Brother's SV-100B Bluetooth "Document Viewer" looks like an e-book reader to us
posted March 12th 2009 8:11AM
It's finally coming true; all those e-ink readers we expected would flood the market after the Kindle's initial release were apparently just waiting for its successor before jumping into the fray. Joining recent announcements from iriver, Neolux, and Plastic Logic is Brother, with the SV-100B. The company is calling it a "Document Viewer," featuring a 9.7-inch, 1200 x 825 display -- larger and stocking twice the pixels of the Kindle 2. However, it's not meant to be a Kindle-killer, instead aimed at business users who will pair this over Bluetooth with PCs or mobile devices to keep its microSD card filled with content, content that must be run through a converter app prior to display. No MSRP was announced, but given its focus on the corporate clientele it will surely be priced accordingly when it ships early this June.
Update: Will commented to let us know this will apparently retail for ¥140,000, or just shy of $1,500. So, yeah, not really aiming for the consumer market here.
[Via Engadget Japanese]
oh brother,
FIRST!
market is saturated with these even though they are pointless. The only one that could succeed is that large OLED the size of A4 paper the rest are useless.
"Market is saturated" based on what data, exactly? On the "me-no-likey-so-its-generally-useless" survey?
It would be nice to know where you got the data market saturation of these e-ink book reader... or is it your opinion on baseless claim?
i didnt run out and purchase a kindle because the screen is way too small. at least 8.5x11 inches please!!
14 inches diagonal? Get a laptop!
please suggest a 14inch laptop thats under 1 lbs. cause i dont know of any!!
Not a bad idea; the issue I have now with the current batch of 6" screen eBook readers is their native 600x800 resolution doesn't do a great job of displaying most PDFs I would read.
This guy isn't quite up to the 8.5" x 11" ultra hi-res size I would want (most likely because e-Ink hasn't made a Vizplex screen this size yet) but it is getting closer...
Saturated???? This product is just in its infancy. I can't wait until we get full featured color 8.5x11 multi-touch screens.
I'm getting more and more surprised no one has marketed an e-book reader towards academia. Some people would say someone needs to work out the whole electronic textbook thing first. But academics use so many PDF files and photocopied books and sections of books (like, the reserve collection in university libraries) that there's already more than enough content to throw in an e-book reader if you're a professor or a grad student.
that thang is hawt.
yea- a saturated market. There are about 8 manufacturers making all of about 12 different models of eBook readers. Before you know it there will be as many eBook readers out there as there are laptops or LCD TVs...
OLED is still a few years out for price- and does anyone know if OLED will be a viable material for eBooks? It is still a 'light emitting diode' (albeit with out a back light), and will have some kind of screen refresh rate; will it cause eye strain after several hours of reading like a typical LED screen?
I don't think you quite understand the benefit of the e-paper, it only uses power to switch the little pixels. OLED's while good on a power, they don't come even close.
If battery technology suddenly gets really small then we may definitely see this happen.
Looks like a winner to me. I'd get it over the Kindle any day.
I will get one, but prefer a more rectangle form factor, judging from other photos on the site, it is more like a square. The 9.7" screen is perfect for a lot of books. Most book print area is within 9.7" diagonally.
The day when these will saturate the market will probably be when they're in the sub 150 price range and have a few features other than black and white... color, writeable with built-in ocr or some type of writing input for just about any language, and portable like my trusty phone. IMHO
Competition is good for consumers. Make it less $100 and I'll get one for everyone in my family.
A netbook shouldn't be cheaper than a DRM laden ebook reader.
Why not?
Someone made a netbook as a cheap alternative to laptop.
Who made a cheap alternative to ebook? Nobody. Why? Because... you wouldn't want to change old book reader for a new book reader and thus company won't have much profit in the long run?
eInk itself is too expensive at the moment to make such a price point even remotely practical.
...The SV-100B will go on sale on June 1 for around ¥140,000 (US$1,460).....
OMG!!!!
ref: http://www.pcworld.com/article/161120/japans_brother_to_launch_edocument_reader.html
Too high by $1000. *sigh* almost...there...
Oh Brother, where art thou?
Decrease the prize by about $1200, add wifi and 3G and internal storage, maybe increase the screen size a bit, and I am sold.
Just my 2 cents but most of us have more powerful cell phones with more features than any of the ebook readers out there. The only thing "special" is the display so I don't see any reason for them to be as expensive as they are. I'll get one with it opens pretty much any document and costs $50... but at the rate they are going (price going the WRONG direction) it looks like I'll be waiting another 10 years.
That looks pretty awesome except all that crapping buttons on the right side taking valuable space. Bad design. No thanks...not that I could afford it anyway.