eBook Reader Line Up

So as most ebook readers promise to get bigger the new BeBook e-book reader plans to get smaller. The new machine will be the same as before only it will now have a 5” display screen and be priced at $200 or less. The price will certainly be more attractive but by the screen size they automatically reduce the cost so its yet another eink reader albeit smaller.

As BeBook is manufactured by Chinese company Tianjin Jinke Electronics, who own the Hanlin ereader brand, the mini BeBook will also be available as the Hanlin v5 Reader.

So who are the eInk and ebook reading devices out there today?


Amazon has its Kindle 2 which is rumored to become larger later this year and maybe even make it past the Whispernet and into Europe. Amazon also have the iphone Kindle app and have just acquired Lexcycle’s Stanza application platform. They also own Mobibook.






Sony has the PRS505 and the PRS700 which could break free from the umbilical cord to Adobe’s Digital Editions and maybe even go wireless this year. Although it renders Adobe eBooks as well as epub and that old Sony format its current strength is its current exclusive tie to Adobe DRM through Adept and ACS4 and their current UK exclusive with Waterstones. Today it is still the epub reader with DRM.




iRex has the iLiad Book Edition with an 8.1” screen with built in Wi-Fi capability with an option for external ethernet networking, but is expensive and remains outside of the Adobe world today and is heavily reliant on Mobibook.




Samsung is to launch its touch-screen Papyrus. Samsung is expected to make Papyrus available in Korea this summer, with a later launch date in the US and UK.





Fuijisu have the FLEPia is the first e-book reader to support colour via a 8” display, comes with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support and a touchscreen with a stylus. It is only available in Japan today, with plans to come to both the US and UK. The big issue is the price, a whopping $1,000.





Plastic logic. The reader is expected to measure 8.5 by 11 inches, be thinner than its competitors and today has a look that is fresh and could appeal. It will support Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe PDFs, newspapers, periodicals and books and a wireless capability. However, only an elephant has a longer gesticulation period!

If Apple were to launch their rumoured iTouch as a multi media netbook without a keypad then the PL tablet could die before it makes it onto the street. It could be a classic case of a premature launch.



Hanilin, Jinke, Bebook, Pixelar same box different badge and has been covered already.










Foxit eSlick Reader is a 6” display but is lighter both in its weight and its price than its competitors. However it has limited file support and a clumsy USB umbilical cord to the PC for downloading files. Some may say it’s a cheap man’s ereader.





Brother with its very expensive SV-100B document reader planned to launch in Japan this summer.







Onyx International, China has announced its Boox ereader is not available today but Onyx are looking for OEM customers for their touchscreen for their 6, 8 or 9.7 inch touch screen sizes. It claims to do everything but is still to seen.



This list is growing with many stalling or failing and rumours of a Barnes and Noble reader, a Murdoch Newscorp one, a Hearst one etc. This is without the iPhone and mobile apps, online readers and of course the ultimate reader - the book.

New eBook Readers for 2009

Another show, another launch, more announcements and even more speculation on the ebook front. Following hot on the heels of the mobile piches in Barcelona comes CeBIT 2009 in Germany this week. What’s new and what are the rumours?

Boox ebook reader
It sounds a funny name and is from Onyx International in China. The reader is not available today but Onyx are looking for OEM customers for their touchscreen for their 6, 8 or 9.7 inch touch screen sizes. Other features of the Boox eBook reader can includes Wi-Fi, plus the usual technology specification; CDMA 1XRTT, GPRS, 3G, 400Mhz CPU, 128MB RAM, 512MB Flash or more, a SD card slot, 2.5mm headphone jack and USB 2.0 with OTG. The device supports PDF, TXT, HTML, MOBIPOCKET, EPUB, CHM, PDB, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, MP3, and WAV.

BeBook
Dutch company Endless Ideas launched their BeBook reader in 2008, and plan to launch its next-gen BeBook reader at the CeBIT show.

There are no pictures but it is claimed that the new BeBook model will include wireless connectivity, new touch screen navigation and RSS and also be capable of rendering to the new ePub DRM standard in the coming months.

Kindle 3
Having just started to ship the new Kindle 2 last month there are already runours of a Kindle 3 with Digitimes mentioning it in a story about PVI who delivers the display for the Kindle. Apparently later this year we should see a touchscreen Kindle that also with a larger display.

So we appear to be in a device war before we have the depth and range of content and while issues such as DRM, pricing have been resolved. An abundance of readers can only be good for maintaining the noise level but if each is competing for the same spend they could keep the price up or trigger a device price war. Today they are like the early days of CDs too closely packed on price and we need someone to grab the initiative and go for volume based on price. If this doesn’t happen then the alternatives based on netbooks and smartphones will look increasingly more attractive. Also the longer they remain greyscale, the more attractive colour alternatives will look

Compare ebooks

A simple and comparison on the eink players.

Click here

It's interesting to read and although basic raises many questions.

Pity they only reviewed eink ebook readers as these may only have a short life as we know them today

Another ebook reader

Coming across another ebook reader should stimulate us to look hard at it and listen to the market’s reaction to it and ponder whether it will make the difference. There is many ereaders littering the market and all claiming to be different and the ‘must buy’ to the new ebook market. So coming across yet another eink model makes us wonder how they think they are different.

Do any have the iconic design of an Apple? Do any offer the technology at a price that is truly a no brainer? Do any offer access content that is different from the others? Do any of them have that marketing position or relationship that makes it a category killer?

The game is to guess which one this is:
• Supports ebook formats from pdf, mobi, lit, epub, doc, html, txt, prc, fb2, jpg files to over 300.000 of *free* rss newsfeeds.
• Fully PC and MAC compatible
• Unique paperlike display, read even in bright sunlight based on eink
• Longlife battery, one charge will last 7.000 pageturns
• Accomodates your entire bookcase up to a 1,000 books
• Use it anywhere: at home, vacation, study, work, travel
• Use it to read: books, studybooks, papers, news, catalogs, workdocuments, reference guides/book, ebooks, training papers, any document
• Plays MP3 files and audiobooks
• It features a 6-inch reflective screen, a SD card slot, 512MB of internal storage and a USB connector. The BEBOOK's dimensions are 184mm (length) x 120mm (width) x 10mm (height) and it weighs just 220 gr including the battery.
• £229 with free leather case

The truth is its just another eink reader with more or less the same features as the rest but has a different badge. The one thing we noticed was that it listed around 22,000 titles in its catalogue. Mostly the usual publics domain suspects plus some interesting other language titles: ‘Afrikaans (3) Breton (1) Bulgarian (6) Catalan (20) Cebuano (1) Chinese (293) Czech (2) Danish (19) Dutch (344) English (21020) Esperanto (44) Finnish (432) French (1195) Frisian (1) Friulano (4) Galician (1) Gascon (1) German (511) Greek (6) Hebrew (3) Hungarian (7) Icelandic (6) Iloko (2) Interlingua (1) Irish (4) Italian (144) Japanese (2) Latin (37) Middle English (3) Nahuatl (1) Napoletano-Calabrese (1) Norwegian (10) Polish (3) Portuguese (234) Romanian (1) Russian (3) Serbian (4) Spanish (159) Swedish (39) Tagalog (51) Welsh (10)’

The answer is another Dutch product called BEBOOK.

What links the Kindle, Sony, Iliad, Plastic Logic, Fujitsu, and Bebook is eink and also the concept of a portable storage and reading device. Is eink the key to the Holy Grail or is it a technology looking for a home? There are new screen technologies being developed and adopted by other converging media and communications sectors that aim to compete, so will it succeed?

The online world will challenge the current download logic and in doing so also negate the often messy and cumbersome DRM handshakes. The rent to read and cloud computing model will question the need to build local storage devices for books that are often only read one at a time and once. The mobile convergence and netbook developments will question the one dimensional device and just as Blackberry had to these devices will have to widen their functionality. The world is no longer greyscale and is animated. Finally, ask any person on the street what gadget or electronic device they would spend £229 on and the odds would be slim on an ebook reader. The price point is way out.