Panasonic's Words Gear gets official launch and price

We've watched Panasonic's 5.6-inch Words Gear e-book / media player make the jump from early prototype to trade-show circuit. Now, it's gone official. Sure it lacks e-Ink and the associated long battery life, but there's something to be said for the ability to not only read books for 6-hours at a time off the lithium Ion battery, but also view MPEG-4 video and JPEGs on that 5.6-inch, 600x1024 display -- you get AAC audio to boot. Pretty limited codec support frankly, and too bad it only supports SD cards (up to 2GB) what with SDHC now pushing 8GB and 32GB on the horizon. Still, for just ¥41,790 (about $355) when loosed upon Japan on December 20th, you just gotzta take notice.

[Via Impress]

[sinjinn @ Nov 22nd 2006 10:07AM]

my psp can do a whole lot more than just that . ok, so the screen is 4.3 inches ...but atleast i can put it in my pocket . equal battery life , comics, books, etc etc.
whats the deal with mpeg 4, why cant they just give us divx enabled stuff. what the hell is wrong with these designers.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Nov 22nd 2006 11:54AM]

Quote: "why cant they just give us divx enabled stuff?"

Uhm. DivX people support MPEG4 from earliest days. In many cases you can convert DivX to MPEG4 w/o any conversions.

Also, FYI, DivX supports output directly into MPEG4.

N.B. DivX is proprietary technology, depending solely on one priavate company. MPEG4 - international standard, supported by several industries. Feel the difference.

[NHAnimator @ Nov 22nd 2006 11:23AM]

Sorry, that would be too easy and nice.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Nov 22nd 2006 11:51AM]

Quote: "read books for 6-hours at a time off the lithium Ion battery"

Booo-oooh!!!

My past Apple' iBook G4 was pulling out 8 hours.

[sinjinn @ Nov 22nd 2006 12:02PM]

ok, so howcome i cant watch divx movies on my psp...it has to be converted to mpeg 4. same with this device... I wouldnt be able to watch a divx movie on it. and what is it exactly you mean by "In many cases you can convert DivX to MPEG4 w/o any conversions" ? i can convert without converting ?

[Mrfreezie @ Nov 22nd 2006 12:07PM]

It looks like they want you to watch porn on that thing.. I mean, the stock photo says "GIRLS" on it..

[Jack @ Nov 22nd 2006 12:23PM]

That's Girls Bravo! And it is almost porn

[hannes @ Nov 22nd 2006 2:22PM]

DivX is MPEG4, it is just one encoder that encodes to MPEG4, as does any other encoder that supports MPEG4. It can be decoded with any decoder that supports MPEG4

ps, Girls Bravo is not porn, it is just good fanservece :)

[bogphanny @ Nov 22nd 2006 6:32PM]

I'll take one for the screen alone.
600 x 1024 @ 5.6"

It'd be interesting to see how difficult it would be to remove the screen for other applications, if a compatible controller board exists.