close to being full. It's small, thin, and light.

Tactile, uh, -ness: I find that subconsciously running my fingers over the various buttons is a perfectly acceptable substitute for the feel of the page. And, since it's so lightweight, I don't get nearly as much cramping in my hand as when I hold a thick paperback open for hours on end. A minor shift in the pressure of my thumb "turns" the page, which makes it easier to read one-handed.

Display: e-ink rocks. Just as good as paper. I've tried reading on a laptop and a PDA. Too much eye strain, and not enough text on one page. I know the same would be true of my cell phone.

Battery: my reader already goes for days without a charge, and that's with moderate to heavy use. I've a notion to try hacking some solar panels onto the back, though, to see if I can make it self-charging...

Extras: I can also load pictures, pdfs, word (rtf) documents, etc. on it. It's also an MP3 player - admittedly, at the expense of battery life.

Also, like others have mentioned, I've downloaded several free books that I wouldn't ordinarily have picked up in the bookstore. Very low-risk way to try out a new author. If I like, I'll be buying more of their stuff.

I love my paper books, and won't be giving them up any time soon, but I wouldn't bet any money on the e-book readers going away any time soon.

No one's making dedicated e-book readers in such quantity that the price drops to the cost of a paperback — the cost at which the average occasional reader may be tempted to take a flutter on one.

Is this part serious? Does Cory really believe that an e-book reader won't become a viable product unless the price can be brought down to under ten bucks? Isn't that kind of like someone in the early '80s saying, "No one is going to buy CD players unless we can give one away free with each CD purchase"?

I read manuscripts for a living. Well, sort of a living. Try reading 50k words on your cell in one go. Have an aspirin.

The ink is the thing. These are, and will continue to be, standalone devices. The Kindle, with its EV-DO connection, is a half-step device, bridging the gap between now and a time soon to come when broadband cellphone/computers will be in every pocket.

Need to read a brief/memo/manuscript/novel/any other bloody printed thing? Have to pay for your own paper/ink cartridge? Not interested in staring at your cell phone/lcd monitor for the next six hours? Just get on your Near-Futurephone and download the file, transfer to your e-ink reader via bluetooth/wifi/other local wireless protocol, and...that's it, really.

They're coming, and they'll be pretty cheap. A couple of ink cartridges-cheap, anyway.

Like #9 and others have said, ebook readers are easily available all over the place - but simply as applications for wider-purpose devices. I use my old Palm Pilot as one. The physical form factor is smaller than a paperback, the display is pretty good (it's a Tx), and I've never yet had a battery problem while reading. I used to have one on my old cell phone as well, but just never found my reading time intersecting my phone-carrying time to any significant degree.

I love the ability to bring dozens or hundreds of books around with me - carrying a paperback seems like more of an inconvenience because it's just one more thing to lug.

Remember that this is very different from the state of MP3 players a decade ago: the dawn of the MP3 player era was the end of the walkman era, during which the massive global appeal of walkmen had already been proven out (not to mention that ten years ago, manufacturing was much more dispersed around the planet, rather than all in one place).

Also remember that the groups who place a high value on the convenience of ebooks -- expatriates living overseas, nomadic frequent travellers, poor students -- are not people who drive mass markets, either because they are not very numerous, or because they are poor (or both).

It would be nice to be able to switch between e-paper and LED depending on which refresh rate / power consumption rate you wanted.

I also have to disagree. I have a Rocket ebook 1100 - one of the first ebooks that came out if I recall correctly. I use it daily to read. The print is clear, it is the same size/shape as a paperback and I can easily add new books. I have an elibrary of several hundred books - both free and bought. Yes, it has a limited format (.rb) but the software to convert to the format is quite easy. Some sites (Baen.com, for example) have thier books available in rb already.
My issues with the newer models - too expensive for the average person and not being backlit! I LOVE being able to read my REB in bed at night or in the car without disturbing my partner!

I read a lot of books for pleasure and get through a lot of printed papers for work.

I'm not waiting for an ebook reader to reach the price of a paperback. After all, how many people are still wating for MP3 players to reach the price of a 6-month old album?

eBooks will start to tempt me when I find a virtual bookshop with the same range of titles as a good physical bookshop, which I can be confident I'll still be able to read after upgrading the hardware and changing manufacturer a few times.

I'm holding out hope that my XO, when I finally get it, will be the promised ebook reader. That was pretty much the reason I ordered one.

They shipped later in Canada, and then the one I got was DoA. One day I should have a working one...

Shanealeslie's post gives me some hope that I was right about the XO.

Of course ebooks are a dead end. They will last only so long as the e-Ink screens are too slow and too poor to use on devices like an iPhone. Once that changes, why wouldn't you just use a PMP instead?

But right now, they sorta make sense. If they ever settle the DRM wars they would have a much better chance.

Perhaps Cory sees the trend in book reading as another weighted variable in predicting when e-readers really take off. Less people read books, paper or otherwise. I would still buy special paper books from writers who are investment worthy.

I'm not interested in an ebook reader until they have ones with two "pages", and folds closed like an actual book.

Reading a book on only one "page" just doesn't seem right for me. Plus, it sucks for comics, which quite often spread over the two pages.

Teapunk: Why can't you get an ebook for the PSP or the DS?

There is an ebook reader for the DS: DSLibris. (Of course, you have to be running a homebrew-capable card in your DS, but those are becoming widely available.)

I don't know how anyone who has lived through the last 10 years can honestly say they don't see ebooks taking off in the near future. The ability for a child in a 3rd world country to get ahold of any book ever written, for me to carry every Discworld novel with me on a trip, or for a young author to get read without getting in bed with a major publishing house... I'd trade in every one of my dead-tree fetish-objects in an instant.

Of course MY ebook reader has led to me reading all kinds of new stuff and buying far more paper books than I did before, so go figure.

"Most of the world has shut down most of its factories..."

I found it hard to read past this statement. It is wildly counter-factual. In nearly every developed country in the world, manufacturing output is up, way up, over any significant period of time.

Manufacturing employment is down (even in China).

Hint: it takes less people to make things than it used to.

It seems a lot of people are missing the relevance of the e-book trend.

E-books with e-ink displays are better than cellphone/PDA readers because e-books have:
1) Larger display
2) Reflective rather than radiative
3) Low power
4) Potentially integrated editing/bookmarking functions
5) Flexibility (soon)

And the what e-books hold over printed material is:
1) Updatability
2) Animation/audio
3) Vast storage
4) Ease of access to titles (through internet downloads)
5) Search functionality
6) Color (soon)
7) Integration with other technology applications

E.g., http://www.lgphilips-lcd.com/homeContain/jsp/eng/inv/inv101_j_e.jsp?BOARD_IDX=1280

These types of displays will be the future - for books, advertisements, newspapers, and probably even computer displays - even if it takes 25 years. Just because a technology is still nascent doesn't mean it's dead end.

I read quite a bit on my (1993 vintage) HP200lx palmtop with Vertical Reader, which flips the screen so you can hold the palmtop like a paperback. It was the killer app that made me start carrying a palmtop. I also use MobiPocket on a Blackberry, but the screen is fairly small and it's frequently frustrating how long it takes to change the page. I still prefer paper, but it is convenient to be able to carry around an entire library worth of books on one flash card, especially if I'm travelling light.

Chinese handguns huh? What happense to criminal thugs and thuggish governments when everyone they try to victimize has a Chinese handgun in his pocket? Bye bye thugs! I like it. I hereby hope the world becomes flooded with Chinese handguns.

Can you fold your ebook? Can you read it in the bath? Can you hold your finger in place while you check the index? How often does a book need to be converted into ecologically catastrophic e-waste and replaced with a new model?

Books are the greatest technological achievement of all time. They're not going anywhere. Certainly not for any $100 or £100 gizmo that I'm going to throw away in a year. Maybe -- maybe if they were free.

Every attempt to date to "go paperless" has created a massive increase in paper usage because of people printing the same stupid garbage over and over, in drafts and repeats.

I still want an Iliad.
At least they're starting to show up on ebay. Don't these poorly treated, factory mangled chinese peasants care that I want a cool dealy to read books on that doesn't cost as much as a decent laptop?

I have been reading books, all types, on my palm for over 5 years. This is not to the exclusion of paper based books, but as a commuter, I have found the Palm's form factor and reader software perfectly fits my needs. For me the content is ultimately more important than the form and there are many books I wouldn't have read because it would have been impractical to tote around - YMMV

Whether in the park, a coffee shop, in bed or a waiting room I found reading my Rocket eBook was every bit as enjoyable as reading a paperback or hardcover and had many advantages.
I was very sad it was announced that that Rocket eBooks would no longer be supported and that no more eBooks would be available in that format. After spending $400 on my Rocket eBook I decided I would not buy a new one until I felt sure I would not be burned again.

I think the real solution to get people behind in reading eBooks is not just a device that provides a good reading experience at an affordable price, but also a commitment by a publisher or reseller to make the media available in a wide range of formats regardless of the manufacturer. Basically what Audible did for audio books. When I signed up for Audible I was offered a free MP3 player or a $100 coupon good towards almost every popular brand MP3 Player. The coupon brought the iPod mini price down to under $200. If not for that I would probably not have purchased an iPod for several years.

I think Amazon would be smart to offer a similar deal on Kindle. A commitment to a universal converter would probably seal the deal for many readers to try an eBook.

What a lame article. Summary: eBook readers haven't caught on yet, so China isn't mass producing them. Um, duh, thanks for the news.

As I sat in traffic for 20 minutes this morning to return 2 books to the library to avoid late fees, I thought to myself -- this is just stupid.

We cut down trees to make paper, print on it, then drive around in our cars to transfer the paper from one location to another. Or pay UPS to ship paper from Amazon to our house, where we read it, then put it on a shelf for 10 years. How quaint.

Boing@52, I agree with you, but I think we need to keep hardcopy. Frank Herbert talked about a crstal paper that was one molecule thick (the paper cut that can kill), and that would last for tens of thousands of years. All this electronic info is great, but drives can be cleaned with an EM pulse. Books can burn, I know, but they can also last for thousands of years. So, I'd like to have the ultimate e-reader, but I hope there will always be books too.

Whatever. I love my iRex Iliad and have read a ton of rather hefty books on it - and I also use it to carry around copies of the technical specs I need to read and mark up. While I don't expect to be ditching my library of real books any time soon, being able to have dozens of reference works, a bookshelf of classics, and all of my work documents with me when I'm on planes and trains is totally amazing. And the readbility and form factor is a zillion times nicer than PDAs, Laptops and phones.

Face it - not many people read anyhow. You can be dismissive of books, but when you look at the sad state of the publishing industry you'll see a bigger problem: books just aren't all the popular. So it's not shocking that there is little impetus to bring down the cost of these devices. So what. They're continue to live on for their niche market just like all kinds of other niche gadgets.

That said, the only thing that bums me out is that the potential of the HW platform of my device far outstrips the software written for it - this is kind of sad. With a bigger market you'd see the capabilities of epaper taken much farther I think.

Markfrei (54), the publishing industry is doing just fine, thank you. It's the music industry that's in trouble.

Oldjet (19), I don't find you all that well-informed. E-books are a bitty fraction of the market, nowhere near as popular as audiobooks.

I think dedicated ebook readers are a dead end too. My reason for thinking so is that I've seen other dedicated technologies eaten up when more flexible and generally useful devices developed software and user interfaces that duplicated their capabilities. Modern technology could build a kick-ass dedicated word processor, but that would be pointless.

My Blackberry has eaten my phone, calculator, PDA, game player, and cellphone modem. I trust that some future Blackberry offshoot will eat the dedicated ebook reader I'm not bothering to buy.

Crunchbird, see above. See also, remarks on reading books at the beach, in the bath, and on the subway. An expensive and vulnerable ebook reader can't compete with the electronic devices you already have.