There has been talk of late that sales of the humble eInk eReader will fall this year as people move to now cheaper tablets, and also the environmental pros and cons of eReaders vs. paper books. A friend has also said that she is thinking about getting a Kindle, but that what puts her off is that she likes going to charity shops and buying random books that take her fancy, and then giving them back to the charity shop to re-sell which is quite satisfying.

I don’t see Kindles (or the like) as an either/or for real books. I will never, ever, stop buying and/or reading paper books. After spending the best part of the back end of last year reading more or less exclusively on my Kindle, I’m really enjoying reading two *real* books at the moment (a novel, and a book of essays by my favourite author). I really don’t think that the Kindle is going to change my book-buying habits.

Industry pundits seem to be predicting that even the days of the relatively newcomver of the traditional eReader are numbered. I’m really not so sure. I own a second generation Kindle which is brilliant for reading on as its really comfortable. It’s what I get The Grauniad downloaded to every day. Recently I also acquired a Kindle Fire, which is to all intents and purposes an iPad Mini but cheaper. One of my first surprises is that it is pretty comfortable to read even though it has a backlit screen, but has a battery life of only hours (about a day), rather than weeks (or even a month) of my second generation Kindle.

Thus, for me, the Kindle Fire could never replace the traditional eInk Kindle, just as it will never replace the paper book. I love them all, and use them all, each according to their purpose and my need.

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