Pulse On Tech-Digital Reader News

Yesterday (Jan 13) was the last day of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. As the tired out exhibitors took down their displays and packed up their gear to head to their homes, tech insiders are left wondering what devices will shape the technology industry in 2012.

There were over 3,000 electronic firms showing off 20,000 products at this year’s CES and there were indeed a few items which stood out from the crowd. The huge 55” OLED 3-D television unveiled by LG was a star of the show while tablets and ultrabooks running Windows 8 were abundant on the showroom floor. After browsing around the web reading what techies have to say, it seems as though televisions featuring cutting-edge technology were quite popular. However, most consumers won’t be able to afford the new OLED TVs anytime soon.

One could also dare to say that there was really nothing revolutionary offered this year by any of the large electronic manufacturers. Of course, tablets were the focus of many conversations as dozens of firms including Toshiba and Samsung showed off their upgraded tablets that they hope will give the iPad a run for its money. Toshiba showed the world its sleek new 10.1” tablet that weighs a mere 20 ounces. This thin new tablet did receive lots of praise from onlookers. As tablet prices are falling across the board, more and more consumers are interested in these devices. Therefore can expect tablets to stay in the news all year long and to sell well throughout 2012. It has been estimated that over 103 million tablets of varying brands will sell this year.

Color E-Ink Finally Here?
Color e-book readers using energy efficient screens will be made available in some parts of the world in 2012 which is a first. Two top manufacturers of color e-book screens were at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. E Ink, the manufacturer of screens for Nook and Kindle devices was displaying a 9.7” Ectaco color e-book reader that is currently being used in classrooms in Russia.

The color e-ink devices on display in Las Vegas feature rather muted colors and therefore would never be mistaken for the bright colors we are used to on LCD screens. It also should be mentioned that the e-readers featuring color e-ink are not capable of playing video as they are limited to still photo images only. However, those who got to see the devices up close report that the readability of the color ebook readers is indeed very good. Obviously, color e-ink has not yet been developed to its maximum potential to make it a viable screen option for most ebook reader manufacturers to consider offering.

It’s about time! Kindle announced last week that page numbers for the device are included in the most recent update for the number one selling ebook reader.

Kindle owners have been griping since day 1 that page numbers are missing from the eBooks they download.  Friends with Kindles who were reading the same books simultaneously complained that they had no way to reference pages as there were no numbers available.

It has been announced that Amazon will include page numbers on ten thousand books for anyone who takes the Kindle software upgrade, including the 100 bestselling books in the Kindle store.

In 2010, Amazon sold a whopping 8 million Kindle ereaders and more eBooks than it did paper books.  The company is hoping that the addition of page numbers will help to make those numbers continue to climb.

When I started this blog late last year, there was news story after news story online talking about the latest ebook readers being unveiled.  It was an exciting time and I loved reading all about the latest ereaders that were being developed for production and then distribution.  But now that we’re halfway through 2010,  ebook reader  enthusiasts everywhere are left scratching their heads wondering what’s causing the lull.

At the January 2010 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the ebook reader was all the rage. These devices were then, just a few short months ago, considered to be the biggest trend in technology.  At the CES, there was a wall of ebook readers on display all over the floor and company reps could be heard proudly boasting of their particular ereader as they allowed eager show attendees to give them a whirl.  The air was filled with electricity and the e-reading device was all the rage!

That was then and this is now. We were expecting a flood of ebook readers to hit the market. So what happened? Did the Apple iPad launch pull the plug on the promising ebook reader world?

One of the most exciting ebook readers many people have been (and still are) waiting for is the Que from Plastic Logic.  The slick, super-thin and light reader features a flexible touchscreen display which was certain to make this ereader stand out from the crowd. The Plastic Logic Que should have been in the consumer’s hands by now, but it’s has been delayed repeatedly.  The only thing we are being told now is that the Que will be available ’sometime this summer’. Hmmm.
Another ereader that stirred up a lot of excitement at the CES was the Skiff. This unique e-reader is also thin and flexible that boasts a 3G connection. The Skiff was supposed to be sold in Sprint stores.  Well, now News Corp. is purchasing the Skiff publishing platform and it seems that the Skiff e-reader is not a part of that deal and that Hearst is looking for a buyer.  So until (and if)  someone buys the device,  the Que is sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust.

These are just two examples of how e-readers are seemingly vanishing into thin air.  What exactly did happen between the Consumer Electronic Show and now?  Many people think it was the Apple iPad that happened and maybe they’re right and maybe they’re wrong. Or, it could be that consumers simply lost interest or that many people just were not all that willing to part with a couple hundred dollars for a new piece of technology.  I tend to think it’s a little bit of all of the above and that perhaps even the shaky economy played a role.  But who knows, really?

What do you think is causing the delays in production of dozens of ebook readers?

Apple has just announced that its iPad has grabbed 22% of ebook sales since its release and that the device is soon to get some new features. There will be a PDF viewer thrown into the iBooks application at the end of June and it will be joined by the ability to bookmark and take notes.

I was one of the many skeptical people out there that said that the Apple iPad and ebook readers are simply not the same things. You cannot compare the two really as the iPad is a tablet that is designed for, well, playing games, viewing videos, listening to tunes, sending emails and surfing the net.  In my opinion it is a toy for Apple fans who have four or five hundred bucks to throw around.  It does have the ereading capability but I never dreamed that I would be reading the fact that Apple now is already responsible for nearly a quarter of all ebook sales.  Steve Jobs is quick to point out that a whopping  five million ebooks have already been downloaded onto the iPad  and it has only been on the market for a couple of months!

I own an iPod Touch. It’s a first generation Touch that I actually bought used on an online auction site from a young lady who was ditching it for a new iPhone.  The reason I bought it was to see how it did as a ebook reader. The first thing I did was to take the Apple upgrade so that the device had the same ‘guts’ so to speak as the gen 3 iPod Touch. I then downloaded Stanza and loaded a few free books onto the device. I actually was very impressed with the clarity, fast page turns and the opportunity to increase the font size of the text as well as dim or brighten the backlight.

So back to the more interesting news.  Apple is also set to expand its iBooks user base by offering the app to the iPhone and iPod touch users. So this means I can get the same note-taking and bookmarking features, only on my smaller screen and for free! It will be possible to buy a book on one device and then read it on a wide range of iDevices.

While not an Apple fan I do own one of their devices and I do like it.  I simply do not agree with Apple politics and the recent happenings with the ‘lost’ iPhone and how Apple reacted did not sit well with me.  But the fact remains that Apple is doing well with the iPad and obviously a whole lot of people are using it as a e-reading device in spite of the fact that it weighs a pound and a half.

What do you think? Are ebook readers doomed? Please leave your thoughts and comments!

Borders doesn’t make the best ebook reader in the world but they have set their sights on winning the price war no matter what.

The Aluratek Libre was originally being sold for about $245.00 but now Borders has announced that it will be collaborating with Aluratek to offer the Libre eBook Reader Pro for $119. The Reader Pro is now available for pre-order on the Borders website with shipments to take place in the beginning of July. The Libre will also be sold in Borders stores inside the specially-made digital shops called the “Area-e” in August.

The $119 price tag will make the Libre one of the lowest priced ebook readers on the market. Borders is planning on providing consumers with several choices in ereaders to make sure that anyone who wants one will be able to afford one.  Borders will offer up to ten devices by the end of 2010 which is great for anyone who does not have the normal $250 up to $500 to spend on a digital reader.

To refresh your memory, the Libre has the ability to play music, display digital photos, has an auto-off feature, a page advance function and an Reflect Light LCD technology with great battery life which allows you to continuously  read for up to 24 hours.  Libre owners will be able to download books at the Borders eBook store which is powered by Kobo. The Libre also offers lightening fast page turns on its five inch black and white screen.  Libre users love the fact that there is no flickering and flashes on pages turns which is one down side to e-ink screens – of which the Libre does not possess.

So, if you have been holding out for an inexpensive ebook reader that is very capable, then you may want to pre-order the Libre now.  It it not one of the market’s leading sellers but it does deliver on its promise of providing you with a pleasant digital reading experience, just minus the bells and whistles.

Pandigital, widely known for producing those nifty digital photo frames, announced this week that it will be releasing a $199 ebook reader that features a seven inch TFT LCD color touchscreen display.  Users will have access to the Barnes&Noble eBookstore as well as Panadigital’s own LendMe estore. The new Pandigital e-reader  looks very much like the iPad, which is a good thing and should help to push sale figures up.

The new reader called the Pandigital Novel (nice name) offers an 800×600 resolution screen, an SD/MMC memory slot for expansion, Wi-Fi connectivity and 1 GB of on-board memory. Due to ship out in June 2010, the Android-powered Novel can handle PDF, ePub and HTML file formats.  While it has no 3G it does sport an ARM 11 processor. The Android OS means that there will be many apps, which is exciting and something to look forward to! You can not only download ebooks on the Novel, but you can also watch video in living color and show off your favorite photographs.

Pandigital already has a whole slew of retailers so you will be able to pick up the Novel at neighborhood stores such as Macy’s, Kohls or Costco.  Pandigital says that a another Novel is on the horizon later this year which will be an 2GB model and that will have access to AT&T’s Edge network which reaches 97% of the United States.  There is also a 6 inch Novel ereader being developed now.

Who knows? With a reasonable price of $199 and a color screen, maybe the Novel is just what is needed right now to rival the pricey iPad and the leading black and white e-readers such as the Kindle and all those that copied it.

While we wait for the arrival of some of the highly anticipated ebook readers to hit the market, we will take this opportunity to look at a few ereaders that we happened to overlook in the past. One of those is an digital reader that has been out for a few years now, but one that we think is definitely worth looking at.

The Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 ebook reader is one of the lightest ereaders on the market today. Marketed by the French company Bookeen, the Gen 3 carries the same basic hardware as many of the most popular ebook readers on the market.

The Cybook Gen 3 uses e-ink display technology to offer low-glare, high contrast viewing and  four greyscales on the display screen which is great for general reading but not so great for graphics, compared to sixteen greyscales that are on the other readers offered by Sony, Amazon and iRex.

The Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 was given an overall ‘Freak Score’ rating of 8.9 by testfreaks.com which is quite good for a little ereader with 512 MB of memory, and an SD card slot. The reason it did not get a 9 or higher is most likely due to the fact that the Gen 3 consists of a directory structure that makes it impossible to organize your books in sub directories. Instead, you are forced to keep everything in one big directory which can lead to a lot of confusion and overcrowding if you have downloaded a lot of material.

The Cybook Gen 3’s lithium ion battery is good for 8,000 page turns which is one of the best on the market and it also offers fast page turns which is a big plus in our book as no one wants to wait more than a second or two in order to go onto the next page.

The Gen 3 supports ten file format types and users can gain access to large collections of ebooks via different websites using the encrypted Mobipocket format featured. The Gen 3 sells for $350 which is a bit steep considering there is no wireless connectivity offered and the fact that it is basically just t a good, basic 6″ reader that looks nice and is thin and portable. You can easily find other readers on the market that are very similar to the Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 at far cheaper prices but the Gen 3 has enjoyed brisk sales, which goes to show that people who want a reliable and basic reader are still willing to fork out that kind of money – at least for now.

GoodReads gives the Bookeen CyBook Gen 3 a 4.3 star rating out of five stars. If the price was a bit lower, I would agree, but with the hefty price tag, I would rate it as average.

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is conducting an experiment with ebook readers and although the study is not completed yet, most of the students would rather not to use the Kindle ereader in the classroom.

These results match up with other Kindle experiments being done elsewhere on college campuses. Students are reporting that they enjoy doing personal reading on the device, but that it simply doesn’t cut the cake when it comes to classroom work.

Students were given a Kindle DX instead of textbooks and paper handouts. There are seven schools in total that are taking part in the experiment. At the University of Virginia, the main concern expressed by the students was the fact that the device is too rigid for using in the classrooms where the Socratic method and case-based pedagogy is used, which requires students to be rather nimble.  Students complain that it is not easy to quickly change pages. Nor is it easy to quickly flip through graphs, charts and documents compared to paper.

A mid-study survey was conducted and when asked if they would recommend the Kindle DX to incoming students,  75 to 80% of the participating students said “no”.  When asked if they would recommend the device for personal reading, 90 to 95%  said “yes”.

What this study is telling us so far is that Amazon has a great electronic device available for people who wish to read their books, magazines and newspapers digitally, but it is not suitable for the typical, busy classroom.

Surprising? Not really.  I agree that with the technology we  now have with ereading devices, that they are indeed great for pleasure reading but are not all that practical for classroom use.  You can certainly flip through a paper book quickly when looking for information, fold the corners of the pages and quickly grab a pencil to make notes. The students simply feel that they are not practical  or all that convenient to use.  So, surely the team over at Amazon will probably be disappointed with the final findings of this experiment and it goes to show that it’s clearly new technology with tons of room for improvement.

All About Kindle

If you have been on the lookout for a basic, ebook reader that is priced inexpensively, then your wait may be over. Borders will make the Kobo ereader available starting June 17th and with a price tag of just $150, you will get a good six inch ereader to make your summer reading enjoyable and fun.

The Kobo can be pre-ordered now if you are anxious. Borders will launch its own ebook store in June and also plans to set up special areas in all of its brick and mortar stores to sell the Kobo and other ereaders this August.

The Kobo ebook reader will come pre-loaded with 100 titles – all classics. The Borders eBook store will consist of over one million books which shoppers will be able to purchase at its website as well as through free apps for various devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry and iPad as well as PCs.

The Kobo got some good remarks when various techie sites did a few hands-on reviews, although it was noted that sometimes the download times were a bit on the sluggish side.   If you are in no big rush to load books onto an electronic book reader, $150 will buy you a very capable reader sure to please.

These days, if you are a manufacturer of electronic gadgets,  you must make an ereader. Smart Devices is the latest entrant into the ever-growing field with the new Smart R7.

The R7 features a seven inch LCD  800 x 600 resolution, capacitive  color touchscreen that will make reading magazines a wonderful experience as it is capable of rendering sixteen million colors. It is believed that there is a big market out there for ebook readers made specifically for magazine reading, and if Smart gets it right with this reader, it should do well – as long as the price is reasonable.

The Smart R7 will also support PDF files. There is not much information available about the device thus far as it is in development but as you can see by the photo, the case features four buttons on the bottom of the 7-inch screen and it supposedly will also come with a stylus that is built into the body.

Smart Devices is the manufacturer of some very popular tablets such as the SmartQ 5 and SmartQ 7. The latter currently sells for just $250, and we have just discovered that the R7 will sell for just under that price.

The Smart R7 will be tied to an online magazine store where you can buy and download digital magazines directly through the device via it’s on board Wi-Fi connectivity. It will also allow users to play 1080p video and music.

As soon as we find out some more specifics about the R7 such as specs, memory and such, we will update this post.