A portable ebook reader maybe just what you need if your book collection no longer fits on your shelves or you are conscious of the environmental impact of producing more paper books.

Although they have been around since about 1998, portable ebook readers are really starting to gain in popularity. Even though the first popular portable ebook reader was the Sony Librie in 2005 and then the Sony PRS 500 Reader and iRex iLiad both in 2006, it is the Amazon Kindle that came out in late 2007 that most people think about when talking about portable ebook readers.

Some of the Early Portable eBook Readers

Competition is a good thing for the consumer and the portable ebook readers market is no exception. Even though the Amazon Kindle has a huge fan base, there are now many manufacturers competing for market share. Some of the other earlier portable ebook readers are the Jinke Hanlin V2, Bookeen Cybook Gen3, iRex Digital Reader 1000, and the Sony PRS 505 and PRS 700.

Even More Choices for 2009

2009 looks like the year that the eBook Readers came of age as more manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon. Some of the lesser known ones that come to mind are the COOL ER by Interead, BeBook by Endless Ideas, the eBook by Elonex, and the eSlick by Foxit.

The Portable eBook Reader Competition Heats Up

The bigger players have not been resting on their laurels. In 2009, Sony brought out the Reader Pocket Edition PRS 300, Reader Touch Edition PRS 600, and soon the Reader Daily Edition PRS 900. Amazon brought out the Kindle 2 and the much larger Kindle DX. Samsung entered the portable ebook reader market with their Papyrus, and more exciting still, the Barnes & Noble Nook looks to become a very healthy competitor for the Amazon Kindle.

And now we have the Apple iPad; even though it is not a dedicated ebook reader, one of its functions is an ebook reader. So, it will be interesting to see if the iPad takes market share away from the dedicated ebook reader market. It is getting harder to decide which is the best ebook reader for our needs.

Portable eBook Reader Technology

Although this website will deal mostly with dedicated portable ebook readers with e-ink or e-paper screen types like the ones above, it is worth mentioning what other options are available. There are a few readers that use LCD screens, the most well known being the Jetbook by Ectaco. Unlike e-ink screens that have a 1 – 1.5 second page turning time, the LCD display features faster page turning.

Although the best medium for reading ebooks is a dedicated portable ebook reader device, there are other options as well. A few portable multimedia players and smartphones include a text viewer. Most notable are the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, plus PalmOS based devices. Lastly, you can use PDA devices, notebooks, tablet computers, or subnotebooks as a digital ebook reader.

Electronic Paper or Electronic Ink Display

Most of the electronic book readers use electronic paper or ink displays commonly known as e-ink. The idea behind this technology is for these devices to mimic the appearance of common ink on paper. E-ink displays are said to reflect light to the same degree as ordinary paper making them easy on the eye; this is because they have a wide viewing angle, reflect ambient light instead of emitting their own light, and they can be read in direct sunlight.

Digital ebook readers using e-ink displays have very long battery duration as they can hold text or images indefinitely without using electricity; the image is stable when viewing a page as it doesn’t need to be refreshed constantly like a computer screen. At the moment they are only available in monochrome but manufacturers are said to be developing full colour displays.

The Benefits of a Portable eBook Reader

Obviously, depending on the manufacturer and model there are many different features. Here are some of the many benefits of eBook Readers (some features only available for the best ebook readers):

  • Ability to hold from over 100 up to 1,000 books in the internal memory
  • With external memory, some devices can hold 10,000 books
  • One or two different built-in fonts and up to 6 font sizes
  • Screen rotation for viewing in portrait or landscape
  • An average of 10,000 pages turned on a single charge
  • Different sizes from pocket size to purse or bag size
  • Wireless downloading of ebooks
  • Touch screen interface, annotations, and text highlighting
  • Thousands of titles available from the dedicated content services like Amazon, Sony, and Barnes & Noble
  • Hundreds of thousands of free public domain books
  • Newspapers, magazines and blogs available for download
  • The best ebook readers have functions like: find in text, bookmarks, jump to page, word search, different languages, support for multiple formats, text to speech, MP3 player, picture viewer, and built in dictionaries

eBook Reader Review

Here at the Portable eBook Reader website, we will be constantly adding new ebook reader reviews. The idea is to feature not only the top brands but also the lesser known mobile ebook readers so that you can find the best ebook reader for your needs.