Have ereaders had their day?

AGuru, bastion of words, spewer of sentences, hasty creator of paragraphs, has watched in horror as the ereader market has fallen to bits. Well, okay, that is a bit of a lie; there may have been a few self-satisfied chuckles in evidence when Sony ditched its horrible Adobe DRM-riddled line of E-Ink devices, awkward and clunky as they were, and that’s been the only real major exit from the sector.

Yes, there have been wobbles – Waterstones’ digital store was shuttered and rolled into the Kobo library; Barnes and Noble canned the Nook store, handing it to Sainsbury’s, which promptly gave up the ghost and shoved its users over to Kobo as well – but only because the market is propped up on the broad, retail-coated shoulders of Amazon, and most readers simply don’t bother to look anywhere else.

And it’s no surprise Amazon is the de facto home of ebooks. Its Kindle range is, frankly, magnificent, pushing E-Ink tech further than it had any right to go. The latest Paperwhite (from £109, if you don’t mind ads on screen when you’re not using it) flicks pages quickly and ghosting-free, effortlessly holds thousands of books, and has a battery that GaGu suspects has been created by a mixture of sorcery and devilish pacts. The high-end Oasis model (£269, or £329 with 3G connectivity) is even lovelier, but perhaps a little unnecessary.

Amazon, being as looming and powerful as it is, is also probably the only company that’s equipped to deal with the oddly structured and counterproductive business of actually supplying digital tomes. This is why so many retailers have run away screaming: since ebook sales are based on the agency model – which means that publishers set their own prices, taking a 70 per cent cut and giving 30 per cent to the retailer – the market is unlikely to expand beyond the discount-friendly paperbook business any time soon. But, like Guru’s drinking problem, it’s far from dead, so if you want to pick up an ereader for lighter reading when traveling, grab yourself a Kindle.