Neolux's NUUT2 trumps the Kindle 2 with PDF support, loses in most other regards

Back in 2007 the NUUT beat the Kindle to retail by a few months, but its plain styling and lack of features meant it couldn't compete -- especially for the same $300 price point. Now the successors must battle for supremacy and this time it's Neolux running a bit late, just now announcing the NUUT2. It's a complete redesign that, oddly enough, makes it look more like the original Kindle, complete with an odd little auxiliary strip display. The NUUT2 has a 6-inch, 600 x 800 display offering eight shades of gray (twice that of the original but half that of the Kindle 2), 1GB of storage, SD card expansion, and WiFi as well. The biggest news is native support for PDF along with a bevy of other file types, but given this isn't likely to appear outside of South Korea it, like its predecessor, probably won't make much of a splash.

[Via MobileRead, thanks Emil]

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 3:52PM]

those controls look awful

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 3:55PM]

Well the Kindle arguably makes as littler splash by being limited to the US, here in the UK Sony still makes some of the best offerings.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 3:56PM]

CDs NUTT2 IN YA MOUTH !!! :]

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 3:59PM]

I just want to be able to read Haruhi Suzumiya off of the computer!! I wonder how long it takes for these to become mainstream, they're really good for the environment by not wasting paper.

[TMC Posted Feb 27th 2009 8:18PM]

Paper is normally made of pine trees from groves. It's not any harder on the environment than corn.

[potato Posted Feb 27th 2009 4:06PM]

Is that fake wood finish? Wow, the station wagon of the e-book reader world!

[rchives Posted Feb 27th 2009 5:13PM]

If you think that's a wood finish you need a new monitor (or maybe just glasses).

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 4:07PM]

If i had a NUUT i'd probably bust it

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 4:13PM]

I'm starting to see a trend in references to Alice in Wonderland. ie. Alice.org, sony's reader. Why's that?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 28th 2009 4:54AM]

You don't wanna know *shiver*

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 4:19PM]

Deez NUUT2

[petepete Posted Feb 27th 2009 4:26PM]

what and the kindle supposedly has better looks? hogwash

[Pies Posted Feb 27th 2009 4:52PM]

How about: 90% of Earth's population can't use Kindle at all, so maybe this thing here competes for _our_ little niche.

[xxxsam Posted Feb 27th 2009 5:32PM]

Well... it looks better than Kindle 1... but then so does pavement vomit.

Definitely not feeling that extra screen. Also, how fat is this? Are those weird pimples below the screen buttons or just random weird pimples?

Anyhow, the more the merrier and all. I hope there will be some significant improvements in the actual display technology before too long, though. (More than 166 ppi, higher contrast.)

[magallanes Posted Feb 27th 2009 5:54PM]

"Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very big Kindle, on which the words `BUY ME' were beautifully marked in currants. `Well, I'll buy it,' said Alice." A extract of Alice in Purchaseland.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2009 7:21PM]

woot

[Steve2000 Posted Feb 27th 2009 10:46PM]

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

[beezle Posted Feb 28th 2009 11:39AM]

native pdf support isnt what its cracked up to be (I have a sony which does that). The problem is that pdf is not designed to reflow a document to a different sized output device. If you make a letter sized pdf, thats it.. its sized for 8.5x11 output devices. So what most of the devices do is shrink to fit which given small screen size (most are 6") its hard to read. Sony recently released a firmware upgrade to attempt to reflow, and it does work on very vanilla pdfs, but once you start putting in pictures, tables, multicolumns, etc, it all goes to hell.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 28th 2009 9:11PM]

ROFL! I was just reading Lewis Carroll yesterday on Project Gutenberg for free. But they had formats ranging from plucker, html, txt, PDF, and audio (Ogg Vorbis, Apple itunes Audiobook, MP3 Speex Audio).

[Wwhat Posted Feb 28th 2009 3:59PM]

a competitor only needs pdf support AND usability outside the confines of america to trump kindles.

[mp3 Posted Feb 28th 2009 6:33PM]

As long as the Kindle does not support PDF and free RSS feeds, I won't touch it.

[mp3 Posted Feb 28th 2009 6:36PM]

And by PDF I mean natively support PDF without going through any conversion.

[dishbreak Posted Mar 1st 2009 7:03AM]

I'm not entirely sure I'm convinced that any reader can make any kind of splash. How long will it take the e-Reader to penetrate the market and become something useful?