Q. How long have E-Readers been around, and what stage are they at at the moment in terms of technology / offerings etc ..

E-Readers have been around for a long time – several years now. They have become very popular when Amazon joined the market with the Original Kindle. Amazon has made it easy to buy and access books on your e-reader, with an extensive e-book store and a free wireless delivery service. Amazon is enjoying great success with those e-readers, which are in fact the number one selling item in Amazon today!

The most important technology in an e-reader is the display. A regular LCD is problematic because it needs a lot of power, it is difficult to look at for a long time and it's almost impossible to use in sunlight. Most e-readers today use an e-paper based display (see http://www.e-ink-info.com for more on e-readers). E-Paper displays are "non-volatile" and do not require power if nothing is changing on the displays, which is good for e-readers as most of the time you read and the screen isn't changing its image. They are also reflective which means that they are great in sunlight. Apple's iPad tablet computer is also a sort of e-reader, but they are using a high-quality LCD displays.

Q. What are the main E-Readers in the market at the moment?

There a lot of e-readers available, we have a complete database online (http://www.e-reader-info.com/products). I guess that the main ones are Amazon's Kindle (http://www.e-reader-info.com/a…..n-kindle-2), Barnes & Noble's Nook (http://www.e-reader-info.com/b…..noble-nook), Sony's Daily-Edition (http://www.e-reader-info.com/s…..ly-edition) and Apple's iPad (http://www.e-reader-info.com/apple-ipad). Other interesting upcoming readers are the Skiff (http://www.e-reader-info.com/s…..iff-reader), the Kobo (http://www.e-reader-info.com/k…..bo-ereader), the enTourage eDge (http://www.e-reader-info.com/e…..urage-edge) and the Plastic Logic QUE (http://www.e-reader-info.com/p…..-logic-que).

Q. Why have a 'dedicated' e-reader, some people say, when you can use a smart phone, tablet or netbook. What's your response to this?

For some people it doesn't make sense indeed. But if you really want to read for a long period of time, an e-reader is better because: It has a great display. An e-paper is easy on the eye and you can read for a long time in comfort.

It is in the right side: A smartphone is very small to read, but a netbook or a tablet are too big and heavy. The battery life is good – in usual e-readers you can read for days between charges

Q. How environmentally-friendly are E-readers?

That's a great question. As always, there's no easy answer… it depends on how you use your e-reader. If you really read books on it instead of buying real books, then it can be green. Here's something we posted recently on this very subject: http://www.e-reader-info.com/a…..ally-green

Q. How do you envisage the E-Reader market in a year’s time?

That's a tough question. A lot depends on the iPad. If people like reading books on it, then it may change the ball game, and Tablets may take over with e-readers remaining a small niche. But I think that for actual reading, you'd still want a dedicated reader. We're starting to see new display technologies entering the field (Liquavista, Mirasol, Pixel Qi, OLEDs (http://www.oled-info.com), Sipix and others) which will open up the competition and hopefully prices will go down.