I’ve looked at getting an eBook reader for quite a while now. My wife was going to buy me a Sony eReader for Father’s Day when they were super discounted at Borders; however, they were sold out all around town due to the low price. If you go to a store that has ebook readers, it is hard to resist picking them up and poking on one. Some of the off brands are not the coolest devices, but the Sony and Kindle eBooks work as small, lightweight devices to read books.
But I contend that today’s eBooks are a fad.
If you think about it for about one second, it should be obvious as to why they are a fad. In today’s world of Internet Connectivity, why would you want a device that costs several hundred dollars that does only one thing. For the same price you can by a netbook that not only let’s you read books, but also surf the Web as well as run your own programs. What is to prevent an eBook reader from surfing the Web? Why can’t it work as a touch screen browser? Why can’t it have color? Why can’t it store my documents or also do the things a PDA does such as keep my calendar and show me my emails? I believe eBooks will do all of this. When netbooks take on the ebook format– thus being more of a micro-tablet, then today’s simplistic ebook readers will fade away like an oversized CRT monitor.
The technology today doesn’t seem to be fitting netbook/tablet functionality into the eBook format, but it is getting closer. Of course the rumors of the Applet tablet have been circulating for months.
Another device that has the potential to send current eBooks to the history book can be seen on Gizmodo. This is the Microsoft Courier device that is in the late prototype stage. The device is more of a book format and really takes the features of PDA, eBooks, and tablets and combines them into one. Take a look at the following video and see if you don’t agree that today’s eBooks just don’t cut it anymore!