I Fare Thee Well, Page 3

The future is getting here. In fact, if our ancestors were alive today, they'd believe that we're living in the future they envisioned, already. Think about it. The days of reading newspapers thirty-forty pages long and books several times longer will soon be history.

Last month, Hearst and Sprint launched the Skiff e-reader, making e-readers the "in-thing" as the last decade faded out. The e-reader market is booming with the Skiff now joining the market-giant, Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Daily Edition and Barnes and Noble's Nook with Plasic Logic and iRex on the verge of releasing their own contenders soon.

So what makes these e-readers as attractive as books, if not more? For starters, these readers employ a novel electronic-ink technology. What that means is that the readers' screens do not have the glare that usual LCD screens have and you could have your back to the sun and still enjoy a reading experience equal to that of the usual book. One drawback that goes hand-in-hand with such a technology is that it does not allow touchscreen capabilities. For a reader to feature touch, an extra layer to the screen has to be introduced that may hinder the otherwise promised ease in reading.

The other obvious advantage is the portability of such devices. A gadget with thickness much less than an inch that doesn't disintegrate like a newspaper and weighs less than the average book, is a very sweet deal. What's more, in the case of the Kindle and the Nook, e-books are as cheap as $9.99. You could catch The Lost Symbol, that I reviewed, for that amount. Very impressive. And it seems impressive to a lot of people apparently, as Kindle books sold more than actual books this past Christmas.

Durability is also a sure feature in most devices. The makers of Skiff, for example, exhibit great courage in releasing the picture to the right that shows the ruggedness of the Skiff's screen. This drastically reduces issues related to broken and cracked screens.

The issue of color has yet to be fully addressed though. All the e-readers in the market today display the documents in grayscale with "sixteen shades of gray". The Nook (Barnes and Noble) features two screens - a main reading screen and a much smaller but colored, browsing screen where you can choose the books you want to read.

Next time, I'll take a closer look at features and pricing and tell you which one I'd buy if I had the money. I'll also discuss the future of these readers with media buzz that Apple will be out with it's Tablet (rumoured to be named "iSlate") very soon.