For years now, readers of all types (from college students tired of lugging around heavy backpacks to vacationers looking for a way to lighten their beach-bags) have been intrigued by the concept of e-books: books stored in digital format, read on a portable device roughly the size of a paperback book.

 

So far, though, no company or partnership has come up with a really compelling way to deliver e-books to the masses. There are two main challenges associated with creating a usable and affordable e-book—developing a system for delivering a very extensive selection of electronic books to readers (without alienating publishers), and creating a device that’s as intuitive and easy to use as a printed book (at least for people who are accustomed to using computers and other electronics).

 

Perhaps the closest thing seen so far to the much-dreamed-of e-book is Sony’s Reader, which launched in its second iteration in October, selling for $299. At its re-launch, the Reader provided access to a selection of 22,000 (and growing) titles in Sony’s CONNECT eBook format. Best-sellers, downloadable to the device via a USB cable from an Internet-connected computer, are priced in the $15-$20 range per title.

 

Today, online bookseller and retailer Amazon is aiming to give Sony a run for its money with a new e-book device: the Kindle.

 

The Kindle comes with the type of features you’d expect in an e-reader: small form factor (7.5” high by 5.3” wide by 0.7” thick, about the height of a Number 2 pencil), lightweight (10.3 ounces, less than the average paperback book), and easy-to-read screen (it uses MIT (News - Alert) Media Lab’s E Ink technology). The device holds about 200 titles in its on-board memory which is expandable using an SD card. Amazon claims that the battery holds enough power to read War and Peace on a single charge, and fully recharges in two hours.

 

But Kindle also boasts some pretty compelling features that other e-readers haven’t provided to date. Perhaps the most compelling of those is the fact that Kindle is a completely stand-alone device; it doesn’t require connecting to a computer to download titles. That’s because it comes with a free, EVDO (cell phone service technology) wireless service called Whispernet that lets users access the Amazon.com (News - Alert) Web site to purchase and download titles (book, magazine subscriptions, etc)—from anywhere.

 

In other words, as Newsweek reporter Steven Levy said in a review slated to appear in the November 26 print edition of that magazine, Kindle is not just an e-reader but also a service. Levy also touted the fact that users can search within titles for phrases or words.

 

Another compelling thing about Kindle is that, because it’s offered by a company that already has relationships with many publishers, the selection of titles available at launch is considerably larger than Sony’s. Amazon said more than 88,000 titles are available as of Monday, with the first chapters of most books offered free as an enticement to buy. Best-selling titles go for $9.99 each.

 

Perhaps the biggest drawback of Kindle is its price—$399. This is a premium consumer device, with a price-tag to match. Perhaps the price will come down with time; until then, Kindle won’t become the end-all and be-all of book reading. Yet it does provide a pretty compelling look into how most people may one day buy and read books and other written materials.