On the day the iPad2 was being launched in San Francisco, we were, in our New Delhi office, researching on buying an eReader. It would be the ideal collective gift for our colleague who was turning 60 shortly, we thought. Not only did he travel frequently but he also gobbled books for dinner.

We had set our hearts on a Kindle. Calling up a techie friend for advice, we were met with a hoot of derisive laughter. “With iPad2, it's the death of the Kindle. The stand-alone eReader is going to be obsolete — put a few more thousands and buy a tablet instead,” he advised.

But wouldn't the eReader have more content? Kindle has more choice of eBooks than any tablet, we weakly offered, only to be told about the Random House deal that Apple had clinched.

He sounded convincing, but the price difference was a reality check. Our budget was not more than Rs 9,000 while a tablet would not come for less than Rs 30,000, and iPad2 was not even here in India. Besides, wouldn't the eReader industry fight back?

Calling up tech expert Kishore Bhargava proved reassuring. “I have an iPad, but believe you me, I use the Kindle to read,” he said, saying he had bought not one but three and gifted them to his parents and sister. They are two different markets, he said. For one, we learnt, the LCD backlight on the tablet is very irritating for the reader, while the e-ink used by eReaders easier to read. There is no glare, it's readable in direct sunlight and no need to take along clunky chargers and plugs and stuff since the eReader usually comes with a month's battery life. Sounded the ideal travel companion, which was our purpose anyway.

So, we decided to buy it online on Amazon, which promised a deal of $139 (around Rs 6,400) for the Kindle. Except that by the time we factored in shipping costs to India and import duties, which totalled up to $89 or so, it had shot way over our budget.

“Let's ship it to a US address, and then get someone coming from there to bring it along,” said a colleague. Fair enough if you have time, but since the B-day was drawing near, it was tough to locate someone at short notice.

I called a cousin who had been talking of buying an eReader, for advice. “The Kindle is black and white. I am waiting for the Nook, it's in colour and has touch screen,” she said snootily. The reviews on Barnes & Nobles were really enticing but at $249, it didn't look like being in our budget range either.

That's when we decided to look at desi readers — the Wink, and Pi being the two options. And, maybe it was a good idea — both even offered local languages readability.

What's more, prices appeared to have crashed — from the Rs 11,990 that Wink was earlier retailing at, now there were deals for Rs 7,990 and Rs 8,990 (the Wi-Fi version). In the end, the Wink won out over the Pi, simply because time was running out and it was easy to buy it offline (there still remained a reluctance to buy a product without a physical look), with all the neighbouring bookstores stocking it.

A trip to Bahrisons, the book shop at Khan market, proved even more reassuring. Anuj Bahri, the talkative owner, told us he used the gadget to read all his manuscripts, and had ordered 25 to give all his editors. “I get dozens of manuscripts and find it easy to read on an eReader,” he told us. Even though he had only the XLite version, he promised to get the higher-end model delivered home to meet our timeline. Great salesmanship! But what about the content part?

Especially, as Kishore Bhargava, who had told us that the Wink was as good a device as the Kindle, had told us that when it came to content, sheer variety of titles on Amazon made the Kindle more attractive.

But, with Google now getting into the eBooks game and expected to launch millions of titles compatible with any device, and a number of friends willing to offer us a variety of titles to load into the device, that was not a big worry either.

Oh, and how did the gift's recipient like it? The 60-year-old was like a 6-year-old when he beheld his new toy — over the moon. And his verdict? “Any idiot can operate this device.”

> Chitra.n@thehindu.co.in

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