Archive for the ‘ereaders’ tag
Kindle App For Android Coming? no comments
Engadget has posted some leaked internal Dell flyers showing the Android-based Dell Mini 5 and listing some of its features:
- Kindle “book reader” applications
- Amazon MP3
- Amazon Video Streams
- Amazon Store
This could mean that Kindle for Android is coming soon. Amazon has not announced anything, but with the number of Android-based devices coming to market it seems obvious that Amazon will want to make an Android reading app to go along with Kindle for PC, Kindle for Blackberry and the soon to come Kindle for Mac.
There is a Kindle blurb on the Dell flyer that claims over 300,000 books available in the Kindle store. That would have been correct about 4-5 months ago if memory serves; now there are over 420,000 books. So I’m guessing that the leaked docs are probably from about that time?
(Via jkOnTheRun)
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Samsung eReader to Connect with Barnes & Noble eBookstore no comments
In a press release today Samsung announced the “ imminent availability” of its first ereader for the US market. Samsung has partnered with Barnes & Noble which will provide the ebook storefront.
This would be Samsung’s E6 ereader. Some of the features include a 6-inch 
e-ink screen with a Wacom digitizer with note taking and annotating abilities. Productivity tools include a voice recorder as well as a journal and a calendar that can sync with Outlook.
Connectivity includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. EmoLink technology allows users of Samsung ereaders to share content. The E6 is also compatible with B&N’s LendMe feature, so sharing should work between this ereader and devices using B&N’s eReader software as well as the nook ereader.
The E6 ereader comes with 2GB of internal memory and has a Micro SD card slot.
One feature that will not be much of a crowd pleaser is the previously announced price tag of $399, although it is always possible that the price will be lower once the E6 hits the streets. I saw Samsung’s ereaders at CES and there was not much that would make me want to jump up and run out to buy one at $399. Update: The price on the E6 has reportedly dropped to $299.
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Asus DR-900 Ereader; KeyReader no comments
Here are a couple more new ereaders that have been announced recently.
Asus DR-900
The Asus DR-900 ereader has been on display at CeBit 2010 this week in Germany. This one has a 9-inch touchscreen SiPix display and comes with Wi-Fi and optional 3G. Battery life is said to be 10,000 page turns. Text-to-Speech is planned, though its availability will depend on the publishers allowing its use. The DR-900 will come with 2GB to 4GB internal storage and an SD card. So far details on availability are somewhat sketchy.
Charbax has a video of the DR-900 from CeBit.
KeyReader
The KeyReader is being marketed by iCell, which is a wireless network provider
in Singapore. This appears to be a rebranded Onyx Boox (like the Bebook Neo), and has the same features. One nice twist is that the KeyReader will be able to access over 900,000 free ebooks from the National Library Board. The price is said to be between $399 – $499 (Singapore dollars).
(Via Straits Times)
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New Freescale SoC Could Result in Cheaper and Faster Ereaders no comments
Freescale has announced a new Soc that integrates ARM Cortex A8 technology running at 800 MHz with a hardware-based e-Ink display controller. The 
i.MX508 processor is said to be twice as fast as previous ereader processors from Freescale. Other benefits include lower cost and better power management resulting in longer battery life.
From the press release:
AUSTIN, Texas – March 1, 2010 – Freescale Semiconductor is helping drive down the cost of next-generation eReaders with its i.MX508 applications processor, the first system-on-chip (SoC) to integrate advanced ARM Cortex™-A8 technology together with the newest hardware-based display controller from E Ink. Freescale’s highly integrated i.MX508 processor is designed to deliver the performance, energy efficiency and system cost savings necessary to help OEMs evolve and grow the dynamic eReader product category.
With the ARM core running at 800 MHz, the i.MX508 provides twice the rendering performance of Freescale’s previous eReader processors, resulting in faster page turns and snappy responsiveness for consumers. The increased processing capability also gives manufacturers the additional performance to add features like advanced touch solutions and the ability to run other value-added applications.
The i.MX508 is notable for its support of next-generation eReader panels, which are expected to feature larger dimensions, faster page turns and significantly better resolution. The processor supports panel resolutions up to 2048 x1536 pixels at 106 hertz. Leveraging the ARM Cortex™-A8 engine, the i.MX508 processor has the potential performance to quickly handle complex image manipulations and color processing. …
Longer battery life
The i.MX508 processor includes special power modes created for eReaders that allow the CPU and some peripherals to operate at full speed while rendering a page and then turn off to save power when they are not needed. As eReader panel resolution increases, the i.MX508 with its integrated display controller, offers lower power than software-based display controller solutions. …Availability and pricing
The i.MX508 applications processor is expected to be priced at less than $10 (USD) in quantities greater than 250K units. Freescale plans to begin providing samples to select customers early in the third quarter of 2010. The SABRE platform for eReaders based on the i.MX51 is available for purchase now from Freescale. The suggested resale price is $1,995 (USD). For more information, visit www.freescale.com/eReader.
Processors made by Freescale are used in many current ereaders including the Kindle. Marvell also recently announced a new SoC for ereader applications.
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Acer Suspending Ereader Plans no comments
The Taipei Times is reporting that Acer is suspending its plans to introduce an ereader, at least for now.
Acer chairman Wang Jeng-tang said that the ereader market is not big enough yet and has yet to come up with a proven business model.
Acer has prototypes of its planned ereader ready and was to launch the device this summer in European and Asian markets.
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Irex DR800SG Ereader Now Shipping From Best Buy 2 comments
The DR800SG is finally making its appearance about 3 1/2 months later
than originally announced, but better late than never.
BestBuy.com is now showing the Irex DR800SG ereader as shipping within one to two days if ordered from their website. The price is $399 plus tax and $6.99 for standard shipping. Store pickup is not available at this time. The package includes a USB charger and cable, sleeve, stylus and manual.
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LG Display Shows Tabloid-Sized Flexible ePaper no comments
Korean company LG Display revealed a much larger epaper panel based on the
same TFTs on metal foil technology as that used in the Skiff ereader.
LG says that the 25cm x 40cm screen is the largest epaper display yet produced. The display is only .03mm thick, which is much thinner than other types of current ereader screens.
This type of large flexible display could potentially be used as a replacement for dead-tree newspapers and could be updated on the go and possibly even display video and multimedia.
LG plans to have 11.5-inch flexible epaper screens in mass production within the next few months. So far no pricing has been announced for the new screens.
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eBook Store Comparisons – The Second Edition no comments
One of the biggest gripes about Barnes & Noble’s ebook store is their prices; which are higher than the competition, right? Well, hold on a minute there. Barnes & Noble has said that they are working on bringing down prices, and indeed there have been comments affirming this on their forums of late. Time to take a closer look.
Almost two months ago I made an ebook store price and availability comparison between Sony, Amazon’s Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble. In my comparison using just over a hundred books the Kindle Store came out ahead, both in terms of prices and in the number of books available as ebooks. Sony’s ebook store came in second and B&N came in third.
More recently Inkmesh made a much, much larger price survey using 11,604 ebooks. In their case they found that Amazon had the lowest price on 74% of titles. Barnes & Noble came in second and Sony had the highest prices of the three in Inkmesh’s test.
I just ran my test again, using the same books as before and came up with some surprising results.
First of all, what is Sony’s story? Mostly their ebook prices were unchanged from my last test: I found four books on my list with lower prices, but 5 went up in price. None of the paper books previously unavailable as ebooks from Sony have been made available as of yet. What was really strange though, was that I found nine ebook titles that were available before but are no longer showing up in Sony’s ebook store!
Sony just threw out their old proprietary BBeB ebook format and moved to EPUB, and it is possible that their are some search related glitches on their site. I did notice some strange behavior when I searched for ebooks by titles rather than author. So maybe the missing titles are still there, but I just couldn’t find them. At any rate Sony came in at a distant third place in my test. They are not only out of the race based on prices; they apparently also have an incredibly shrinking catalogue.
So how did Barnes Noble fare when compared with Amazon this time? Well, first of all, in terms of availability 80 of the paper books on my list were available as ebooks at the Kindle Store. This seems to actually be down by 1 title from the last time I ran my comparison. B&N had 71 of my titles available as ebooks, which is an increase of 6 titles. Furthermore, if you bought all of the ebooks on my list you would have saved only a little less than a dollar by purchasing them at Amazon. As reader Aoverstreet has pointed out, you would also pay sales tax at B&N but probably not at Amazon (not yet anyway), depending on where you live. It appears to be true that Barnes & Noble is aggressively lowering their ebook prices to match Amazon’s.
Based on the ebooks on my list it appears that the nook vs Kindle ereader competition has turned into a tighter race. This will be even more the case if Barnes and Noble can get the nook’s software issues fixed before Amazon releases Kindle 3. It is a virtual tie now when it comes to prices (again, based on my list of only 110 books). B&N still trails the Kindle Store in terms of content, but it appears that they are working on that as well. Definitely Barnes & Nobles deserves kudos for listening to the complaints of their customers and working to improve on weaknesses.
Matching Amazon’s ebook prices means B&N’s bottom line is going to take a big hit though, especially if ebook sales come to comprise 48% of all book sales as Jeff Bezos says they do at Amazon in cases where a Kindle version is available. On November 24 when B&N reported their financial results for the most recent quarter, they cut their earnings guidance for next year by a lot – almost by half if it comes in at the bottom of the range. This was blamed in part on increased production costs for the nook as the company ramped up its production schedule to meet the higher than expected demand, and “increasing future investments related to its (Barnes & Noble’s) digital strategy, including additional people, technology and in-store marketing support”.
I’m wondering if this “digital strategy” at the time also included planning for much lower prices from its ebooks? Of course, it may be possible for B&N to make up the revenue difference through sales volume, especially if the nook ereader brings in a lot of new customers rather than just converting the store’s present pbook customers to ebook buyers. My point is that I imagine it will be harder for Barnes & Noble to fight a sustained ebook price war than Amazon, which after all has many other streams of income than just book sales.
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nook vs Kindle DX no comments
When I look at the search terms and phrases that result in visitors finding my blog I’m seeing a lot of “nook vs Kindle DX”. This is a bit odd, as it is somewhat like comparing apples and oranges – yes, they are both fruit and they both grow on trees, but otherwise they are much different. While both the nook and the Kindle DX are ereaders, they are for the most part aimed at different sets of users.
The Kindle DX ereader is much larger at 10.4 x 7.2 inches. Its 9.7 inch screen will be much better suited for reading documents and periodicals than the nook’s 6 inch screen. On the other hand, at 7.7 x 4.9 inches the nook
will be a more portable ereader. One feature that both ereaders do have in common and that will be of importance for some users is built-in PDF compatibility. Keep in mind though that we have yet to actually use the nook, so we don’t yet know how effective it will be for handling PDF’s.
PDF and document handling aside, if you plan to carry your ereader everywhere with you then the Kindle DX may be a bit too large to be convenient, and you should probably be comparing nook vs Kindle 2. If you will be doing most of your reading at home, the Kindle DX has a beautiful screen with good contrast that is a pleasure to read on. More text fits on the larger screen, so you will be doing less page turns. If you read in bed a lot though, a smaller ereader is probably going to be easier to handle – again, nook vs Kindle 2.
nook vs Kindle 2
For most people thinking about buying a nook, nook vs Kindle 2 (or Kindle Global, which seems to be its current moniker) is a more appropriate comparison. Again, do keep in mind that we have not yet actually been able to use the nook, so while it looks nice in the pictures, we don’t yet know how well it will actually function in real life. Also, if you want one for Christmas, you are out of luck as current pre-orders will not ship until after the new year. Amazon, after running out of stock during the last two holiday seasons, appears to have an ample stock of Kindle ereaders this year.
So let’s look at a few of the features of the nook and the Kindle.
nook Features vs Kindle Features
Appearance
Obviously the nook ereader is a very sexy looking gadget, and I suspect that its appearance alone is probably the primary force behind its apparent success. A lot of people seem to find the Kindle too plain looking. In its defense, the Kindle is all about reading; Amazon has purposely designed it so that there are as few distractions as possible, making it easy to immerse yourself in your reading.
The 3.5 inch LCD touchscreen below the nook’s reading screen is a clever idea, at least on paper. It not only looks nice, it potentially adds some of the benefits of a touchscreen without the drawbacks ( i.e. the touchscreen on Sony’s ereaders causes serious readability issues). It remains to be seen if it functions really well as a navigational device without adding unwanted distractions to your reading.
eBook Lending and Sharing
Being able to share your ebooks with your friends was a much lauded feature when the nook ereader was announced, but it now appears to be more hype and wishful thinking than actual benefit. With the nook you can loan a
book only once and only for 14 days. You cannot read the ebook while it is being loaned out. Worst of all, publishers must opt-in to allow book lending and I suspect getting some publishers to go along with this is going to be worse than pulling teeth. Some publishers have already stated that they will not allow their books to be shared.
eBooks can be shared by up to 6 (in most cases) Kindle ereaders if the Kindles are registered to the same account. This works best for families who have several Kindles. It could also work for a group of unrelated Kindle owners as long as they trust each other enough to share a credit card.
Wireless Connection
The nook ereader has a wireless connection which only lets you connect to Barnes and Noble, and can only be used to purchase and download books. Amazon’s Kindle ereaders not only let you purchase and download books wirelessly, but also have rudimentary web browsing ability. With a Kindle ereader you can check your email if you need to, research your reading on Wikipedia, etc.
The nook ereader also has Wi-Fi, which the Kindle lacks. Barnes & Noble says that you will be able to use this feature to get additional content if you take your nook with you into one of their stores. We’ll have to wait and see how valuable of a feature this turns out to be.
Storage
Both the nook and the Kindle ereaders should hold around 1,500 ebooks. The nook also has a microSD slot so that you can add more memory if you need to.
Audio
The Kindle and the nook ereaders both support MP3 files, but in addition the Kindle also supports Text to Speech. This feature must be allowed by a book’s publisher, and is not meant to replace audiobooks performed by voice actors, but it can be a very useful feature.
Barnes and Noble eBook Store vs Kindle Store
This is a BIGGIE! Ereaders are for reading books, right? So obviously you want access to the most-est and the best-est at the cheapest! In my opinion this is the most important feature of all when it comes to nook vs Kindle. 
Barnes and Noble claim to have over a million ebooks available. The vast majority of these are out of copyright public domain titles from Google. These also include many duplicate titles from different editions.
The Kindle Store has over 380,000 titles available. While this sounds like much less, in fact many more current (as opposed to public domain) titles are available at the Kindle store than pretty much anywhere else. This is especially true if your reading takes you off of the beaten paths of the best seller lists. The more esoteric your reading tastes, the more likely you are to find what you are looking for on the Kindle.
As for books in the public domain, the Kindle Store has a lot of the most popular of these. You can also download more of these titles in a Kindle ereader friendly format from other sources. You can even download directly from Google and use a conversion program such as Calibre to get a format that will work on Kindle ereaders.
As for ebook pricing, with few exceptions the Kindle Store is cheaper than Barnes & Noble. With a few titles the price difference is small, but in many cases it is quite significant.
In availability and price comparisons I’ve done the Kindle Store wins hands down.
Pricing
As to the prices of the nook and Kindle Global ereaders,
There are also refurbished Kindle 2 ereaders
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More Thoughts on Spring Design’s Lawsuit Against Barnes and Noble no comments
Curiouser and curiouser. The first trading day after Spring Design’s lawsuit against Barnes and Noble and their nook ereader was made public, B & N’s stock (BKS) was for a while actually trading very slightly higher and even shows some signs of halting its plunge, if only temporarily. This is in spite of a down trend that has seen the stock loose almost 60% from its highs in the summer.
The most recent leg of the downtrend appears to have started around October 8, when B & N adjusted their fiscal year outlook . The next day, October 9, the Wall Street Journal broke the story about Barnes and Noble’s ereader plans, but this did nothing to put the brakes on the stock’s slide. Even when the nook was officially announced on October 21 the stock didn’t stop its downward plunge. Obviously Wall Street isn’t impressed with the nook.
Of course, if you are into TA, then the stock has now reached a region of congestive support and may now a: move sideways for some time; b: rest for a bit before resuming its rush towards zero; or c: rest for a bit before attempting a bounce, quite possibly of the dead cat variety, back upwards.
There is also the possible interpretation that enough people knew about or expected the lawsuit that it has been priced into the stock by the recent action.
As to why Wall Street does not think much of the nook ereader, I’m not sure. I should imagine that if Barnes and Noble is not forced to delay the sale of the nook by Spring Design’s lawsuit it will prove to be pretty popular, especially with consumers who know that ereaders are the gadgets de jour but don’t do their homework to find out which one is best, then walk into a B & N store, see the nook and are seduced by its good looks; especially if it demos as well as it looks. This is an ereader with suburban mom appeal as Engadget terms it. We already know that when people buy ereaders they usually start reading more, which means more ebook sales, which should mean a better bottom line for Barnes and Noble.
One wonders if, though, after the eggnog wears off, some nook ereader owners will not suffer some degree of buyer’s remorse which could result in some backlash against Barnes and Noble if the company does not do something to improve their ebook store. Barnes and Noble obviously is the primary ebook supplier for the nook ereader, but their ebook selection is not the best nor are their prices. I did a price comparison recently between the Kindle Store, Sony eBook Store and Barnes and Noble. Barnes and Noble had the highest prices of all three. Their ebook store also had 20% less titles than the Kindle store, though this is a bit deceptive. Most of the authors in my book list were popular authors; the more esoteric and off of the beaten path your reading is the more titles you are likely to only find at the Kindle store. Sony is primarily a hardware company; yet in my ebook price and availability comparison they beat B&N, which is a content company. My comparison study was after all a test of content .
