Kindles on sale for $49

Basic KindleFor a limited time, Amazon has the basic Wi-fi Kindle with Special Offers  on sale for just $49. The Wi-fi Kindle Paperwhite with Special Offers  is on sale for $99. That’s a savings of $20 off the regular price.The Paperwhite without Special Offers is also on sale.

I own both of these and think that they are great devices. The ads are fairly unobtrusive (I actually like them better than the regular screensavers!). The Paperwhite has become the Kindle I use the most and with the built-in light for reading in bed (especially without disturbing your partner), it can’t be beat.

This is a great entry level price if you are thinking of trying the Kindle or if you want to take advantage of the many free books that are offered exclusively for the Kindle.

Is a phone an e-reading device?

There was a post on Digital Book World today that caught my attention. The headline read: “Apple Pumps Another 60 Million E-Reading Devices Into Market.”

Whoa. Sixty million. Pretty impressive. The problem is, Apple doesn’t actually make a dedicated e-reading device. And, sure enough, buried in the middle of the short piece are the words:

… publishers should be more interested in the 16 million iPads and nearly 44 million iPhones the company sold last quarter. Each one is a potential ebook reading device.

Yes, note those words. “A potential ebook reading device.” While you can arguably read on a tablet sized device, thinking of a cell phone as an reader is a totally different story.

Personally, as someone who defines an e-book reading device as a device designed or purchased primarily for reading e-books, I find the article’s title rather misleading. Few of us actually purchase our phones for reading. I will certainly argue that there is a huge difference between reading on your phone while standing in line at the grocery store and using your phone for your primary e-reader, particularly if you are a heavy reader of e-books. And I say this as someone who owns a large-screen Galaxy Note II that has almost every e-reading app you can think of installed on her phone! While you certainly can read on your cell phone, using it as your primary e-reader for any length of time is a less than satisfying experience.

I would be interested in seeing current statistics on this as the reading landscape is changing.

So, how about you? Do you use your phone as a primary e-reader?