Reading is the favorite pastime for millions of people around the globe. A large portion of these avid readers prefers printed books to ebooks. They say paper books have the feel that ebooks can never match. They also say printed books are easier on the eyes.
Despite the advantages of printed books, the number of readers who prefer ebooks is on the rise. Interestingly, the number of new e-readers is also growing. While Amazon’s Kindle still takes the throne, Kobo Clara, and Barnes & Noble Nook still have a place in the market. And while their number is minuscule, Onyx Boox Nova, Remarkable, Mooink Pro, Fujitsu Quadrano, and Haier Leadpie are alive and kicking.
How Many e-Readers Do We Need?
With so many choices for e-readers, one can’t help to wonder if we really need that many choices. An e-reader’s purpose in life is to allow people to read ebooks. That’s all.
For many people, basic ebook readers with a monochrome display are more than enough. The E-ink technology on such readers makes reading for hours possible without putting a strain on the eyes. E-readers with E-ink technology also provide a good reading experience in bright sunlight so you can read wherever you want.
When manufacturers are giving customers e-readers with touchscreen and all kinds of bells and whistles, then why shouldn’t customers just skip and go with tablets instead? There are already so many apps for reading ebooks on both iPads and Android tablets.
It’s true that tablets have a much higher price tag. But if you can spare some time hunting on eBay, you can get a secondhand iPad with good condition at a seriously low price. At that price point, sticking to a full-specced e-reader just doesn’t make sense.
“Or does it?”
Let’s have a quick look at the Onyx Boox Nova 2 with its $339 price tag. This 7.8-inch Android device comes with a stylus so you can use it to take notes. Its 32GB of internal storage is big enough to keep thousands of eBooks plus your favorite note-taking and eBook apps. Hmmm, doesn’t seem it offers anything new that your old and trusty iPad doesn’t have already.
Well, it turns out that the world doesn’t need that many choices of e-Readers. Still, competition is a good thing as it pushes manufacturers to one up their competitors. And if in the future e-Readers will offer a groundbreaking breakthrough, perhaps then the world will need many e-readers to choose from.
For now, don’t worry too much about whether or not new e-readers are hitting the market. They all support the same set of ebook format your current e-readers already support. But just in case you want to migrate to the new e-readers and they don’t support the format your ebook collection is in, just use the ebook format converter. Whether you want to convert to ePub, AZW, Mobi, PDF, or TCR, this handy converter can take them all.
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