Never mind those eBay prices for the
Kindle, and don't pay any attention to the $399 sticker attached to Sony's
Reader -- instead, feast your eyes on this gem. The $259 eSlick is expected to arrive courtesy of Foxit this January, and if you jump in early, you'll be able to get it for just $229. Sure, it doesn't include that fancy connectivity like on the Kindle, but we suspect you'll get over the lack of subscriptions pretty quick given all the coin you'll save up front. The unit is said to be around the size "of a medium paperback," checking in at 0.4-inches think and featuring a 6-inch 800 x 600 resolution display. The panel itself is made by the same firm that provides panels for Amazon, and it'll ship with 128MB of inbuilt memory along with a 2GB SD card. As for longevity, you can expect to get about 8,000 turns before it caves from exhaustion, and if your eyes tire, the unit can double as an MP3 player. Lookie here -- we just found you the perfect device to spend your holiday card money on. You're welcome.
[Via
PC World]
posted Dec 19th 2008 1:25AM
so where do you get your material from. does this have like some amazon type service or whats the deal?
would be quite funny if it doesn't read PDF
If you click the link, you can see that it most definitely does support PDF.
It's being sold by a software company whose products almost entirely consist of programs to handle PDF files in various ways. ;)
That is WHY he said it would be 'funny'.
It doesn't only work with PDFs, it can zoom and "reflow" the text. I want this.
@ ark_v2: the Sony Reader can also natively reflow PDFs on the fly. I suspect they're using very similar Linux software to accomplish the same goals.
-s-
I love Foxit reader. Its never screwed up rendering a PDF and its wicked fast.
Oh yeah, and no updater service like adobe. Only thing worse than Adobe updater is Java blech.
8000 turns? is that normal? If you actually read 2GB worth of material, I'd imagine that 8k pages would run by pretty damn quick.
Depends on how graphically intensive your PDFs are - ones that are loaded with images will eat up that 2GB quite quickly.
8000 isn't much at all.
Its a rip off!
If anyone would RTFL, it's "8,000 page turns" is 8,000 pages of continuous reading on a full battery charge.
The figure isn't like a mean time between failure or anything like that.
u know if iphone 3g would ever work as a reader? cuz im a dee dee deee
Carlos Mencia fan?
Yes, the iPhone does work as an ebook reader, if you have the proper software. I use eReader.
needs
1) color screen
2) CBR/CBZ file compatibility (or at least in-machine PDF conversion)
and I'll buy one. Will keep turning my laptop 90 degrees until then.
No conversion necessary, looks like it NATIVELY supports PDF.
Which makes sense, based on who's making it.
Just to clarify for bhtooefr, Stink wants a native reader of comic book files, or at least one that will convert those formats (cbr, cbz mostly) to pdf. Or any other format that particular reader supports.
I meant in machine CBR/CBZ --> PDF conversion
And yes for $230 I'm too lazy to convert it on my laptop :p
Check out ComicRack
http://comicrack.cyolito.com/
It can batch convert a whole directory full of CBR/CBZ files into PDF. It takes no time at all!
Yes a color screen would be nice... But color e-paper does not exist yet.
This device is closer to what I am looking for. It as few "Extra" features, and is NOT tied to any service! It supports TXT and PDF, and comes with the software you need to convert other file formats to PDF.
oh, the laptop turn! I have recieved some looks for that. then they realize I am doing it for comic viewing . . .
Color epaper DOES exist, it's just ridiculously expensive. A while ago some magazine produced an issue that featured a color e-ink screen, what had ads on it. Cost them a whole lot of money, though.
Haha... That's what I'm waiting for too. My laptop is also currently vertical running Hamana. Thinking about maybe getting a slightly older tablet.
CBR/CBZ are just renamed RAR and ZIP files. Just extract them to a folder, and you'll have a series of numbered images. I'd be very surprised if it can't view simple jpg or png files.
CaramelZappa: FYI - The magazine did not have color - it was simple colored material behind the e-ink.
D.
Sounds 'convenient':
[quote]However, at least in its initial version, the eSlick won't have wireless connectivity, so you won't be able to sync newspapers or blogs unless you convert them first on a PC (using included PDF conversion software, which Foxit is better known for) and copy them over manually.[/quote]
"Also, a single battery charge provides up to 8,000 pages of continuous reading."
Question answered.
"I didnt understand this longevity part... How come just 8000 turns? You meaning turning on and off or page turns?
Please be more specific cos this the first time that I actually considered in buying one of those eReaders..."
I think they should restate this to something like 8000 screens. Depending on the material, there's no way a book or magazine "page" is going to equal a ebook "page". If you need to scroll around or zoom in or out, that's going to require a screen refresh which is going to be considered a "page view". What I'd like to do is be able to take PDF versions of books and view them on the road. Which ebook reader will currently allow be to do this with the least amount of hassles (reformatting, reprocessing, dealing with formatting issues, etc?) Obviously I could take a Netbook and view these files, but you're only going to get around 3 hours (or 6 hours with an extended battery) of usability using that route (and similarly for the iPhone/PPC approach.) The main reason you want an ebook is for the epaper no-power, persistent imaging technology.
ENGADGET ROCKS!
COLORS.
please?
K. Thanks.
Looks similar to the Bookeen Cybook 3.
So what's worse for the environment, cutting down trees to make paper books or using electricity to read virtual ones?
Depends on where the electricity comes from. Charge it with a solar panel, no harm done, charge it from your house power that was probably generated with fossil fuels? Not so good.
It's not just the trees - once you've made the paper and printed the books you then have to ship them half around the world into stores/distributors and then to the customer. That's got to use a lot of fossil fuel.
I'm sure that the tiny electricity used (say a book is 400 pages, you can supposedly read 20 books on one charge) will be much less damaging to the environment.
HOWEVER the big damage to the environment will come from making the thing in the first place. Apart from the plastic shell, it'll obviously contain plenty of electronics made from toxic chemicals, rare metals etc. So even if I'm right about the per-book damage being much less, it would probably take (total guess) hundreds or thousands of books to make up for the resources used in building the device...
If you really care about the environment, borrow books from a local library (which you of course travel to on foot or bike). Actually, I genuinely do this :) But, I'm definitely in the market for an ebook reader, at least once they come up with one that looks nice, works well on Mac and with home wi-fi, and isn't too proprietary. Better-contrast screens would also be nice. Right now Sony's reader (505 or whatever) looks like the best, if they'd just add wi-fi and/or Mac support....
As for this... I mean damn, if Kindle hadn't already redefined 'ugly' - by Kindle standards this is a real looker - wouldn't we all be laughing this one out of town? It's pretty horrific. I guess it would be ok if you painted over both logos...
If the folks at eReader.com port their reader software onto this thing, I'd be all over it. I got too many ebooks in their format now (which supports reflow, unlike PDFs) to want to switch formats.
Why do you say PDFs can't be reflowed? This product can do it. You can do it on your PC in a number of products. The Sony Reader can do it. I bet a Kindle with PDF support, whenever that comes, would do it too.
-s-
needs .lit support before it gets my money.
But the MP3 feature is a very good idea, Audio book support as well as ebook. I wonder if the MP3 function is good though, It would need minimum resume play (to pick up where you left off last session) and fast forward/rewind.
If they can deliver then there a market just waiting to pounce.
There is an almost identical device, at least from the hardware point of view) existing since a little longer than one year called the Cybook from a French company called Bookeen.
(see http://bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx).
The screen/hardware supplier is probably the same (see pictures and features clicking on above link), software makes the difference and the difference is huge.
The eSlick put all its eggs in the PDF format basket and this is definitively not a good choice. PDF format is made to forward and print documents not to read them on such a small screen device. You have to constantly zoom in and out and scroll the document to read it.
There are much better softwares around, like Mobipocket (owned by Amazon), which allows you to re-size fonts for a better reading experience on a 6 inch screen. You just have to turn the page once you have complete the page reading.
You know I used the eReader application on the iPhone and bought a few books. I thought to my self "Hey, now I don't need a Kindle", until I realized that the books I bought on eReader were like half the price on Amazon Kindle. So let's say that I wanted to buy "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" on ebooks.com it's 35 dollars (to buy it in PDF format) that's as much as the hard cover, to buy the same book on Amazon Kindle costs 10 dollars, a savings of 25 dollars. All Amazon really has to do is enable PDF viewing on the next Kindle and then we can read all of those free PDF ebooks. Even though Kindle is more expensive (hopefully the second version will be less) I think it pays for itself.
Logan,
While Foxit and the Sony ereader can display content from PDFs directly. They do have to convert the fixed layout PDF to a reflowable format internally. That process takes time and considerable processor cycles and eats batteries. That process has to happen each time the document is opened. The Kindle can also display content from PDFs, but the conversion to reflowable format happens once before the document gets to the Kindle. This can be done automatically with Amazon's conversion to Kindle service or you can do it yourself with Mobipocket software. Neither process is ideal and is forced by the limits of the PDF format.
The fact that it only uses electricity when your turning pages is pretty amazing. And, 8000 page turns on a charge, you can read for months, charge it for three hours, and rock on for a few more months. Me, I'm sold. The only problem I can think of is the fact they'll release a version with WIFI sometime after I purchase one. But I can live with that.
8,000 pages on a charge is not the same as 8,000 paper pages. For me that's only about 4 or 5 novels or a little less then a week. The reason being that if you use a larger font like I do for every page in a 250 page you turn pages on the reader about 3 times. It would be great if it lasted a month though. I am considering modding the cover that came with mine to include solar cells and the electronics to trickle charge the battery which may enable me to not have to plug it in at all.
I think they should lower the price to compete. Although the article refers to a Sony reader being $399, that's for the touch screen model. The standard Sony Reader is $299, and I have a couple that I picked up at Fry's as they are often priced at $239 there, just $10 more than the "introductory price" of this model. They seem to be of similar capabilities (reading PDFs and other standard formats, playing MP3s, e-ink display); I don't have my Sonys tied to any service because I never installed the software on my PC (so no worries of rootkit) and they don't support MacOS either. I just copy PDFs to the SD card and read those. Sometimes I will use Adobe Acrobat to reformat (or reflow) the PDF so it is suited perfectly for the Reader. The Sony seems to have an advantage in support, size, and being well constructed of metal, so my conclusion is they would need to compete better on pricing (except to Sony anti-fanboys... I'm neutral on that so I don't mind buying a Sony product when it suits my needs).
-s-
"checking in at 0.4-inches think" you mean thick?
At last, someone in the e-reader industry is got some business sense. Perhaps the rest will now follow.
why it's so difficult to make a color pdf reader?
This appears to be exactyl the same as the Gen3 CyBook from Bookeen . . . are the just being made in the US under license?
except that one is $450
I don't know why they don't make this for business use.
If it's not made for selling books, it really needs to be the 8.5x11 in format, preferably dual-screen: it'll save reams and reams of office paper this way (I get sick each time I think of how many journal articles we print each day - and significant amount is a repeat-printing because we don't bother looking for the older printout in our gigantic file drawers).
"As for longevity, you can expect to get about 8,000 turns before it caves from exhaustion, and if your eyes tire, the unit can double as an MP3 player."
I didnt understand this longevity part... How come just 8000 turns ? You meaning turning on and off or page turns ?
Please be more specific cos this the first time that I actually considered in buying one of those eReaders...
8000 page turns is the battery life estimate. Basicly this thing doesn't use any juice while your looking at a page, it only uses power when you flip to a new one. Could you imagine how long you could go without charging?
re: 8000 turns
Well there is good news and bad news on battery life. In the real world, 8000 turns basically means you can read an entire book on a single charge. In comparison, if you have a heavy day of reading on a PDA-type (lcd) device you will run out of juice during the day and definitely won't be able to finish the book.
However, the 8000 page turns is a manufacturer's rating and like many such figures it overstates the number for various reasons.
1) e-ink typically takes two "page-turns" to turn a page. When you turn a page it first flashes/refreshes the screen to wipe out the old text, and then it writes the new screen. This flashing refresh can be turned off, but (if you look closely) you will see some specs from the previous page if it is off. It appears that the 8000 rating is done with the flashing refresh off.
2) In theory, the device only needs power for a page turn, because the screen only needs power when it refreshes. This is because the e-ink screen only needs power to 'paint' the image. Once it is displayed no power is needed. In reality, however, the processor may still be running and it may still need power.
3) Depending on font-size and the comparable book size don't assume that one e-ink page is equal to one paper page. This is a real problem for those looking to read pdf's on a six inch device if those pdf's are static images (ie non-reflowable). It's really not reasonable to do.
Bottom line is that the battery life is great, and if you recharge it daily or even every other day you will be in great shape -- much better than with competing technologies. But, don't assume it lets you see 8000 pages.
@Micheal
I do fine just charging my Sony Reader just once a week. Doing it daily would be rather excessive IMO.
There is a converter that allows you to convert various types of documents and e books to LRF (Sony's proprietary BBeB format).
Might be useful for someone - http://www.lib2go.com
Honestly, I don't see why more publications don't subsidize the price through adverts ala Esquires 25th ann. issue.
News papers could save a fortune and the earth would benefit greatly if the readers were made right. Imagine dropping $100 on a reader that comes with a newspaper/magazine sub that can read other non-proprietary formats(doubtful). That would truly rock.
weAREengadget
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Nk8CH5UVc
Can any of these e-book devices handle manga .jpg/.png reasonably well yet? Or know of a program that turns picture files into usable .pdfs easily?
isnt the sony ereader just $269.99 with $50 in free books?
Another reincarnation of the same hardware. As some mentioned earlier, this is also known as Cybook Gen3 or PocketBook 301. Different software companies developing their own version of the firmware and, IMHO, the PocketBook 301 has the best at the moment. It supports FB2, TXT, PDF, DJVU, RTF, HTML, PRC, CHM formats:
http://pocketbook.com.ua/index.php?id=185
The website is in Russian, but you can browse and get the idea.
I wish Amazon would just release the second gen Kindle already and make it available worldwide (or at least Canada).
argh want now
I am very interested in this, but one does have to consider all the extras of the Kindle such as the book availability and book prices, keyboard, and dictionary. I would love to put all my development books on one of these devices, but if I did so I'd definitely want to be able to lookup keywords. I wonder how well reflowing pdfs with occasional images work, anybody have experience with this on a Sony, I'm wondering how well it would reflow a video game manual and similar pdfs? Several of my development books are chm format, any decent chm to pdf converters?
I like Foxit software and I'm strongly leaning towards this ebook reader (getting all that software I've been close to buying before anyhow makes it a super bargain) mostly because of the price and pdf support (built in). The biggest hesitation for me is the lack of keyboard - if it were touchscreen an onscreen keyboard would be great as it wouldn't make the device bigger.