We’ve had a Sony ebook reader in our house for a couple of years now and we love it. Of course, we have had to share the thing, difficult when we both have gotten to a good bit and want to have a good read at the same time, but at least the device remembers where you were in each book and it reads a multitude of formats. The biggest trouble we have had with the Sony is that the official Sony ebooks store does not want to sell to us lowly South Africans.

Now we also have an Amazon Kindle and boy, do I love it! Yes, it only displays Amazons proprietary format, but that really is no problem as Amazon offer two conversion services of numerous formats, – one totally free delivered to your email account, and a costs next to nothing (I’m talking under a US Dollar here) service delivered directly to your Kindle. I’ve been using the free one & the conversion comes back within 10 minutes every time.

The Kindle is fast, funky, fun & easy to use. And it’s all legally shipped to us here in South Africa and we can get the majority of Amazons Kindle book offering, which at the moment is close to 300,000 books and rising daily. I recommend it if you are in the market for an ebook reader. Downloads are via 3G that Amazon picks up the tab for, and they are fast. You can browse the store directly from your device and download a sample of a book, which is usually the first chapter. If you like it, buy it, if you don’t, delete it. The features of the device are way too numerous to mention here, if you are interested have a look on the web.

So why ebooks, then? Is it a fad? I personally don’t think so. I think ebook readers are the next big leap in personal gadgets and will become as ubiquitous as the iPod. You can put a massive amount of books on one – the kindle has a 1GB drive and that’s the equivalent of about 1400 novels. You can read them anywhere. The screens use a unique electronic ink system that makes them look like paper and you can read even in bright sunlight. It’s so easy on the eye. No backlights at the moment so you still need light, but that does not bother me and who knows what is next. There are several makes and models appearing in the US market and it is one of the biggest growth areas in personal electronics.

The books are cheaper, too. An average bestselling new release novel in the Kindle store is about $10. That’s substantially cheaper than buying the paperback, in many cases almost half the price. And it saves paper. And shipping. And going to the mall.

Yes, they run on batteries and regular books don’t. But I’m on my 4th book in nearly 3 weeks on my Kindle, and the battery has just clicked over to the halfway mark. I’ve had the 3G off for most of the time, except when I’ve been showing it to friends. I think that is pretty decent battery life. I’m thinking about getting a solar USB charger from Think Geek. They ship to South Africa, thankfully.

So if you love to read, think about an ebook reader. I don’t think I will ever buy a paperback novel again.