According to the New York Times this is going to be the “tipping point” holiday season for e-book readers. This is because it’s the first season that e-readers are going to be widely available for under $150 (even for under $100 in some cases). Thus a lot more e-books are going to be sold to read on those e-readers.

The NYT suggests that over ten million e-book readers will be in circulation by the end of 2010.

About 10% of adults plan to give an e-reader as a gift this year whereas last year that numbar was only 4%.

However the growing number of e-book readers may caus confusion to consumers.

While e-book readers are going to be a popular holiday gift, it appears iPads may not. Some analysts are predicting Apple may miss estimates of 6 million devices sold in the fourth quarter due to consumers cutting back spending or going with other devices instead.

It’s just that the even cheapest iPad costs several times as much as most e-book readers. So fewer people will be giving one for Christmas.

There is a video on youtube where an e-reader owner compares different e-reader displays with an airport approach chart. He has got actually a Youtube Channel with even more videos.

Here is the video that shows 5 e-readers displaying the same chart. In this comparison there is one flaw, when he says you can not turn the Kindle DX to landscape mode in order to zoom the shown pdf. Actually you can by just turning the DX and then it would show the graphics in a much more zoomed state than any of the other readers.

The ASUS Eee Tablet – not to confuse with the Eee Pad – is a digital notebook with monochrome touchscreen and quick 0.1 second page turns. The display has size of 8 inch, a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixel, is not backlight and offers 64-levels of grey.

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E-Reader like the Kindle, Kobo or Sony eReader with eInk technology have a rather low power consumption compared to other gadgets with large displays, you can read up to two weeks with just one charge. But what when you go on vacation or due to other reasons there is no way to charge your device?

Other than real books, eReaders need power to run, without it there is no way you can read your books or documents.

Here is possible solution to that dilemma – a solar charger. It can charge all your little electronic gizmos, your eReader, your cell phone, GPS, digital camera, MP3 player, etc.  And this one ought to be really effective,  it just needs 2 to 3 hours to fully recharge your cell phone. It is about $60 at amazon.com

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Just a few months ago, there seemed to come an alternative to the iPad – Microsoft Courier. While Apple released the iPad  in April the Microsoft Courier will never make it.

Microsoft has decided to stop the project and focus other projects. The MS Courier could have become a real iPad killer. But obviously MS has other plans, rumors say the will concentrate their efforts on the netbook market.

Microsoft’s Frank Shaw:

At any given time, we’re looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It’s in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.

There is no explanation why Microsoft gave up on Courier project. Maybe the resulte would just be too expensive compared to the iPad.

It is sad, since the Courier could have been that different kind of  e-reader to challenge the iPad and other e-readers on the market.