According to this article on Huffington Post, the eReader’s days are numbered. Now, this makes me particularly sad, not only because my Kindle actually slept in my bed with me last night, but also because I think it’s a great invention. It’s smaller and lighter than a normal book, it can hold up to 1500 books (I don’t think I’ve even read that many, ever), digital books are cheaper, it has a long battery life, it looks just like paper… I could keep going, but you’ve already heard enough.

So why is the eReader dying? Well, according to the Huffington Post article, it’s because of the tablet. The iPad and all its many clones can do it all – internet browsing, document composition, games, and more. They even double as eReaders. According to some recent research by Forrester, twice as many people will own tablets as eReaders by 2015. That’s just four short years away; could the eReader really have such a brief stint of awesomeness?

I don’t think so. Even though iPads and the like can do so many things – they’re like laptop and smartphone condensed into one smart little device – I don’t think they have a chance at really killing the Kindle and its friends.

I know, you’re thinking I’m crazy. But hear me out.

• eReaders are hundreds of dollars cheaper than tablets. My 3G-enabled Kindle cost something like $180, and that was two years ago – they’re cheaper now. The cheapest iPad is $500, and that one doesn’t have 3G or all that much memory.
• iPad screens are painful to stare at for any length of time. My friend just got one, and she loves it (she may soon be a Farmville addict using it, yikes), but after less than an hour of using it she admitted that it was bothering her eyes. Well, I’ve never had that problem with my Kindle. I can, and often do, read it for hours on end with no ill effect.
• eReaders have buttons. (I can’t say this for all of them, but my Kindle does.) Now, I’m not married to buttons in any way – I have an iPhone, I’m used to typing and navigating on a touch screen – but it’s just so easy to hold my light little device in one hand and use my thumb to press the “next page” button. With an iPad, I imagine you’d be stuck holding the thing with two hands, using one to prop it up and the other to “turn pages.” Annoying. (I can eat milk and cookies while reading. Who wouldn’t want that?)

That’s my reasoning. I think that true book lovers, who really spend a significant amount of time reading each day, won’t want to get into the more expensive and less convenient tablet market when they have a perfectly good device that does what they want and does it well.

What do you think? Are there any reasons to keep eReaders around that I forgot, or are you with the Huffington Post in agreeing that eReaders are on their way out?