Five Alternatives To Amazon Kindle Ebook Reader

Amazon has just announced that the Kindle is available in the UK right now although you will have to live with a number of idiosyncrasies coupled with the fact that it will be a pain to get it repaired if it breaks down.

The new Kindle comes direct from the US which means that by the time it will reach the UK, its price will possibly reach £220 and that doesn't include the price of buying a new adaptor or the price of using Whispernet to download content.

Fortunately, there are other alternatives currently on the market which are available right now and doesn't necessarily have to cost as much as Amazon's best selling electronic device.

The Sony E-Reader PRS-505 SC is one of the more popular ebook readers on the market and features a 6-inch e-ink screen while costing only £160 (at Play).

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It is not as sophisticated as the Kindle (it doesn't offer wireless downloads for example) but it does offer a SD card reader, something that the Kindle lacks. Sony's entry level e-reader comes with 100 classical books and can store up to 13,000 titles on an optional memory card.

Most ebook readers have conservative colour schemes. If you want something more outlandish, try getting the Cool-er eBook which is available in a number of colours, including Lime and Purple.

There are more than 750,000 titles available from Coolerbooks.com with around two thirds available for free. At £190 (from Firebox), it is not as cheap as the PRS-505 but it is sleek, light, comes with a SD card reader, plays MP3 player as well as a dozen of other file formats.

Another fine ebook reader is the Bebook which offers its own patented E-Ink technology. Available for only £199, Bebook also offers regular Firmware update to iron out any potential hardware issues.

The reader supports most ebook formats including jpg, pdf, mobi and even RSS newsfeeds (as long as they are non-drm). The device comes with a 6-inch screen, 512MB internal memory and a SD Card Slot. At £199 from Bebook, it is slightly expensive especially when compared to the Sony.