In the opinion of most analysts, while the possession of an e-reader may help a reader stay in tunes with the changing trends, the glaring shift from physical books to digital ones would ultimately spell doom for the traditional bricks-and-mortar book sellers.

The analysts' viewpoint comes in concurrence with the news of the November-end launch of the Barnes & Noble's (B&N) e-reader, Nook, which the company expects would give potential competition to the e-reader-market-leading Amazon device, Kindle.

Though there are manifold benefits of owning an e-reader, which essentially is like carrying your whole library around in one place, the somewhat high cost of most of the e-readers proves to be a major deterrent in the way of making these devices mainstream ones.

Two of the top e-readers currently available in the market, the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, are priced at $259 and $299 for the entry-level products. While the Kindle can store nearly
1,500 books, most of its book-titles cost $9.95 apiece; whereas the Sony Reader boasts an access to Google Books, with more than one million free titles.

The forthcoming B&N Nook e-reader, similar to Kindle in terms of size and storage, will also cost $259. Capable of holding 1,500 books, newspapers and magazines, B&N will offer special content to users when they happen to be in B&N stores!