How Fast Will Prices of E-readers Go Down?

For updated prices please scroll down.

This is obvious that prices of e-readers will constantly go down. Just recently two new devices were launched: Cool-er from Interead and Elonex (in association with Borders UK). They are both competitively priced, $249 and $311 respectively. Although they are designed to be access points to their own e-bookstores, it’s no coincidence that Amazon has reduced overnight the price of the ugliest-ereader-ever – Kindle 1 – from $295 to $240. That was fast.

And this is the most exciting question: how much will prices of e-readers go down by the end of 2009? To make guessing simpler, I’ve collected in a beautiful widget a basket of 12 most popular e-readers available at Amazon. The total cost is not beautiful at all – on 30th of June it was $5205,71, what makes an average of $433,80.

http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822/US/passinc-20/8001/0c54aef5-1e79-4691-9848-11787775f9fd <A HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fpassinc-20%2F8001%2F0c54aef5-1e79-4691-9848-11787775f9fd&Operation=NoScript” mce_HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fpassinc-20%2F8001%2F0c54aef5-1e79-4691-9848-11787775f9fd&Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A>

The purpose of this post is not to give you a professional speech on the future of e-readers, but to make you excited about them (at least as much as I am). So no talking, just have fun and guess. Having a basket as a reference, please mark your vote. I’ll frequently make a screenshot of a widget and paste it at the bottom of a post, so that we can have a direct and on-going comparison. And at the end of a year we will check the results, hopefully with a conclusion, that e-readers have become really affordable.

[poll id=”4″]

30th June 2009 :. Basket price: $ 5205,71 :. Average price: $433,80

30th September 2009 :. Basket price: $ 4673,91 :. Average price: $389,50

Comparing to June prices are down by 10%.

*As iRex Digital Reaer is not on sale, I took the price from 30th June.

6th October 2009 :. Basket price: $ 4342,90 :. Average price: $361,90

Just within one week the price of a basket has dropped by 7% – from $4673,91 to $ 4342,90!

30th December 2009 :. Basket price: $ 4447,04 :. Average price: $370,60

From 30th June prices went down by 14,5%.

30th June 2010 :. Basket price: $ 3072,58 :. Average price: $256,04

Over a year, since 30th July 2009 prices have fallen by 41%.