Legal Research

The e-Reader Battle Heats Up!

By admin

Cool. Just in time for ALA we have the e-reader price war beginning.

Kindle price drops to $189 US

And Barnes and Noble reduces the Nook to $149.00 US for the wifi version and 199.00 US for the 3G:

$149 Nook: The E-Reader’s Demise Begins With a Race to the Bottom

To think my Sony Reader way more expensive a few years ago.

My wife’s beloved Kobo reader from Chapters Indigo in Canada (and Borders in the US?) is only $149.00 CDN already.

I hear the iRex is maybe for the dead pool but other e-readers are in the wings.

I have the Kobo and the Kindle readers on my iPad and iPhone. I wonder if this will put pressure on iPad pricing or will it be seen as a premium product that’s almost a netbook? My personal opinion is that readers will ultimately be tablet apps but there’s life in them for a few years.

Either way, we have to start seeing better ebook options for bestsellers for library borrowing. Will Google Editions offer institutional options?

I believe that we are seeing the e-reader moving into the early majority adopter phase this year. On the other hand, it’s all about the e-books and not the e-readers. That’s where the real action will be – like was it really about MP3’s or iPods?

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).