Why should you bother looking at e-book readers? The question all depends on how you view the electronic gadget market. Who would argue about how the music industry has developed or the mobile phone phenomenon?
Quite a lot of progress has been made in the e-book reader scene over the past few years and public interest in these devices is growing rapidly. Take the Amazon Kindle for instance, it has now become Amazons best selling item! So it is obvious that something is happening in this regard.
The growth of interest in the e-book reader device tells us that there is a benefit to be gained in using one of these products and it is obvious that they make sense in several ways. So what are some of these advantages?
The first thing that springs to mind when looking into this area, is to ask why would I want an e-book reader when I can just grab a book and take it anywhere with me? It’s what I’ve always done. It’s easy and convenient. And yes I would have to agree with you, up to a point.
The point is, things are changing fast, and there is more to this issue than meets the eye which is usually the case. For one, the electronic e-reader can nowdo more things than people might imagine. It can read books. OK we all knew that. But, did you know it can actually read the book to you? Did you know you can read a newspaper on it too and store files for college or school? Just think of all those heavy books and materials you don’t have to carry anymore.
Some of these reading devices can store literally thousands of books -permanently. Take the Amazon Kindle 3 for example, it can store a staggering 3,500 books and the gadget is only as thin as a pencil! It’s a technological miracle. Now, 3,500 books would potentially weigh a whole ton and remember, this raises a whole new issue.
The Green Issue.
What has a reading gadget got to do with the ‘Green Issue’ you might ask? Well, just think about it for a moment. How many trees does it take to issue a best-selling novel? If the book is popular and attains a circulation of around 20,000,000 then it will require about 20,000 trees to produce it and that’s just ONE best seller. This does not take into consideration the amount of fossil fuels and bleaching processes required during the manufacture of the book. Remember, this is not an exact science but the figures quoted are a realistic portrayal of the logistics involved to produce a popular novel. It is in fact quite enlightening. Think of the effect this could have if most of us owned one of these devices.
This is just one factor to bear in mind when considering whether or not an e-book reading gadget is for you or not. Of course there will always be books around and they are nice things to gain knowledge from but there are other factors which we can look into in other articles.
