At long last the Kindle, Amazon's e-book reader, will go on sale in the UK. It has already proven to be a hit in the United States, with Amazon saying that it expects to sell one million Kindles this year.

Sales of e-books have exploded as a result. Booksellers took notice when downloads for electronic versions of Dan Brown's latest bestseller The Lost Symbol began to outstrip demand for hardbacks in the first few days of its launch.

The e-book revolution seems to be upon us. Some analysts suggest that there is a multibillion-pound opportunity to be exploited. This has not been lost on manufacturers. Sony's Reader devices have something close to a monopoly in Britain, but companies such as Asus, Fujitsu, Samsung, Plastic Logic and Interead have launched or are planning the release of new machines that can read books and newspapers. Each is expected to be more souped-up than the last.

But there a few reasons why you might not be glued to your e-book reader just yet. First, it is too expensive. Sony and Amazon's devices hover about the £200 mark, once all costs are factored in. Analysts believe that price has to be halved before it can be seen as a mass-market, rather than a niche, luxury product.

Second, e-books are in the middle a format war. The industry's most popular format is EPUB but some companies, such as Amazon, are not using it. Customers will be confused and frustrated until a standard format can be found.

Finally, there is the other creeping trend in hardware — the tablet PC. Apple, amongst others, is rumoured to be building a touchscreen tablet computer. Why would you buy a machine that can only read books when you could have one that can play videos, surf the web and run games, as well? Tablet computers could whizz by e-book readers before they have really taken off.

http://snipurl.com/se6fe