At $199, we think the Kindle Fire is a good buy for the money

Did you receive a new tablet computer or an e-reader over the holidays? As Amazon introduced its Kindle Fire tablet, selling it at a slight loss, Barnes & Noble offered the competing Nook, and the iPad remained popular, the way we read and consumer media is changing.

The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period.

The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January.

These findings are striking because they come after a period from mid-2011 into the autumn in which there was not much change in the ownership of tablets and e-book readers.

However, as the holiday gift-giving season approached the marketplace for both devices dramatically shifted.

In the tablet world, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet were introduced at considerably cheaper prices than other tablets. In the e-book reader world, some versions of the Kindle and Nook and other readers fell well below $100.

We bought our Kindle Fire in November. It’s a great Internet surfing device, especially using the Pulse app, which arranges stories from Web sites you choose in menu bars with photos. It’s also handy for checking (though not answering) email, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Tumblr didn’t work so well for us.

Apps also make it an Internet radio, where we access favorite stations such as the French Classic and Jazz station, NPR feeds, and Pandora. We continue to prefer our regular e-ink Kindle for longer periods of reading. But overall, we think something a revolution in the way we play games, consumer media and read is well underway.

These results come from ongoing surveys by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project aimed at tracking growth in the ownership of both devices. A pre-holiday survey was conducted among 2,986 people age 16 and older between November 16 and December 21, 2011 and has a margin of error of +/- two percentage points.

The post-holiday data come from the combined results of two surveys – one conducted January 5-8 among 1,000 adults age 18 and older and another conducted January 12-15 of 1,008 adults. The combined surveys have a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points.

The surge in ownership of tablet computers was especially notable among those with higher levels of education and those living in households earning more than $75,000. More than a third of those living in households earning more than $75,000 (36%) now own a tablet computer. And almost a third of those with college educations or higher (31%) own the devices. Additionally, those under age 50 saw a particularly significant leap in tablet ownership.

The story with the growth in e-book readers was somewhat different from the story with tablet computers. Ownership of e-readers among women grew more than among men. Those with more education and higher incomes also lead the pack when it comes to e-book ownership, but the gap between them and others isn’t as dramatic. For instance, 19% of those in households earning $30,000-$50,000 have e-book readers. They are 12 percentage points behind those in households earning $75,000 or more in e-book reader ownership. The gap between those income levels on tablet ownership is 20 percentage points.

The Pew Internet Project is studying the ownership of both devices as part of its effort to understand how people consume media (text, video, and audio) on the devices, how people use them to access the internet, and how mobile connectivity has affected users.

This is part of the Project’s larger research agenda supported by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to look at how these devices are affecting people’s relationship with their local libraries, the services those libraries offer, and the general role of libraries in communities.

The pre-holiday survey conducted by the Project contained an oversample of owners of tablet computers and e-book readers. They were asked about their reading habits and their interactions with their libraries related to e-books and other digital content. The results of those findings will be contained in a report that will be released in the coming weeks.

Related Stories:

• Cell phone the gadget of choice among Americans, Pew says
• Tablet and e-reader markets developing at breakneck pace
• E-readers gaining, tablet growth slowing, both lag other devices, Pew says
• E-reading on the rise, says Pew study
• E-readers rapidly changing the book business

© 2012, TechJournal. All rights reserved.

Tags: Amazon, Apple iPad, Barnes&Noble Nook, digital media consumption devices, e-reader ownership, Kindle Fire, Pew Internet in American Life Project, tablet computer ownership