Elonex has been dabbling in
small screen wares for quite some time
now, so it's not a huge surprise to finally see it join the likes of BeBook, Sony and Amazon by introducing its very own
eBook reader. Design wise, the 6-inch reader looks an awful lot like that played-out OEM model that everyone seems to start with, but hey, you won't find us kvetching about competition. The device is launching exclusively at Borders UK, and with that comes the new Borders eBook Download Store. With a 4GB expansion card, there's room for some 8,000 ebooks, and the 9 millimeter-thin frame ensures that this one won't bog you down too much. Interested consumers over in the UK can snap this one up right now for £189 ($311), and that price nets you 100 free ebooks, a charger, data cable and a great sense of pride.
[Thanks, Sam]
posted Jul 1st 2009 12:46PM
OMG
I live in NYC. I have NEVER seen anyone on the subway or on the street using one of these - although I'm sure somewhere it does happen.
I read what I've got to read on my cellphone.
Is there some sort of international trade law that states that an eBook reader can't cost less than $300 after tax?
@QuantumPhysics: Do you mean the Elonex, or just an eBook? Here in San Fran, I see a Kindle probably every other day, although it could just be the same few people I see on the subway all the time.
I take a ferry in San Francisco once a while, there are tons of people with kindle ... $311 is pretty pricey although with 100 free books, it's not actually that bad. The only question I would have is how the books are protected in case you break the player.
by "protected" I mean copyright (re-download from the website)
I just bought one. Wonder if this will be better then a kindle...
I never trust the opinion one who doesn't know the difference between 'then' and 'than'. Which is probably about half the internet.
It looks decent. However I'd rather never set foot in a Borders branch. They're the Starbucks of the book the world. I abhor them :-(
@redcard: I never trust the opinion OF one who doesn't know the use of a preposition. Oh là là, the beauty and irony of internet grammatical corrections.
Their isn't nothing wrong with you're grammer.
@ Commenting: I believe that's "Ooh la la." And the label for that particular irony to which you are referring is Muphry's Law. Not Murphy. Look it up. It'll be your new favourite law. And it dictates that I must certainly have made a grammar, syntax, spelling or usage error in this comment. It wasn't "favourite" though: I'm Canadian.
@David: From French from France, the correct spelling of "la" is là as it is an dropping grave accent.
That is the correct usage such as in the book by Juste Olivier, Gustave Roux, G Staal, E Willmann
http://books.google.com/books?id=ERZbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA442&lpg=PA442&dq=oh+la+la&source=bl&ots=kIMH-Ppiej&sig=A7M2wCVAZLpCqvCFl-b0-S2UwE0&hl=en&ei=V_tLSuHQAZCZtgeCu6SNDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4
I can tell you that Wikipedia is wrong on that.
I see ebook readers are becoming the new fad taking over netbooks. Soon, everyone and their mom will be making these readers. IMHO, nothing can replace the feel and comfort of a real book.
Don't forget the smell of a new book. That's always nice.
Don't forget the price of a new book. That's always nice. Oh, wait...
Yes, I was about to point that out - the smell of a new book - but then I remember the pungent smell of an old book: a cure for nasal congestion.
I've owned a Sony E-reader for over a year now I love it and your both right I still miss the feel of a regular book so I just use it when I travel but when Im home I still buy and read the "Old" style.. damn I feel lame saying that..
Trees disagree.
I disagree. I like books well enough, but the physical package is really meaningless, it's the words that matter.
But nearly ANY option can replace their weight, their bulk. Books are great for some things, but its not like they can best ereaders at everything.
A Kindle can be any book you want. It supports search, annotation, and connectionless search and purchasing via the wireless modem. That's convenience a book can't dream of. It's still fragile, expensive, and bogged down with DRM, but its strong points are really strong.
Yep.. they will never replace the joy of slipping it out of it's sleeve and putting it on the turntab..... Oh wait.. Wrong argument. That was vinyl.
Well
They will never be able to replace the tactile pleasure of holding a jewel case in your hands and reading the booklet as you listen to the CD..
Damn.. wrong thing again..
I know..
You can't fondle an e-book!!
Got it.
"The Elonex eBook is available from Borders UK stores nationwide (UK) priced at £189 and includes 100 free eBooks, a free Mains charger and data cable. An optional eBook Accessory Pack is available for £29 and includes a luxury leather eBook case and a 4GB expansion card allowing up to 8000 eBooks to be stored."
Is it really THAT hard to read a press release correctly?
Having never owned an E-book reader, I'm wondering if it's possible to perform the equivalent of underlining passages, bookmarking multiple pages, writing in the margins, and throwing it in a bag with a bunch of other stuff sans some type of case without it breaking? If not, I'll just stick with old books.
Book reading should be about function > fashion
And I can't imagine a good argument for how many books you can fit on one of these readers; how many books do people really need with them?
I believe that with both the Amazon and Sony Readers you can highlight, write in margins, and place multi bookmarks. I haven't made the dip yet but I researched them for my girlfriend since she told me she wanted the ability to do all the things you mentioned.
But won't writting in your eBook decrease the book's resale value?
Oh wait....you can't re-sell an $80 ebook
@ rickjamess04:
Good call. If that's truly the case, perhaps they're a bit more functional than I originally supposed. Nonetheless, I have to agree with some of you that nothing really beats the feel of a true book. Not sure why I feel that way; maybe I'm just old school...
As a daily walk/train commuter, it's not about the ability to carry multiple books, it's about being able to read the newest, large, hardbacks while not carrying about that much weight with me.
I have a Kindle 2, and a Kindle DX and you can on both :)
@all things considered
Why wouldn't you be able to re sell an ebook? It's akin to selling a used laptop or any other electronic device...
I sold my sony reader for $250 and pitched in towards a kindle dx.
Yep, it is called highlighting and annotation on the kindle. pretty easy to use the feature. Though I've only done it once or twice. I tried the sony reader and wasn't a fan, I was then given the kindle 2 as a b-day present and prefer that one not just on price (hey, it was free to me!) but I like the feel of it better.
I personally can't wait until e-book readers are as ubiquitous as cell phones and ipods. It will drop the price quite a bit and convince more publishers to provide e-editions of their books. I just hope we can pick a standardized format... though the portable device power plug standardization gives me a little hope for that.
The 100 free eBooks are on teh Elonex site as a zipfile you can download. A bunch of the usual free book as .htm or .txt.
fyi Sony E-Reader PRS-505/SC is £179.99 at play.com for uk peeps
Why would anyone buy this over the cheaper, metal chassis 2nd generation Sony?
I'd pay up to AUD$200 for this Sony PRS-700, but no more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5wBUfVsnuU
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665562069
ebooks refresh slowly, have no colour, limited availability (even if you count pirated content), etc. But the potential for these devices is quite great, particularly simple things like zooming in and out the text to accommodate different readers needs and managing lots of books on the go. I also don't care how long the battery lasts, I want it removable (especially if reading with the light, which should suck the battery down a fair bit more).
I would also love to see books being sold with multiple translations for a more worldwide audience, much like you can switch between DVD subtitles and audio on the same disc. However I won't be interested in buying the books if the files are locked to the device or memory stick...
Interesting also would be the ability to easily convert Joe Customer's paper-based stuff to electronic form extremely easily for his own private use (there is still no simple way to do this for the masses, IMO), and I think something like this would be done by a company outside of the traditional ebook-selling market, somehow.
This all makes no sense if they keep charging for ebooks like they do physical items, though. I simply won't be interested unless ebooks are around half the price (or less) of physical items - especially with current limited B&W technology and loose standards (and no support for djvu...)
I believe we on the cusp of an eReader launch every couple weeks. Saturation (and profit margin compression), here we come....
Or ubiquity and acceptance.
I would just like an ereader which supports all of the common book formats without predjudice and comes at a fair price. Better yet if it also comes with some solid software for reformating A4 docs and the like down to a portable size. If the manufacturer wants to integrate with their own store as well then fine, but make the device useful whether I wish to use their store or not.
If that sounds far fetched consider how it worked for the iPod. When that launched (and still to this day) it played MP3 files. It was only through that and having decent sync software that Apple were able to sell songs from their own site.
The last thing I would be interested in is a POS like the Kindle which is basically a dumb slave to the Amazon store. Who the hell are these people buying this thing? It might be understandable if the device were much cheaper due to its tying but there is no evidence of that either.
Why do you think that the Kindle is a dumb slave to Amazon?
No ebook readers support all formats yet.
That said, you can buy books from other sites for a Kindle, you can get tons of free books that can be read on a Kindle, and you can transfer your own documents to a Kindle. Not much of a dumb slave.
Please read a little more before you post.
In my mind, the two technologies that I'm waiting for and possible gamebreakers in the Ebook technology space are
1) Plastic Logic's Ebook reader. The form factor of thinness seems to be the big "wow" appeal for this piece of kit but the important things that I'm looking at for this machine is the PDF support and their work going forward in regards to subscription services. It can be seen as the real bridge that allows transition between paper media to digital AND vice versa. People may not be as put off from using Eink if the view and layout of their book, newspaper or scientific periodical looks like their physical copy
2) Apple's response to the netbook / ebook market. Now what if Apple comes out with a tablet sized IPod touch? Granted, a touch screen of that size and flash memory greater than 8GB with a battery that can power it for 4-5hrs is somewhat expensive , but its in the realm of the possible. Given that people already pay $300+ for a Kindle or a netbook, paying say $100-200 for a product that combines both wouldn't be much of a stretch. Combined with an established multimedia and application store and you have yourselves one handy piece of kit.
Ive been saving for a ebook for a while now but without good PDF and foreign language support, mainly Chinese & Japanese support, I've been holding back. Plastic Logic is the one I've eyeing since its demo, but if Apple makes an "ITablet" its an instant purchase. Not writing that as an Apple fanboi but writing it because Apple is selling something I'm buying - digitial convergence of media (movies & music) and information (email, news).
You must not be well versed in technology to think that ebooks and netbooks are even comparable or combinable... or to think that such a "itablet" from Apple would only cost $100-$200.
@ Blah
DOH! - what I meant to type was
"Given that people already pay $300+ for a Kindle or a netbook, paying say $100-200 MORE for a product that combines both wouldn't be much of a stretch." One possibility I can see is $549 intro price point for an ITablet with some sort of subscription based fees, say AT&T Wireless or NewsCorp.
Ebooks essentially are just larger displays for text. Netbooks is pretty much my old x86 desktop in a portable package. My current IPod 32gb can serve the functions that both can do right now - using Stanza or EReader I can read ebooks and all the apps , be it built in or added on, can do all the functions I want out of a netbook (read / send email , watch movies, listen to music). I was kinda bummed that OS 3.0 only had Stereo Bluetooth, or I would have paired it with the Bluetooth keyboard for writing documents I used with my Nokia N800 (which I have sadly relegated as a file server). Again, its all wishful thinking at this point, but if they make an IPod touch with the footprint of a standard 8x11 piece of paper, Id be happy.
Finally, granted, its been a while since I put together a Solaris Enterprise server ( I worked on 3000s,5000s and E10Ks for a living) but you dont have to be much of techie to have typos or appreciate a larger IPod touch.
Umm... ebooks have this thing called an electronic ink screen, which has a refresh rate of one frame per second... It doesn't require a backlight in ambient lighting, and therefore can read like paper and uses almost no electrocity to simply have the screen on. It's a relatively new technology that is 180 degrees different from LCD screens...
e ink screen is good for reading text, but horrible for all these other things you would expect an "itablet" to do, whereas LCD is a horrible drain on battery life and its backlight causes eye strain. So.... unless something completely new comes along, this ebook/netbook combination is not possible, especially at a $500 price point.
Do you know of any e-book reader that supports a bluetooth or usb external keyboard?