The Best eBook Reader You'll Likely Never Own

Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research writes a lengthy post about e-books and the only-in-Japan Sony Librie e-book reader. I'm not up on the the whole e-book market but Gartenberg is an avid reader and e-book fan. He references some research Jupiter did that evidently shows strong interest in e-books and magazines.

In the report we discovered that 54 percent of online consumers are interested in reading books, magazines, and newspapers in a digital format. Further, Sixty-three percent of consumers interested in eBooks and digital magazines indicated they would be interested in using a laptop to access the content. Tablet PCs, in which 37 percent of consumers are interested, are the second most popular option for accessing electronic texts, followed by 20 percent of consumers interested in using PDAs. Dedicated e-book readers came in at around 10% interested.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a portable e-reader that seamlessy consolidates all my various reading material (i.e. newspaper and magazine subscriptions plus books too) into one device, and offers a similar reading experience as the traditional media they replace. Waterproof would be a great addition so I can read in the shower. Need to maximize all my available time....