Last time I raved about e-book readers I still had plenty of doubts about whether I would ever be ready to give up my physical books for a file on a reader. That was about eighteen months ago, and of course a year and a half is a really long time in terms of technology.

A friend of mine recently imported a Sony e-book reader and has pretty much fallen in love with it – he says that now he actually prefers it over “real” books (and he is a “real book” lover) because you don’t need any hands to read it – no more sitting at the breakfast table trying to hold a book open with one hand and spoon your cereal in with the other hand – and because if he spends hours reading, he finds reading off that screen to be the least tiring for his eyes. And of course there are the huge advantages of being able to take numerous books with you without adding kilograms to what you’re carrying.

I’m still not quite at his stage yet, but I did read with interest a prediction that by the end of 2010, there will be 10 million people using e-book readers. That’s a lot. Prices are also coming down quickly and the same article predicts they could be under $100 by that time, which is surely a price where a lot more users will come out of the woodwork. Me included, perhaps. Stay tuned on that. And let me know in the comments if you’ve also had some good experiences with an e-book reader.