Folks haven't made this much fuss about tablets since biblical times. These slate-style computers and dedicated electronic readers top many wish lists this holiday season. Yet, the landscape for the popular devices is changing. Despite the iPad's dominance, multimedia-capable tablets are no longer the exclusive province of Apple, what with Amazon breathing Kindle Fire down the iPad's throat. Most other comers have barely dented Apple's lead.

Amazon is feeling its own heat in the dedicated e-reader market that it continues to rule. Barnes & Noble's Nooks and other rival e-readers are providing spirited competition.

While two out of three future tablet buyers plan to purchase an iPad, there is now for the first time a real contender for the No. 2 spot, according to a survey by ChangeWave Research in Bethesda, Md. Some 22% say they'll buy a Kindle Fire. That's a "devastating blow to a range of second-tier tablet manufacturers, including Motorola, RIM, Dell, HTC, (Hewlett-Packard) and Toshiba," ChangeWave says.

In a recent PriceGrabber survey, 79% of consumers indicated they would rather receive a tablet than a laptop computer. And 72% of shoppers said they believed tablets would replace e-readers as gifts.

Which is it for you? Dedicated reader or tablet? Or both? What are the key considerations? If your passions spread beyond books -- which can be read on either type of device -- to music, games, Web browsing and watching movies, a full-fledged tablet along the lines of the iPad 2 or one of its rivals makes sense, if your budget can handle it.

Still, a strong case can be made for single-purpose readers.

The Case for E-Readers

For starters, the E Ink devices represented by the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader and other devices keep improving. Page turns are faster. Text is crisp. Reading electronically no longer strikes people as unnatural. The displays are...

2011-12-01 19:48:43