image The iPhone/iPod Touch have had the advantage of being the sole handheld devices with an e-reader that could access Amazon’s e-list.

That will soon change. The Windows UMPC will be able to run the Kindle e-reader. Also, Amazon will move the software to new Android and Maemo devices with significantly higher resolution than the iPair’s 480×320. The Motorola Droid 3.7" screen has a resolution of 854×480, and the slightly smaller Nokia N900 has 800×480. Both yield 267 pixels-per-inch compared to the Apple devices’ 163 ppi.

With nearly three times as many pixels per square inch, the typography on the new devices is wonderfully crisp and readable at far smaller point sizes than you would imagine. I write from personal experience of both the N900 display and Coke-bottle-thick eyeglasses.

Whatever the effect on sales that some experts see from waning novelty and growing choices, I predict it will be outweighed by huge new numbers of e-book buyers entering the market and expecting to split their reading among more than one device.

(Adapted with permission from a Reading 2.0 post. Screenshot shows the Kindle app.)

1 COMMENT

  1. Despite many e-book fans’ enthusiasm for tablet devices and Kindle services that aren’t even here yet, there will always be a market that is happy with carrying around smaller devices like cellphones and PDAs, and will be happy reading on those devices (me included). Even now, the iPhone is but one of similar cellphones and PDAs that people have been using to read e-books for years. To many of them, the iPhone isn’t considered so hot now.

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