[A J Edwards]

Future pricings of eReaders is going to be interesting. So far, as far as I can tell, the tale seems to have been:

"We manufacture and sell eReaders, but our sales volume is low. Therefore there is little market for these devices."

Vendors have not realised that no-one is prepared to pay their outrageous prices for what is essentially a one-task device.

The launch of the Kindle in the US at US$400 (UK£200) and the rate at which it sells out, indicates (to me at least) that the price that people are prepared to pay around UK£175 (US$350) for a "non-wireless" eReader.

If vendors do not match these sort of prices then I suspect that their product is going to be dead in the water. I think we should all hold off buying until around March 2008 when the prices across the board will be about right, or certain companies will have gone to the wall along with their product.

Assuming that we get a nice price war, and I believe that it will come down to just this, survivors/winners will probably be:

Bookeen Cybook Gen 3; (already at £245 (US$500))
HanLin V3 US$329 (UK£170 plus around £80 to bring it into the country).
If packaged for outside China with a EU supplier this will be a winner, import duties and tax is the killer here at the moment).

At £306 (US$612) Istarebook does not look hopeful.
Neither does Irex Iliad (although Iliad may have a different market (engineering , construction sciences etc etc). Its spec is a bit upmarket. But at a basic price (no cover) of £433, too pricey for the general reader, student, teacher, researcher.

The above is of course only my opinion based upon a UK view. We have seen this sort of fight before, remember Betamax and VHS?

My advice is (if you are not in the US) to wait and see who is the last man standing.

A J Edwards