The Kindle e-book reader has been enormously successful for Amazon. It was initially launched in November of 2007 - but it wasn't until the launch of the Kindle 2, in February 2009, that e-book readers began to take off. Amazon followed up with the release of the large format Kindle DX in June of 2009, and the e-book reader market began to grow very rapidly indeed.
The Kindle quickly became Amazon's best selling product. During the festive season of 2009 it became the "most gifted" Amazon product ever. Inevitably, a number of other manufacturers either launched, or updated, their own e-book readers. Increased competition drove prices down and provided customers with additional options - both of these are good things of course.
Faced with a wider variety of options, e-book reader customers now need some way to make comparisons between the different choices available. It's certainly possible to find plenty of reviews on the Internet comparing different e-book reader hardware, the Kindle versus the Sony Daily Edition reader for example. However, comparing e-book readers simply in terms of the hardware is neglecting a lot of the e-book reader experience. Typically, as is often the case with electronic gadgets, the most recently released models will have some functions and features which are lacking in slightly older models. This is perfectly normal. What also needs to be taken into account, are factors such as legibility of the display, the layout of the controls, the ease of use, the number of available books, the cost of books, the ease of connection, the ease of purchasing books etc.
Whilst some of these are subjective to a certain extent, others can be analysed more objectively and factored in to the equation when deciding upon which e-book reader to buy. The Amazon Kindle certainly has an advantage when it comes to the number of Kindle books available. There are over 420,000 titles on the Amazon website and that number is growing every day. When it comes to the cost of the books, it seems that the Kindle also enjoys a significant advantage.
A recent study by the New York Times looked at the cost of ten books - the NYT's nominated ten best books of 2009, five fiction and five non-fiction titles - on three different e-book readers, the Kindle, the Nook and the Sony reader. The ten Kindle books cost a total of $ 136.87 - an average of $ 13.69 per title. The same ten books bought from Sony's store produced an average price of $ 15.26 and Barnes and Noble worked out at a staggering average price per book of $ 19.29.
So, based upon these figures, if you read a book a week you would be almost $ 300 a year better off buying a Kindle than a Nook. That would effectively mean that your Kindle reader would pay for itself, and then some, in less than 12 months. There are a lot of discussions going on between the major publishing houses and the e-book retailers right now, so e-book prices may well be subject to change in future. However, it seems clear that anyone considering buying an e-book reader would be well advised to take both the availability of books and their pricing into consideration before making a final decision.
Learn more about the Amazon Kindle - and have a look at the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you both protect and personalise your reader.
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