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An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital
e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
s and periodicals. Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-reader; however, specialized e-reader devices may optimize portability, readability, and battery life for this purpose. Their main advantage over printed books is portability. This is because an e-reader is capable of holding thousands of books while weighing less than one book, and the convenience provided due to add-on features.


Overview

An e-reader is a device designed as a convenient way to read e-books. It is similar in form factor to a tablet computer, but often features
electronic paper Electronic paper, also sometimes electronic ink, e-ink or electrophoretic display, are display devices that mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional flat panel displays that emit light, an electronic paper display ...
rather than an LCD screen. This yields much longer battery life — the battery can last for several weeks — and better readability, similar to that of paper even in sunlight. Drawbacks of this kind of display include a slow refresh rate and (usually) a grayscale-only display, which makes it unsuitable for sophisticated interactive applications as those found on tablets. The absence of such apps may be perceived as an advantage, as the user may more easily focus on reading. The Sony Librie, released in 2004 and the precursor to the
Sony Reader The Sony Reader was a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony, who produced the first commercial E Ink e-reader with the Sony Librie in 2004. It used an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, was viewable in direct sunligh ...
, was the first e-reader to use electronic paper. Many e-readers can use the internet through Wi-Fi and the built-in software can provide a link to a digital Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) library or an e-book retailer, allowing the user to buy, borrow, and receive digital e-books. An e-reader may also download e-books from a computer or read them from a
memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a soc ...
. However, the use of memory cards is decreasing as most of the 2010s era e-readers lack a card slot.


History

An idea similar to that of an e-reader is described in a 1930 manifesto written by
Bob Brown Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is a former Australian politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasma ...
titled ''The Readies'', which describes "a simple reading machine which I can carry or move around, attach to any old electric light plug and read hundred-thousand-word novels in 10 minutes". His hypothetical machine would use a
microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...
-style ribbon of miniaturized text which could be scrolled past a magnifying glass, and would allow the reader to adjust the type size. He envisioned that eventually words could be "recorded directly on the palpitating ether". The establishment of the
E Ink Corporation E Ink (electronic ink) is a brand of electronic paper (e-paper) display technology commercialized by the E Ink Corporation, which was co-founded in 1997 by MIT undergraduates JD Albert and Barrett Comiskey, MIT Media Lab professor Joseph Jacobso ...
in 1997 led to the development of
electronic paper Electronic paper, also sometimes electronic ink, e-ink or electrophoretic display, are display devices that mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional flat panel displays that emit light, an electronic paper display ...
, a technology which allows a display screen to reflect light like ordinary paper without the need for a backlight. Among the first commercial e-readers were Sony's
Data Discman The Data Discman is an electronic book player introduced to the Western market in late 1991 or early 1992 by Sony Corporation. It was marketed in the United States to college students and international travelers, but had little success outsid ...
(which was using Mini CDs with special caddies) and the
Rocket eBook The Rocket eBook is an early commercial handheld e-reader that was produced by NuvoMedia in late 1998; it uses a LCD screen and can store up to ten e-books. E-books are loaded on the device by connecting it to a computer and the device has two page ...
.MobileRead Wiki – Rocket eBook
Wiki.mobileread.com (2011-11-20). Retrieved on 2012-04-12.
Several others were introduced around 1998, but did not gain widespread acceptance. Electronic paper was incorporated first into the Sony Librie that was released in 2004 and
Sony Reader The Sony Reader was a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony, who produced the first commercial E Ink e-reader with the Sony Librie in 2004. It used an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, was viewable in direct sunligh ...
in 2006, followed by the
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
Kindle, a device which, upon its release in 2007, sold out within five and a half hours. The Kindle includes access to the
Kindle Store The Kindle Store is an online e-book e-commerce store operated by Amazon as part of its retail website and can be accessed from any Amazon Kindle, Fire tablet or Kindle mobile app. At the launch of the Kindle in November 2007, the store had mor ...
for e-book sales and delivery. , new marketing models for e-books were being developed and a new generation of reading hardware was produced. E-books (as opposed to e-readers) had yet to achieve global distribution. In the United States, as of September 2009, the Amazon Kindle model and
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
's
PRS-500 The Sony Reader was a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony, who produced the first commercial E Ink e-reader with the Sony Librie in 2004. It used an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, was viewable in direct sunligh ...
were the dominant e-reading devices. By March 2010, some reported that the
Barnes & Noble Nook The Barnes & Noble Nook (styled nook or NOOK) is a brand of e-readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the U.S. in October 2009, and was released the next ...
may have been selling more units than the Kindle in the US. The Ectaco jetBook Color was the first color e-reader on the market, but its muted colors were criticized. As of 2021, a few color E-ink readers have been introduced into the market. Research released in March 2011 indicated that e-books and e-readers were more popular with the older generation than the younger generation in the UK. The survey, carried out by Silver Poll, found that around 6% of people over 55 owned an e-reader, compared with just 5% of 18- to 24-year-olds. According to an IDC study from March 2011, sales for all e-readers worldwide rose to 12.8 million in 2010; 48% of them were
Amazon Kindle Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...
s, followed by
Barnes & Noble Nook The Barnes & Noble Nook (styled nook or NOOK) is a brand of e-readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the U.S. in October 2009, and was released the next ...
s, Pandigital, and
Sony Reader The Sony Reader was a line of e-book readers manufactured by Sony, who produced the first commercial E Ink e-reader with the Sony Librie in 2004. It used an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, was viewable in direct sunligh ...
s (about 800,000 units for 2010). On January 27, 2010
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
launched a multi-function tablet computer called the iPad and announced agreements with five of the six largest publishers that would allow Apple to distribute e-books. The iPad includes a built-in app for e-book reading called iBooks and had the iBookstore for content sales and delivery. The iPad, the first commercially profitable tablet, was followed in 2011 by the release of the first Android-based tablets as well as LCD tablet versions of the Nook and Kindle. Unlike previous dedicated e-readers, tablet computers are multi-functional, utilize LCD touchscreen displays, and are more agnostic to e-book vendor apps, allowing for the installation of multiple e-book reading apps. Many Android tablets accept external media and allow uploading files directly onto the tablet's file system without resorting to online stores or cloud services. Many tablet-based and smartphone-based readers are capable of displaying PDF and DJVU files, which few of the dedicated e-book readers can handle. This opens a possibility to read publications originally published on paper and later scanned into a digital format. While these files may not be considered e-books in their strict sense, they preserve the original look of printed editions. The growth in general-purpose tablet use allowed for further growth in the popularity of e-books in the 2010s. In 2012, there was a 26% decline in sales worldwide from a maximum of 23.2 million in 2011. The reason was given for this "alarmingly precipitous decline" was the rise of more general-purpose tablets that provided e-book reading apps along with many other abilities in a similar form factor. In 2013, ABI Research claimed that the decline in the e-reader market was due to the aging of the customer base. In 2014, the industry reported e-reader sales worldwide to be around 12 million, with only
Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
and
Kobo Inc. Rakuten Kobo Inc., or simply Kobo, is a Canadian company that sells ebooks, audiobooks, ereaders and tablet computers. It is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and is a subsidiary of the Japanese ecommerce conglomerate Rakuten. The name'' Kobo ...
distributing e-readers globally and various regional distribution by Barnes & Noble (US/UK), Tolino (Germany), Icarus (Netherlands), PocketBook International (Eastern Europe and Russia) and Onyx
Boox Onyx Boox (stylized as BOOX) is a brand of e-book reader produced by Onyx International Inc, based in China. Like most e-book readers, the Boox uses electronic paper technology. Devices i63ML Newton The Onyx Boox i63ML Newton (I63MLP_HD) device ...
(China and Vietnam). At the end of 2015, eMarketer estimated that there were 83.4 million e-reader users in the US, with the number predicted to grow by 3.5% in 2016. In late 2014, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted that by 2018 e-books would make up over 50% of total consumer publishing revenue in the U.S. and UK, while at that time, e-books were over 30% of the share of the revenue. Until late 2013, the use of an e-reader was not allowed on airplanes during takeoff and landing. In November 2013, the FAA allowed use of e-readers on airplanes at all times if set to Airplane Mode, which turns all radios off. European authorities followed this guidance the following month.


E-reader applications

Many of the major book retailers and third-party developers offer e-reader applications for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices, to allow the reading of e-books and other documents independent of dedicated e-book devices. E-reader applications are available for Mac, Linux, and PC computers as well as for Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices.


Impact

The introduction of e-readers brought substantial changes to the publishing industry, also awakening fears and predictions about the possible disappearance of books and print periodicals.


Criticism

The graphical design of ebooks underlies the format and technical limits of e-readers because most E-ink readers do not support color displays and they have a limited resolution and size. The reading experience (readability) on E-ink displays (that are not back-illuminated) depends on the lighting condition. E-readers are usually designed to only offer access to the online shop of one provider. This structure is referred to as (digital) ecosystem and helps smaller companies (e.g. Kibano Digireader) to compete against multinational companies (like
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
, Apple, etc.). On the other hand, customers only have the possibility of purchasing books from a limited selection of ebooks in the online shop (accessible via the e-reader) and therefore do not have the possibility of purchasing e-books from the open market. Because of the use of ecosystems, companies are not forced to compete against each other and therefore the cost of e-books do not decrease. With only the option of using an online shop, the social interaction of buying or borrowing a book disappears. In the EU, media products, including paper books, often have a tax reduction. Therefore, the VAT for conventional books was often lower than that of e-books. In legal terms, e-books were considered a service since it was regarded as a temporary lease of the product. Therefore, ebook prices were often similar to paper book prices, even if the production of ebooks has a lower cost. In October 2018, the EU allowed its member countries to charge the same VAT for ebooks as for paper books.
Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
has expressed concern about the perceived loss of freedom or privacy that comes with e-readers, namely the inability to read whatever a reader prefers without the possibility of being tracked.


Positive aspects

E-readers can hold thousands of books limited only by their memory and use the same physical space as a conventional book. Most
E-ink Electronic paper, also sometimes electronic ink, e-ink or electrophoretic display, are display devices that mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional flat panel displays that emit light, an electronic paper display ref ...
displays are not back-illuminated and therefore seem to cause no more eye strain than a traditional book and less eye strain than
LCD screens A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...
, with a longer battery life. Features such as the ability to adjust font size and spacing can help people who have difficulty reading or dyslexia. Some e-readers link to definitions or translations of key words.
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
notes that 85% of its e-reader users look up a word while reading. E-readers can instantly download content from supported public libraries by using apps like
OverDrive Overdrive may refer to: Organizations * OverDrive, Inc., a digital distributor of entertainment media ** OverDrive Media Console, a media player developed by OverDrive, Inc. * Overdrive PC, a subsidiary of Velocity Micro Technology * Overdrive ...
and Hoopla.


Popular e-readers

*
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology co ...
(Global): Kindle,
Kindle Paperwhite Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. T ...
,
Kindle Voyage Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. T ...
,
Kindle Oasis Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. T ...
, Kindle Oasis 2 * Barnes & Noble (US/UK): Nook,
Nook GlowLight The Barnes & Noble Nook (styled nook or NOOK) is a brand of e-readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the U.S. in October 2009, and was released the next ...
,
Nook GlowLight Plus The Barnes & Noble Nook (styled nook or NOOK) is a brand of e-readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the U.S. in October 2009, and was released the next ...
*
Bookeen Bookeen is a French company dealing with e-books and consumer electronics. History In 2003 after the failure of Cytale (the first European company to make an ebook reader) two former engineers of Cytale, Laurent Picard and Michaël Dahan, bou ...
(France): Cybook Opus, Cybook Orizon, Cybook Odyssey, Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight *
Kobo Kobo may refer to: Places * Kobo (woreda), a district in Ethiopia ** Kobo, Ethiopia, a town * Kōbo Dam, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan * Mount Kōbō, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan People First name * Kōbō Abe (1924–1993), pseudonym of Japanese ...
(Global):
Kobo Touch The Kobo Touch (also called the "Kobo Touch eReader") is the third generation of the Kobo e-reader device designed by Kobo Inc. It was revealed on 23 May 2011 and was released in the U.S. on 10 June 2011 at a price of $129.99. The Kobo Touch 2 ...
,
Kobo Glo The Kobo Glo is the fourth generation of Kobo eReader devices designed and marketed by Kobo Inc. It was revealed on 6 September 2012 and arrived at retail 14 October 2012 with a price of $129.99 USD/ CAD. It is the successor to the popular Kobo T ...
,
Kobo Mini Kobo may refer to: Places * Kobo (woreda), a district in Ethiopia ** Kobo, Ethiopia, a town * Kōbo Dam, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan * Mount Kōbō, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan People First name * Kōbō Abe (1924–1993), pseudonym of Japanese w ...
,
Kobo Aura The Kobo Aura is the fifth generation of E-book readers designed and marketed by Kobo Inc. It was revealed 27 August 2013 at Kobo's Beyond the Book Event in New York City, along with three new Kobo Arc devices. Available for pre-order the same da ...
, Kobo Aura HD *
Onyx Boox Onyx Boox (stylized as BOOX) is a brand of e-book reader produced by Onyx International Inc, based in China. Like most e-book readers, the Boox uses electronic paper technology. Devices i63ML Newton The Onyx Boox i63ML Newton (I63MLP_HD) device ...
(Europe, Russia, China and Vietnam): Onyx Boox Max2, Onyx Boox Note *
PocketBook PocketBook is a multinational company which produces e-book readers based on E Ink technology (an electronic paper technology) under the ''PocketBook'' brand. The company was founded in 2007 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and its headquarters were shifted t ...
(Europe and Russia): PocketBook Touch, PocketBook Mini, PocketBook Touch Lux, PocketBook Color Lux, PocketBook Aqua * Tolino (Germany): Tolino Shine, Tolino Shine 2 HD, Tolino Vision, Tolino Vision 2


See also

*
Comparison of e-book readers An e-reader, also known as an e-book reader, is a portable electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading e-books and periodicals. E-readers have a similar form factor to a tablet and usually refers to devices that use el ...
* Supporting platforms for e-book formats * Open Publication Distribution System


References


External links

* {{Authority control Dedicated ebook devices Ebooks Electronic paper technology