Apple has finally revealed its version of eReaders. The Apple iPad is not as simple as most e-readers on the market. In fact, it’s more of a mini tablet than anything else. There has been a lot of speculation about Apple’s launch, along with a great deal of hype. For months we have not been able to say that the iPad existed, until January 28, 2010 when it was revealed.

At the moment, the iPad is not for sale. It has just been unmasked and will not be on sale until April. It cannot even be used by the general public, as the device has not yet entered stores with a sample capacity. The thing is, the iPad, the end of the road for e-book readers, may seem a bit premature, but we have to examine what we already know.

What we do know is that the iPad looks like a very large version of the iPod Touch. It has an aluminum back, a half-inch thick design, and a 10-inch screen. The screen is surrounded by a black border. It has the standard iPod / iPhone connector with a single home button on the bottom. Apple introduces the iPad with two memory tiers. There are 16 gigs and 64 gigs of memory. The 64 gigs of memory offer Wi-Fi and 3G cellular. AT&T will provide the 3G connection for $ 15 / month for 250MB or $ 30 for unlimited data transfer. There is no contract with AT&T for this. You only have to cancel the service when you want to.

The Apple iPad costs $ 499 for the 16 gig version and $ 830 for the 64 gig version. With the iPad, consumers will be able to surf the web, read emails, send emails, and read e-books. You can also use Skype via iPad for cell phone calls, although that may seem a bit strange.

As an e-reader, which is the biggest factor here, the iPad certainly delivers. It has a good size screen like the Kindle. It also offers color and does not need external lighting. Unfortunately, the price of e-books at $ 10 each for the best sellers is not possible, but you still have quite a few inexpensive e-books to download. Battery life is 10 hours, unless you do more than read books with the eReader software provided on the iPad.

The only thing you should consider regarding the Apple iPad as an eReader and a good investment is memory. Most eReaders currently run on 16 to 64 gigs of memory. The iPad offers the same with more options, so is the memory really compatible with e-books? If you can download just 3500 e-books on Kindle at 64 gigs, it doesn’t seem like iPad multi-use offers enough memory for all the tasks you’d like it to accomplish, plus the cost is pretty high. So it’s not the end of e-readers yet.