The technology is ideal for users of all ages to enjoy while reading their favorite books. Apples iPad and the Amazon Kindle are probably the biggest players in the market, but there are plenty of alternatives available. According to IT Portal supermarket giant Asda is set to offer the Kobo Wi-Fi eReader for only £67.

This compares to the £87 that will get you the Amazon Kindle and comes only a few weeks after rival retailer WHSmith announced plans to sell a Kobo eReader. The Asda device will be available in-store and online from this Friday, but there is a good chance it will sell out really quick. The device is only 10mm in thickness and comes with 100 classic titles preloaded as well.

The retailer is also going to offer customers the Touch version of the Kobo eReader for £107. It is being reported that book retailer Waterstones is also getting in on the eReader market as well. The Kobo doesn’t have such a large library of titles available though, and it is unlikely they will be cheaper than Amazon’s offerings.

Prices for the titles have remained surprisingly high and are normally set by the publishers, and can even cost up to £11.99 in eBook format. Will you be buying someone an eReader this Christmas?

The British retailer made its first move into the market today with the announcement of a deal with the Canadian company Kobo. Many have been concerned what the impact of the electronic books would have on traditional books sales. The Guardian is reporting that chief executive Kate Swann said the move will complement its traditional business.

The devices will be available from the company’s retails stores as well as its online retail arm. People who decide to purchase the eReader will have access to the country’s largest eBook catalogue. There will be over 2.2 million books alongside 1 million free titles, and there will be two versions of the Kobo eReader available.

The retailer also announced a 4 percent increase in profits despite sales dropping by 5 percent. Book sales dropped by 4 percent, but its outlets situated in train stations and airports produced record profits for the chain.

WH Smith has 612 retail stores and said profits were helped as it focused on books instead of CDs and DVDS. There will be two models available which include the £89 basic model that has Wi-Fi, and the £110 version that has a touchscreen.

Do you think this is a good move by WH Smith?

Let’s not get too negative, as this Gingerbread 2.3 device can be yours for just shy of $170 from Best Buy. Specs are not that great, but they are more than enough for what you need, such as a 7-inch display, 800MHz processor, 4GB of storage and an ActiveTouch display. All the other usual features are there, like Wi-Fi, microSD card slot and a micro HDMI port.

The screen offers a resolution of 600 x 800 and has a front and rear-facing camera, along with a built-in microphone. Reading books is made simple thanks to access to Barnes & Noble. Those of you familiar with the online bookstore knows that there is a huge selection of material to choose from, so no matter what your taste in books is, you can read them on the new Pandigital Nova.

Looking over the specs we can see that they are an improvement on the Novel. You will now notice that the new Nova eReader has four buttons on the bottom, these look to be Back, Menu, Home and Search. Not only that, but the on-board storage was only 1GB, which we now know has seen a 3GB improvement.

However, that is not the biggest improvement, the previous model runs on an older OS, the Nova will benefit from Gingerbread, something not even the HTC ThunderBolt can do. The eReader only comes in one color, black and is said to ship within 1 to 2 weeks. However, if you do not wish to wait that long, then why not check on the Best Buy website to see if your nearest brick and mortar store has any in stock. Do not worry if your local store only has a limited stock, cannot see too many of these shifting. Like the Novel, the Nova will be in direct competition with the Nook Color, the all-new Nook and the Amazon Kindle. There are other eReaders on the market, but these are the models that pose the greatest threat.

While the tablet market is expanding at a fast paced rate with various new devices becoming available, according to an article on PCMag by Damon Poeter it’s the eReader market which is growing faster. A recent phone survey by the Pew Internet Project, has found that adults who own an eReader device in the US has increased to twelve percent in May of this year. This is compared to only six percent in November of last year.

The big increase ties in with the holiday period and probably meant there were a lot of eReaders bought as Christmas presents, and the survey was conducted from 2,277 people aged eighteen and over. During the same period the amount of people owning tablet PCs grew, but by only three percent. In November last year five percent of those asked owned a tablet PC. This compares to eight percent in the most recent survey taken between April and May of this year.

During the first five months of this year tablet ownership has been slowing down according to the research company. They took a survey in January which showed seven percent of those asked had a tablet, so this means an increase of only one percent with the latest one.

The company also asked consumers about what other electronic devices they own with 83 percent saying they owned a cell phone. Desktop ownership just piped that of laptops with 57% and 56% respectively. While 52% of US adults now own a DVR.

This survey is rather surprising as although only representing a small percentage of the population, tablet PCs like the iPad 2 offer so much more than an eReader. Ok compared to the iPad 2 eReaders are smaller, but tablet PCs not only offer eBooks they can do so much more. Devices such as the BlackBerry PlayBook or original Samsung Galaxy Tab offer a smaller size, and you can play games or surf the internet amongst other things.

Which device would you prefer to own? Or do you already own one or both of the devices?

Kate Solomon of TechRadar is reporting in an article that the publisher has seen sales of £1.5 million in eBook sales between January 2010 and March 2011. On a year on year basis it has seen revenues increased by eighteen times for the format.

The first three months of 2011 accounted for £1.1 million of the sales which not only suggests the boom times are only just beginning, but also a lot of people probably got an eReader or tablet for Christmas. Nigel Newton chief executive of the publisher said, “Demand for digital delivery, including e-books, is increasing significantly.”

He added the publishing world is currently having “its own revolution.” But unfortunately the eBook sales didn’t stop Bloomsbury’s profits taking a big dive compared to 2009. Many publishers will be hoping the boom in tablets and eReaders will help them turn the corner, and bring the money rolling in.

Do you have an eReader?

In the statement, which was sent to Engadget it explained at just how much better the New Nook’s battery life was compared to its closest rival, the Kindle. In the test they had Wi-Fi turned off both devices; the Kindle only managed 56 hours, while the latest eReader from Barnes & Noble achieved 150 hours.

Now for some, 56 hours is more than enough, but not for those who have a huge book to read and no power outlet in sight. In the test it suggest that the All-New Kindle will offer up to two months of battery life for the average reader. Now there were two tests in all, the first was the one above where one page was turned a minute, the next was with a continuous use. This test revealed that the New Nook was still able to outperform Kindle’s battery by twice the amount.

That is all very well and good, but for most of us we are always near a power outlet, so all we want to know is which is best? That is a tough question to answer, one that will become evident when the first lot of sales figures come in. The cost of this latest Nook will be $139 for the Wi-Fi version once it becomes available on June 10th.

Do you believe that the New Nook battery performance will give it an advantage over the Kindle?

We can still remember one of the previous updates, it was bricking the Notion Ink Adam, but we are sure that such an issue will not happen again. The idea behind shifting to Gingerbread is because they want the kernel to be as close to Honeycomb as possible; once this is done then the Notion Ink Adam will become a far greater tablet.

Saying that, the specs are already better than the iPad 2, and we recently discussed that they could even be better than the future iPad 3 – but that is all speculation. The current OS does not have anything decent to offer in the way of music-video player, but this latest update will rectify that and bring with it an equalizer and support for other such features.

The new Eden UI will be fluid and be able to handle a great number of databases. However, the best part of the update is with the Eden UI itself, and how it stops the mobile OS from being static. For a greater understanding of this visit the Notion Ink Adam Blog.

Will you update your Notion Ink Adam right away, or wait to see if there are any issues?

No matter what way you look at it, it will never seem to match up to Amazon’s Kindle or the iPad 2 – or the original iPad come to that. OK, so we know that it is a little unfair to compare the Nook Color to the iPad, as they are two different beasts, but they both run a mobile OS – so they are kind of similar.

eWeek are those who believe that the Barnes & Noble device will never match the two mentioned above, and have even given ten reasons why. Five of those look at why it lacks versatility, and for the most part we would have to agree – but do you?

There are a few areas where the Nook Color does a better job than the Kindle, but they are few and far between. However, the only thing that the eReader has going for it against the iPad is its price. The Nook is trying to be far more than just an eReader, as it comes with a number of pre-installed apps, but unlike David and Goliath, the giant is winning this battle.

Do you believe that the Nook Color with its new Android update still lacks versatility?

Christian Ziberg from 9 to 5 Mac is reporting that the Kindle books will be available from more than 11,000 local libraries across the US. These books will work on all Kindle hardware versions, as well as free Kindle reading apps found on other devices.

All the normal features will work with these books like highlights, last page read, and whispersyncing. Kindle users will be able to check out a book from a library, and if they check it out again or buy it from the Kindle store; all your bookmarks and annotations will be remembered. Your notes won’t of course show up when the next person gets out the same book.

This news will surely bring even more people to the Amazon Kindle, and we have spoken about rumors before of Amazon eventually given Kindle readers away free. Do you like the idea of getting a Kindle book from a library?

The current version is considered to be a dream device, not only for reading eBooks but for also how easy the device is to hack. Engadget believes the Nook Color to be a truly great eReader, but they thought that it was about time that they asked their readers what they would like to see in the next version.

The reactions vary a lot, but what we can see is that consumers would like more physical buttons, but not soft ones. The sensitivity needs to be improved, more so towards the edges. One of the most important features that we think that the Nook Color version 2 should have is faster Android OS support, so maybe version 2.3 or higher once they become available. Having said that, it is a know fact that the Nook Color is very easy to hack to the last Android OS version.

There have been a few suggestions that a camera is needed, but I’m not too sure about that. The idea of thousands of Android apps pre-installed is another popular feature wanted; again cannot see that happening. If Barnes & Noble were to make hardware upgrades then they will need to upgrade its battery; we will just have to watch this space.

What features would you like to see in the New Barnes & Noble Nook Color 2nd generation?