| While the ebook business explodes in North | | | | important in order to provide ebooks for the |
| America - where the Kindle has kindled a huge | | | | gorwing number of ebook reading devices. |
| technological competition and given rise to other | | | | Of course most people using ereaders in India will |
| readers like the Nook and iPad - it is also making | | | | first look elsewhere for their reading devices. The |
| gradual inroads in India. Not only are people | | | | Kindle, for example, can be bought over the |
| starting to get used to the idea of reading their | | | | Internet on Amazon and shipped for about $20 |
| favorite books on a digital reader, but local Indian | | | | plus around $50 in custom fees. So on delivery |
| publishers are beginning to study the potential for | | | | the Kindle will cost the Indian consumer about |
| ebooks and ereaders. | | | | $350. |
| For example Infibeam, one of India's most popular | | | | But the real issue with the India market - at least |
| online bookstores, first introduced a reader called | | | | for the time being - is not which device. Most |
| the Infibeam Pi - with a Vizplex display, | | | | people in India still consider ereaders to be too |
| 600×800 resolution, black and white grayscale | | | | expensive in general, so they are reluctant to give |
| and a 4-way navigation button. The Infibeam has | | | | up their traditional books and conventional reading |
| 64MB of RAM memory and the capability to use | | | | habits in favor of books that have to bought |
| an SD card for up to 4GB of internal memory. | | | | from online bookstores for $10-$20 and then |
| The whole thing weights about a third of a pound | | | | downloaded to a somewhat pricey ereader. A |
| and sells for about $220. | | | | more affordable option currently preferred by |
| One of the best features of the Infibeam is that | | | | most Indian readers is to use a computer - either |
| it supports a good range of formats including | | | | a portable or desktop - and connect to ebooks |
| EPUB, PFF, TXT, MOBI, JPG, HTML, and MP3 - | | | | sites, where they can download and enjoy |
| among others. Formatting is becoming increasingly | | | | thousands of different titles for free. |