Reading has been with me as early as I can remember. It was the only source of information and entertainment.

Getting a book in India or any of the western country is easy as you have a large English speaking population. I moved to Indonesia in 1990 where it is next to impossible to get a decent book.

It was not until my sister presented me a palm III in 1998. I was instantly hooked on to it. the 8 MB of internal ram was enough for about 20 to 30 books at a time. I could obtain a book and read it any time, anywhere. These are some of the benefits about an e-book.

Availability. Internet is a huge source of e-books, you can find public libraries which usually allow you to download books for free. one such source is www.gutenberg.net . Current e-books can be obtained from bookstore websites for a price, but that saves a lot of time on the waiting game.

E-books allow you to change to appropriate font size. flipping a page is easier than just a tap. some readers come with a scroll feature where the speed of scroll can be adjusted with the speed of your reading. Yes this is the age of handsfree reading.

Most of the palmtops have backlit which allow reading in dark surroundings. yes you don’t need to have your table lamp while reading at night. some people complain about the green screen of palm readers. Now we have a lot of color palm tops, which emulate the original black on white background experience. My personal favorite currently is reading on my ipaq using Microsoft reader. it uses cleartype for authentic feel

As for the price factor, prices of palm sized gadgets are getting lower. you can get a palm for as low as 100 dollars. This is a small investment compared to the amount saved on conventional books that you are going to read in the years to come, not to mention the trees saved in the process.

E-books are here to stay.