Sunday, May 26, 2013

Good e-Reader – Week in Review

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The Week in Review is a play on words, as we have reviewed a ton of new e-readers during SID Display Week 2013 and got our hands on some tech we never thought we would see. We reviewed over six new e-readers, and as for cool examples of tech, that should be hitting store shelves by the end of summer. If you missed reading our publication for a few days, here is the gist of what we extensively covered.

Sony 13.3 Inch e-Reader

The Sony Prototype e-Reader is the finest example of a company gearing an E Ink display for academics and PDF reading. The resolution on the display is 1200×1600 with 150 PPI. The main attraction is using the active digitizer and interacting with complex PDF documents. You can edit documents by jotting down your own handwritten notes, or even highlight passages to go back to later. The large screen display will simply give you the best PDF experience you have ever had on an e-reader. Our second look at the e-reader takes all of the user emails we got over the week and we went back to the show to get a true hands on. View it HERE.

Onyx E Ink Android Phone

Onyx intends on releasing a new phone this summer that is the first one in the world to use a front-lit E Ink screen. This is the same type of screen tech you would find in your run of the mill e-reader, such as the Kobo Aura HD and Kindle Paperwhite. On a phone, you will get a few weeks of battery life and will be able to load in your own apps. It is certainly a bold new step in the right direction for the future of mobility.

Book Live Reader by Lideo

The Booklive Reader by Lideo features an older version of E Ink Pearl with a resolution of 600×800 and 16 levels of grey. It has 4 GB of internal memory, but you only have 3 GB of practical use. There is no expandable memory, so you will not be able to load more content in via MicroSD. There is a 800 MHZ processor, which tends to make things fairly speedy. It is certainly not the best e-reader we have ever reviewed, and really has more going against it than going for it. I would give this one a miss, but read the full review and judge for yourself.

Toshiba BookPlace Mono

Trust me, this e-reader does not have the kissing disease, but its namesake is based on the E Ink display. It features a six inch e Ink Pearl Display with a resolution of 1024×768 pixels. It uses IR technology from Neonode instead of the traditional capacitive touchscreen. Underneath the hood is a Freescale i.MX508, 800MHz processor, and 512 MB RAM. It has 4 GB of internal memory that can be expanded further via the Micro SD card. This is a fairly solid reader, and if you are a fan of manga, graphic novels, and ebooks in Japanese, you might want to take a closer look. This model is only available in Japan and is one of the newest devices to hit the market.

Pocketbook Touch 2 or the Pocketbook Touch Lux

The Pocketbook Touch Lux features the same HD E Ink Pearl display found on the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Glo. The exact resolution is 1024×758 and it has a front-lit display, which is optimal for reading in the dark. It also has 256 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal memory, and a SD card support for up to 32 GB of memory. Battery life should be good up to 7,000 page turns. It also has an audio jack so you can listen to audiobooks and music. This e-reader really gives you nothing special and will likely be overpriced, considering the weak hardware underneath the hood. Still, Pocketbook is very solid about native support for almost every single ebook format currently being used.

The Tolino Shine

The Tolino Shine features a six inch E Ink Pearl display with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. You will be able to garner around seven weeks of battery life and store 2,000 ebooks on it with 4 GB of storage. If you need more memory, you can upgrade it via the Micro SD card. It primarily will read EPUB and PDF files. It does have support for Adobe Digital Editions, so you can read books you purchased from other stores. It will also be running on the Google Android operating system. This e-reader stemmed from a partnership between Thalia , Weltbild, Hugendubel, Bertelsmann Club, and Deutsche Telekom.

Mirasol Smart Watch and Phone

Mirasol screen technology used to have two display screens, that gave readers a very muted color scheme. This was very evident in the first onslaught of tablets they released a few years ago. Qualcomm went back to the drawing board and developed the second generation and demoed it in a smart watch and a new Android phone. The phone is especially interesting because it has a secondary screen on the back of it and is meant to be paired with the watch.

Digital Signs and E Ink

One of the big aspects of SID Display Week was that everyone and their mother was pimping out digital signs. E Ink developed two new technologies that are aimed at grocery stores, billboards, airports, and supermarkets. One piece of the technology is meant to replace paper price tags, the other will work in fridges, freezers, and up to -25 c environments.

Thor – Lord of Storms

Peter is starting to do Android app reviews on the Good e-Reader Youtube channel. we started with a new game that just came out, Thor – Lord of Storms.

What’s Happening Next Week?

The entire Good e-Reader team will be in New York covering Book Expo America and the IDPF. We are proud to be the main media sponsor of IDPF, alongside Publishers Weekly. We will be covering all of the sessions and publishing six to 12 stories a day about the future of publishing, self-publishing, ebooks, libraries, magazines, newspapers, EPUB3, HTML5, big data, and bringing you interviews with Sylvia Day, Otis Chandler, and tons of other industry movers and shakers. I am super excited that everyone will be there and it should be fun! Make Good e-Reader your one stop shop for next week for full coverage.

Good e-Reader – Week in Review is a post from: E-Reader News

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