When a new e-reader is released people normally don’t upgrade to the latest and greatest every year. Certainly e-paper technology does not improve at the breakneck speed that smartphones and tablets do. e-Readers are one of those things that receive very small, incremental updates and often do not give users a compelling enough reason to upgrade. So the question is, how old is your e-reader?
Good e-Reader Research conducted a poll and asked the question “how old is your e-reader?” The intention behind this data gathering report is to find out if users are happy with their older devices or have recently upgraded.
In total, 220 people took part in this poll and it seems that the average e-reader user has had their device between 1 (19.09%) and 2 years (19.55%). A single vote separated these two options, which clearly demonstrates that people have embraced the current and previous generation of Kindles, Kobos and Nooks.
17.73% of the audience proclaimed that they have owned their e-reader for 3 years and 13.18% said they just bought one. What is surprising is that the exact same number of people said they owned their device for 4 or 5 years (11.36%).
So we have clearly established that the average consumer has owned their device between one and two years, but  what e-reader are people actually using? In February 2015 we produced a report that stated Amazon and Kobo were the runaway leaders.  Amazon edged out Kobo with 109 votes (35.14%) to 105 (33.87%), this goes to show that these two companies are the most popular when it comes to solid hardware and the simplified process of purchasing e-books.
In a distinct 3rd place is the largest bookstore chain in the US, Barnes and Noble. The Nook e-reader managed to garner a paltry 23 votes (7.35%), which leads me to believe that their best days are behind them.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.