Archive for the ‘Other eReaders’ Category
iriver Story HD review no comments
The Story HD ereader from iriver is one of the latest e-ink based ereader to enter the US marketplace. At this time the Story HD is available exclusively through Target and is priced at $139.99. The Story HD has two features that differentiate it from the other e-ink ereaders out there. The first is its screen resolution of 1024 x 768, which is higher than the 800 x 600 resolution of the Pearl display utilized by the Kindle 3 and other current generation e-ink ereaders. The second unique feature is that this ereader is integrated with the Google eBookstore.
The Story HD has a white front and brown back. The power switch is on the back and on the edges are found an SD card slot and USB port. Like the Kindle there is a chiclet keyboard below the screen.
The long silver button directly below the screen is actually a four-way rocker switch. This functions as the page turning button when either end is pressed. There are no page turning buttons at the sides of the screen, and this makes this ereader very awkward to hold and operate one-handed in the left hand. There are also directional arrow keys in the lower right section of the keyboard that can also be used to turn pages — this makes one-handed operation of the Story HD more comfortable if held in the right hand.
The library screen also serves as the Story HD’s home screen. You can sort your library by Recent, Favorites, Author or Title. You can also search through the files on you device, but in order to do this you have to hit the Options key, and then click through about 4 other items — very clumsy; this should be doable with one click from within the library.
The Story HD has one font only, with eight different sizes. The size differential between the font size settings is very small however. From the smallest font (which is a bit smaller than the smallest font size of the Kindle 3) to the largest is equivalent to going from the smallest to between the fourth and fifth size on the Kindle 3. At the largest setting capital letters are only about 5/32”. This ereader will not be a good choice for those who need to use larger size fonts.
Reading tools are accessed by tapping the Options button on the keyboard. From the resultant menu users can connect to the Google eBookstore and buy the ebook currently being read (if it is a sample), Go to Page, Add Bookmark, see a list of bookmarks or the table of contents. Here is also where one accesses the built-in Collins English Dictionary of the Story HD. This is a dictionary search tool in which you have to type the word to look up. There is no note-taking or highlighting feature, nor can you search within an ebook.
The keyboard also features a Home button, and there is a Back button that actually works well and will take you back multiple steps — at least until you get back to the Home screen; it won’t take you back further than your most recent visit to the Home/Library page.
When reading PDF files the Options menu also lets you switch reflow on and off. You can zoom in and out by hitting the font key and then either end of the page turning bar. The Story HD does not maintain the magnification level from page to page with PDFs — you have to re-zoom with each page. While zoomed in you can pan around the page using the arrow keys.
I think reading a lot of PDF files on the Story HD is going to get frustrating as the native font size is probably going to be too small and you will have to zoom in again after you turn to each new page. You can switch to landscape mode, which widens the page to fit the screen and may provide adequate magnification for some documents.
I honestly have not seen much advantage from the higher resolution of the Story HD. The display seems to have a bit more gray in the background than the Pearl displays of the Kindle 3 or Nook Touch. To me, the higher resolution of the Story HD does not translate into better looking text — in fact, I think the text looks better on the Kindle 3. Where I did notice a slight difference is when viewing certain graphics in a PDF file — fine lines on the Story HD were slightly sharper, but I would not buy this ereader just for the finer resolution.
When I first unpacked the Story HD I had to charge the batteries. Over the next week I left the Wi-Fi on and read a book of about 500 pages. After seven days I already needed to charge the batteries again — that is not very good battery life for an ereader. With the Wi-Fi off battery life is improved, but the Story HD does not come close to matching the Nook Touch or Kindle 3 ereaders in this regard. There really is no reason to leave the Wi-Fi on except when purchasing ebooks from Google or downloading an update, as these are the only purposes the connection serves — there is no browser.
iriver Story HD vs Kindle 3 vs Nook Touch
The price of the Story HD at Target.com has been reduced from $139.99 to $99.99. Even at this lower price I think you would be better off with the Kindle Wi-Fi with Special Offers at $114 or even a refurbished Nook Touch for $112. Either of these will give you a much more full-featured ereader for only a few dollars more.
The Story HD is a very basic ereader with a bare bones feature set. The Kindle 3 ereader has far more features, including accessibility features that will be necessary for readers with visual impairments. Then, of course, there is the Kindle Store, which I usually prefer to the Google Book shop. The Kindle platform also seems much more sophisticated when reading an ebook across multiple devices.
The Nook Touch with its touchscreen and beautiful design is much more pleasurable to use and also has more features. The Nook platform also works better for me when using multiple devices than the Google Book app in its present state.
The Kindle 3, Nook Touch and Kobo Touch are all much more comfortable to hold and use than the Story HD, which has a very limited range of positions in which it can comfortably be held. One-handed operation can be very awkward and frustrating with the Story HD.
If you are a big fan of Google Books than perhaps the Story HD will be appealing. Even then I would prefer the Nook Touch or the Kobo Touch. In theory you should be able to sideload ebooks you purchase from Google to any ePub compatible ereader via Adobe DE, but this sometimes seems to work better in Google’s instructions than it does in real life.
Covers for the iriver Story HD
The Story HD is about the same size as the Kindle 3, and I think most covers for Amazon’s ereader that use elastic corner bands should also work with the Story HD. Kindle 3 sleeves should also fit. I have used my Verso cover with the Story HD (see my review). One problem is that the power switch of the Story HD is on the back, so you have to lift the ereader up against the straps and slide your finger underneath to power it up. This is a hassle, but not insurmountable — see the video above.
Kiwi Cases makes a few covers especially for the Story HD that are mostly priced at under $20. CaseCrown also offers a selection of low-priced cases for the Story HD ereader.
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New Pandigital Nova ereader/tablet at Best Buy no comments
Best Buy is listing a new reading tablet from Pandigital. The Nova features a 7-inch LCD touchscreen (600 x 800 resolution) and runs Android 2.3. 
As with the other Pandigital ereaders, the Barnes & Noble Nook ebookstore is integrated. The Pandigital Nova is priced at $169.99 and is currently shown as expected to ship in 1-2 weeks.
Some of the Nova ereader’s other features:
- MicroSD card slot.
- Mini USB 2.0 port.
- Wi-Fi (802/11b/g/n).
- 4GB internal memory.
- Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.25 x .5 inches; weighs 13.8 ounces.
Update: The Nova is one of three new 7-inch tablets from Pandigital. The other two run Android 2.2 and are named the Planet and the Star. Pandigital also says it will announce a fourth tablet in September.
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iriver Story HD with Google eBooks coming to Target no comments
The iriver Story HD is the first ereader to be fully integrated with Google eBooks, and it will be sold exclusively in the US by Target beginning July 17. The new ereader will be priced at $139.99.
Some of the features of the Story HD:
- 6-inch e-ink display with a resolution of 1024 x 768.
- Wi-Fi.
- Weighs 7.3 ounces
- Battery life of up to 14,000 page turns or six weeks.
- SD card slot.
- Chiclet keyboard.
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Barnes & Noble settles lawsuit with Spring Design no comments
You may recall that Spring Design, makers of the Alex ereader, filed a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble in November of 2009, right after the original Nook ereader was launched. Spring Design alleged that B&N violated an NDA between the two companies and misappropriated trade secrets. 
Essentially Spring Design said that B&N copied its ideas and incorporated them into the Nook ereader.
Today comes word that the two companies have settled the lawsuit:
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Spring Design will grant Barnes & Noble a non-exclusive, paid-up royalty free license for the entire portfolio of Spring Design patents and patent applications. The terms of the settlement are otherwise confidential. The settlement agreement announced today resolves all claims brought by Spring Design, which will be dismissed with prejudice.
Eugene V. DeFelice, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Barnes & Noble, Inc., said, “We are pleased to put this matter behind us. NOOK ColorTM and NOOKTM, together with Spring Design’s patents and patent applications, have become two of our most innovative and highly-sought after devices. Barnes & Noble is pleased to add Spring Design’s patents and patent applications as a complementary addition to our rapidly growing digital portfolio.”
And what happened to the Alex ereader? It has been discontinued
and is no longer for sale. Spring Design says on its website, “In order to focus our resources on developing next generation eReader products and services, Spring Design is discontinuing retail sales of the Alex Reader at this time.”
The barriers to entry into the ereader market created by the low prices of the ereaders sold by content companies such as Amazon, B&N, and Kobo are steep and make it very difficult for hardware-only companies like Spring Design to succeed.
Spring Design says it is concentrating on its ReadMate technology that enabled the epaper and LCD screens to work so smoothly together on the Alex ereader. Co-founder Albert Teng is now running Spring after “ a major restructuring of the company.” I’m guessing that we won’t see any more hardware from Spring itself, but its technology might be used in other devices. The press statement from B&N says the license it received is non-exclusive.
This might be a big win for Barnes & Noble. The terms of the settlement between the two companies were not disclosed, but according to the statement B&N has access to the complete patent portfolio of Spring Design and will not have to pay any royalties for using any of it. If B&N releases a new version of the original Nook ereader we should at the very least expect the LCD screen to be much better integrated with the EPD than the current model, now that B&N has access to Spring’s patent portfolio.
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Tablet & ereader news – 1/9/2011 no comments
Trying to catch up on some of the happenings I have not had a chance to write about while I was at CES.
Kobo was not present at CES other than being featured on some of the hardware, but they have timed a couple of press releases to coincide with the show.
Kobo says that it now has access to more than 20 million consumers through forging relationships with over a dozen partners such as tablet and ereader manufacturers and mobile operators.
“In 2011, Kobo will emerge as the leading eReading service thanks to the adoption of tablets like the iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and RIM Playbook. We estimate that Kobo will be preloaded on over 20 million devices this year,” said Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo. “As the only pure-play service in the space, our strategy has always been to make eReading available on any device, and our open-platform eReading applications and eBook store have proven to be popular among tablet OEMs looking to offer eReading to their customers.”
Kobo also announced access to more than 175,000 PDF’s geared toward education at prices that are lower than textbooks. The PDF files can be viewed on Kobo eReaders, the Kobo Desktop Application and via Adobe Digital Editions software.
Topics included in the collection include medical texts and dictionaries, economics and business manuals, technical manuals and academic and scientific texts. The titles come from over 2,000 participating publishers, including Prentice-Hall, McGraw-Hill, Blackwell, Palgrave, The World Bank, Springer, Financial Times Press, Routledge and a number of university presses. For more information see the Kobo website.
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Copia had a big booth at CES and banners everywhere accompanied by a couple of announcements. Copia says that it has released its social reading app for Windows 7 devices, added support for IE9 at its website and released an Android app. Motorola featured the Copia app on its Droid X smartphone at CES. Looks like Copia has given up on marketing any devices of its own.
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Ectaco has announced a new ereader – the jetBook K-12. The new ereader will be aimed at the educational market and will come pre-loaded with books from the 50 State Reading Lists and a host of other features aimed at students:
The key features of the jetBook K-12, aside of being an eBook reader with built-in books from 50 State Reading Lists and a variety of editing, storing, memorization and text processing features are extended to Speaking Oxford English Dictionaries, Speaking Oxford English-Spanish (or one of the soon available 38 languages) Dictionaries, the most comprehensive electronic SAT and ACT preparation course with endless lessons, Speed Reading courses to aid students in learning to read faster, English-Spanish (or one of 12 available language pairs) Text Translation System that can translate any text in full, English, Spanish and other language grammar courses, Interactive Phonetic Language Teacher® program to teach virtually any language step by step, Linguistic crosswords, Graphing, Scientific and Accounting Calculators, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science reference books, interactive course of US History and Facts, interactive Periodic Table of Elements, Text and Voice Note storage, Audiobooks Player and much more. The jetBook K-12 is equipped with speech recognition and a voice feedback system to help disabled students navigate freely through each section.
The K-12 ereader will sport a 5-inch reflective TFT display. The release of the K-12 is said to be “upcoming.” I didn’t see this new ereader at the Ectaco booth at CES, nor can I find any pictures of it. In a handout I was given at the booth there is the following picture of a “jetBook Oxford+” which lists all of the features above and comes with a scanning pen.
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Hanvon has also unveiled a new 9.7-inch ereader – the Hanvon WISEreader E920. Besides features such as TTS, PDF annotations and instant Chinese-English translating, the E920 e-ink display has a resolution of 200 dpi. This is higher and should provide a crisper view of graphics than the Kindle DX which has a resolution of 150 dpi. According to E Ink Holdings the resolution of the Pearl e-ink display is capable of exceeding 200 dpi. The picture below is from Hanvon.
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Jinke announces 9.7-inch color epaper ereaders no comments
Jinke announced today that it will unveil several new ereader models at CES 2011. The new ereaders will feature 9.7-inch color e-ink displays and feature IR-based touchscreens.
Hanvon also recently announced plans to release a color ereader utilizing color epaper from E Ink Holdings in the first quarter of 2011. I’m guessing that the IR-based touchscreen will be from Neonode, which supplied the very good touchscreen for the newest Sony ereaders.
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New ereaders for the Indian market 1 comment
Singapore-based Vestal Enterprises today announced some rather ambitious plans to launch a new line of six different ereaders for the Indian market. Five of the new “LeAF” (again with the StudlyCaps) ereaders will have e-ink displays and one is an Android device with an LCD display.
Four of the e-ink ereaders have 6-inch screens and one comes with a 9-inch display. Other features like touchscreen or lack thereof vary by model. The new ereaders will support 18 Indian languages.
Detailed pricing information has not yet been announced, but is said to start at Rs 8,999 ($200 USD). Vestal plans to sell its ereaders at major bookstores as well as online.
I will be somewhat surprised if Vestal actually launches all of these ereaders. Companies that have promised to launch a whole line of multiple ereader models have not exactly had a great track record. Remember Copia?
In fact, ebooks appear to be enjoying less success in India than in other parts of the world. A recent article in the Times of India blames this on a “lack of cheap ereaders and technological awareness” among the Indian people. I imagine having so many languages and dialects to deal with might have an impact as well.
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Pandigital Novel Personal eReader – Unboxing and Review 3 comments
I’ve had the Pandigital Novel Personal eReader 
now for a little over a week. Unlike Pandigital’s original Novel ereader, which had an LCD display and was not well received, the Novel Personal uses a monotone SiPix e-ink display. I was curious to see not only how well Pandigital would do on their second entry into the ereader space, but also how the SiPix screen compares to E Ink’s displays.
The Novel Personal has a 6-inch screen and measures 7 x 4.8 x .5 inches according to the Pandigital website, but the dimensions on the one I received are a bit different: 6.63 x 4.88 x .38 inches. It is a bit thicker and less elegant-seeming than other current ereaders. I don’t want to be mean and use the term brick-like, but that was my first impression.
The new Novel ereader is bright white with a black panel at the bottom. Just below the screen, in the black part of the bezel, is a 
row of flush mounted keys. From left to right they are: Exit/Back, Refresh Screen, Volume, Options, Search and two page turning keys. These buttons, together with the touchscreen, make up the control system of the Novel Personal ereader.
The touchscreen has no glare even in bright lights or full sunshine. I found it to be acceptably responsive, although it seems to take a pretty firm finger swipe to get page turns accomplished. Such as it is, the touchscreen on the Novel Personal is good. The problem I find is that it feels incompletely implemented, at least in the current firmware version. The touchscreen of the Pandigital Novel would be a much more powerful feature if it were more fully taken advantage of.
For example, instead of being able to just double tap on the upper right corner of the display to create or delete a bookmark as you can on the touchscreens of the new Sony ereaders, you have to first tap the Options button and then tap on Bookmarks and then on Create Bookmark.
This clunkiness extends to other functions — such as the dictionary, for example. Rather than being able to use the touchscreen to just double tap a word to have it defined, you have to go through the Options button and then tap on Dictionary and finally on the word to be defined.
You can highlight and make notes with a 
virtual keyboard. There are five font sizes, but only one font style. The largest font size on the Pandigital Novel is only a medium sized font on other ereaders. The photo shows the largest font on the Novel (left) compared with the largest font on the Kindle 3. If the orientation changes the font size reverts to the default, which is very annoying.
The homescreen displays a series of icons for different applications. In addition to reading, the Novel Personal also has apps for Sudoku, contacts, calendar and an alarm function. The calendar only lets you enter one event per day, so its use for scheduling is limited.
You can also do email with the Novel Personal. POP3, SMTP, IMAP and exchange accounts are supported. The Novel cannot open attachments.
The Novel connects to Barnes & Novel, and 
there are two apps for this. Besides the Shop B&N app there is also a Bookstore app. The latter also takes you to B&N, but seems to be focused on showing bestsellers and currently popular titles. Besides B&N you can also purchase ebooks with Adobe DRM from other sellers such as Kobo.
The default Library display is of thumbnails of your ebooks, which in many cases is useless as they are impossible to read. Fortunately there is an alternative List View. Your ebooks can be sorted by date, title and author. The Novel Personal also has the ability to make new ‘bookshelves’ with different names. This works like categories or folders to help organize your library.
At the bottom of the screen your recently read titles are shown — both on the homescreen and in the library screen. Getting to the homescreen is sometimes more troublesome than it needs to be. Currently you have to hit the Back button until you wind up there. It would be much better if there were a Home button on the Options toolbar.
The Novel Personal has an accelerometer for auto page orientation, but you have to get to the settings application in the homescreen to lock it, or if it is locked, to change the orientation. Again, I think this is clumsy implementation. The orientation feature should be accessible from the Options button.
I sometimes found that when viewing a PDF file the orientation can take a very long time to change. In general I would say that if you need to read a lot of PDF files the Novel Personal would not be the best ereader choice. There is no scalable zoom like on the Sony ereaders; the default zoom seems to be about a quarter of a page. To navigate around the enlarged page you tap on arrows at the edge of the page or use the page-turning keys.
With the touchscreen, Pandigital could have enabled pan and zoom on the Novel Personal, which would have been much better than the present system.
PDFs with charts and graphs, etc. seem to sometimes cause serious lag for the Novel Personal. If you are just reading text-only ebooks in a PDF format it should work fine, but the text resizing options are not optimal.
I was able to connect to my Wi-Fi network with no problems, but every time after the Novel Personal has been asleep you will need to tap a button to reconnect the ereader to Wi-Fi. Not a big hassle, but it would be nice if the Wi-Fi would reconnect automatically unless turned off.
E-ink based devices are not the ideal solution for web browsing. In the case of the Novel Personal the web browsing experience is a very basic one. The “experimental” browser on the Kindle 3 ereader is much faster, has more features and things like dropdown windows just seem to work much better on it.
SiPix vs E Ink
Comparing the SiPix display of the Novel Personal with an E Ink display is interesting. The SiPix screen has more grey in the background and therefore much less contrast than the latest Pearl displays from E Ink. This makes reading in less than optimum lighting conditions more difficult. In general I prefer reading on the Pearl display.
The page turns on the Novel are slower than on the Kindle 3 or the Sony Touch, put the SiPix has a cleaner page turn than the Pearl display — there is no black flash and less textual artifacts while the page is refreshing.
There is an interesting warning in the user manual to not leave the Novel Personal in sleep mode for more than three weeks as it can result in irreversible screen burn-in. That does not sound good at all. E Ink products do not suffer from this problem.
For me the Pearl display from E Ink wins on its much better contrast and faster page turns, but the SiPix display of Pandigital’s new ereader has a nicer screen refresh.
The Pandigital Novel Personal – My Take
Pandigital’s latest entry into the ereader space is not a terrible ereader . It does suffer from somewhat clumsy and not very well thought-out navigation. The rather nice touchscreen is to a large degree wasted through poor implementation. These problems could probably be fixed with a major firmware update, but who knows when or if that will happen. There are times when the Novel Personal is also rather laggy. This seems to really be noticeable when viewing PDF files, especially with certain graphics.
In the readability department, I find the Pearl display from E Ink (as used in the Kindle 3 and latest gen Sony ereaders) to be much better than the SiPix display, at least as it is implemented in the Novel Personal.
I bought my Novel Personal at Kohl’s (at the customer service desk) for around $165. There is a $30 mail-in rebate, and if you have a Kohl’s card there are always discounts which will probably give you a lower end price.
Even at a final price of $110 to $120 I don’t think that the Pandigital Novel Personal ereader compares well with the Kindle 3 Wi-Fi at $139, the Nook Wi-Fi ereader from B&N at $149, or the Kobo Wi-Fi at $139. I would rather use any one of these other ereaders than the Novel Personal. If Pandigital’s new ereader gets itself discounted to the sub $100 level then it will become more appealing — especially if firmware improvements are forthcoming.
Pandigital Novel Personal – Covers & Cases
If you have the Novel Personal and are looking 
for a cover, at the moment there seem to be only general purpose ereader covers that will fit, rather than any covers that have been expressly designed for the Novel Personal.
One choice would be the BookArmor Delta 6 High Impact Travel Case. This case has a zipper closure with foam cushioning surrounded by a double layer of plastic and steel to protect your ereader. The ereader is held in place with Velcro strips. The price is $34.95. For a snugger fit you could also use the Delta 5 ereader cover, which is a bit smaller. Either model will work with the Novel Personal.
Another choice would be the Body Glove E-Reader Travel Hard Shell Case. This case also has a zipper closure and a hard shell, but uses corner straps to hold the ereader in place instead of Velcro strips. There is also a set of web pockets to hold accessories and a pull out stand for hands free reading. Body Glove’s case is priced at $29.99.
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Asustek DR-900 to Finally Launch – in Taiwan no comments
The DR-900 ereader from Asustek finally has a launch date — November 29. So far it will only be available in the Taiwanese market. The price is said to be around NT$12,000 ($388 USD). The DR-900 ereader uses a 9-inch SiPix display and comes with 3G.
Asus has also built a customized ereader, the TZ-900, for the Tzu Chi religious group. This model will be sold internationally to members of Tzu Chi.
via DigiTimes
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Pandigital Announces ePaper-based eReader 2 comments
Pandigital, which makes the Novel — a color LCD based ereader, today announced a new ereader that will utilize a Sipix
epaper screen.
The new Pandigital Novel Personal eReader is made by Sipix/AUO for Pandigital and will have a 6-inch screen. Barnes & Noble will be the content provider.
Some of the features:
- 6-inch Sipix screen with 800 x 600 resolution; 16 grayscales.
- Touchscreen.
- Accelerometer for auto screen orientation.
- Formats supported: PDF, ePub.
- Wi-Fi and web browser.
- 2GB internal memory; Micro SD card slot (up to 32GB).
- Battery life up to 6,000 page turns.
- Size: 4.88 x 6.75 x .38 inches; weighs 9.1 ounces.
The MSRP of the Novel Personal will be $199.99, and it is expected to hit stores later this month.
Update: For more on the Pandigital Novel Personal see my hands-on review.
