The Kindle’s success with e-books may be compared to how Apple gave a huge boost to digital music consumption worldwide after it introduced the iPod on October 23, 2001.

Still, it took a couple of years before the Kindle became widely available. Seattle-based Amazon did not release the first generation of the device outside the US. The Kindle 2, which was launched in October 2009, was the first model sold to international markets.

Amazon has since designed and sold a series of Kindle e-readers with upgraded technical specifications and functions, the latest iterations of which are the second-generation Kindle Oasis released in 2017 and the fourth-generation Kindle Paperwhite launched last year.

In China, the world’s biggest smartphone market, there is still healthy demand for Kindles. A local joke, however, describes some Kindle owners as people who only remember the device when they need something to use as cover for a hot cup of instant noodles.

Our two tech reporters, Sarah Dai and Iris Deng, talk about how they use their e-reader.

Sarah: It’s a gift that keeps on giving

I own a “vintage” Kindle Keyboard model, also known as the third-generation Kindle, that was released in 2010. It has a six-inch screen, Wi-fi connectivity, 4 gigabytes of memory and was the last model designed by Amazon with a built-in keyboard.

My device, which was a birthday gift from a college roommate, has proven to be durable over the years and still serves as my preferred gadget for reading.

In my experience, the Kindle provides a convenient way to read and enjoy books. These are all digital, so I don’t have to worry about preserving a book’s cover or be intimidated by its thick volume.

Also, the e-ink display allows me to highlight content, look up words with the pre-installed dictionary and instantly jot down notes anywhere and at any time.

Smartphones deliver too many distractions, as everyone knows. This is something that was magnified for me since I started receiving a weekly report on iPhone usage. Over the past seven days, for example, I spent more than five hours a day – about 36 hours in total – on my smartphone. I opened it an average of 93 times a day and received about 135 notifications.

There are no social networking apps on Kindle. So there are no Slack messages from work, no WeChat posts from family or friends, and no Facebook updates to look up. The Kindle is a quiet, stress-free gadget that allows me to get immersed reading novels like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train and even work-related books, such as Life 3.0.

One time, I waited for a friend, another reporter, at a meeting place for about an hour. When she finally showed up, I readily thanked her. The reason: I had the opportunity to start reading another fine book on my Kindle.

China has become one of Amazon’s biggest markets for Kindle since 2016, according to Amazon China president Elaine Chang, as reported by Chinese state media. Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited online book lending programme helped drive the popularity of the device. Users are charged 12 yuan (US$1.80) a month, or 118 yuan a year. Amazon’s online library has a collection of more than 120,000 Chinese-language and English e-books.

That growth in e-book availability, hopefully, could help reverse the perceived decline in reading habits across China. The average Chinese spends only nine minutes a day reading books and magazines, compared to 100 minutes on television and 65 minutes on other leisure activities, according to a survey published by the National Bureau of Statistics in January. Another national poll found that an adult read an average of 4.66 books in 2017.

A recent visit to the US allowed me to make a pilgrimage to Amazon’s headquarters, where I took pictures of an eye-catching tree display festooned with various Kindle models. Although I’m loyal to my old Kindle, I look forward to the day I get a brand-new model.

Iris: Back to paperbacks

I bought a Kindle Paperwhite in 2015. It has a six-inch high-resolution touch screen, a fast processor, Wi-fi support and about 4GB of storage capacity.

I was convinced at that time that the Kindle would make things easier for me. I moved flats twice in Hong Kong the previous year, when I found it a burden to deal with heavy boxes of books. I also thought that the Kindle would be a great way for me to catch up on my reading during my daily commute and on trips.

But it has been more than two years now since I laid my hands and eyes on this device, which is stored somewhere in my bookcase.

While I appreciate the features of the Kindle and the convenience of e-books, I missed owning physical books, which I find more appealing to own and comforting to hold. I missed the sound and tactile sensation of flipping through pages of printed text, compared with the experience provided by electronic text on the Kindle touch screen.

I missed making handwritten notes on the margins of a book, comparing and flipping through content in different pages at the same time, and admiring the colourful layout.

Even when I was using the Kindle, I kept buying brand-new paperbacks from online booksellers on the mainland. I quite enjoy scouting for new books in bricks-and-mortar stores, and then checking their price and availability online.

I’m not alone in preferring traditional hardcover and paperback books over their digital versions. Physical book sales in the UK, for example, outpaced those of digital, with revenue up 5 per cent in 2017 compared to the previous year, according to data from industry group the Publishers Association. It said consumer e-book sales were down 9 per cent in the same year.

In the US, revenue from e-books fell 2.8 per cent in the first 11 months of 2018, while hardcover and paperback books, respectively, rose 6.5 per cent and 2 per cent, according to the Association of American Publishers.

In 2017, more than 45 per cent Chinese adults favoured physical books, compared with 6.2 per cent who preferred e-readers, according to the latest estimates from China’s Press and Publication Academy.

Amazon, which had long been responsible for putting many physical bookstores out of business, had also opened its first bricks-and-mortar shop called Amazon Books in 2015 in Seattle. The company is currently operating about 18 such stores in the US.

What I’ve learned from my experience is that printed books and e-readers are not exclusive of each other. I believe some books are worth keeping as part of a collection at home, while others can be stored on an e-reader for quick and easy reference.

Perhaps the main reason for giving up on the Kindle was the sheer laziness on my part. I first thought about quitting after I misplaced the device’s USB cable for charging. It was easy to get a new one, but I didn’t bother.