Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen some cheap e-readers in our day. Heck, even the big boys are practically giving the things away. But, we’ve never seen anything quite like the Txtr Beagle. The latest creation from German company Txtr is expected to sell for under €10 or about $13 when it hits the market, hopefully sometime before the holiday season. Obviously, for such a low price, you’re not getting a lot of bells and whistles here. There’s no touchscreen, no backlight, no 3G — not even WiFi is baked into the impossibly thin 5mm body. The screen is only five inches but, if the promotional video (after the break) is to be believed, it offers a more enjoyable experience than reading an iPad or talking to your significant other. What is inside this barebones device is 4GB of storage and a Bluetooth radio which, when paired with your phone, can transfer ebooks from your mobile to the Beagle using the free Txtr app (available for Android 4.0 with an iOS version is in the works). Instead of an expensive rechargable cell, power is provided by a trio of AAA batteries, which the company claims will last you up to a year of regular reading. Almost as interesting as the device itself, is the model being used to keep the costs down. Txtr is positioning it not as a standalone e-reader, but as a smartphone accessory it hopes that carriers will offer with a small subsidy. The company’s chief commercial officer Thomas Leliveld has said that work is underway to get AT&T and Sprint on board, but that talks are still ongoing with providers. Complete PR awaits you after the break.

Continue reading Txtr Beagle aims to corner low-end e-reader market for $13 (video)

Txtr Beagle aims to corner low-end e-reader market for $13 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Humble Bundle tends to be associated with not just low prices, but also indie video games (and occasionally music). Today’s bundle, however, centers on the literary-minded among us, offering a set of eight e-Books for just under $10. Of course, a main staple of the bundle is its pay what you want price model, which applies here as well — should you only want six of the books, you can pay any price (one penny for six books! hot dog!). If you want access to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, you’ve gotta shell out over the average payment price (currently sitting at $9.84). If you want that sub-$10 price, we’d suggest heading over sooner than later. Another good reason? You’ve only got two weeks before this humble e-Book bundle disappears forever.

Continue reading Humble Bundle goes literary, offers octuplet of books at a humble price

Filed under: Tablets, Software, Alt

Humble Bundle goes literary, offers octuplet of books at a humble price originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that you’ve been fully acquainted with Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite, perhaps it’s time to get to know it on a deeper level — and what better than a tear-down to do just that? The folks over at Powerbook Medic took their own unit apart piece by piece on video, highlighting what appears to be a simple process, mostly done by dealing with screws. The trickiest part seems to be pulling off the bezel, as it’s held in place with glue. Unfortunately, the repair shop doesn’t analyze the e-reader’s internal components in the iFixit fashion, but it has gone full-circle and provided a second video on how to put it all back together. Curious to see this Kindle’s e-ink-filled guts? You’ll find both videos after the break.

Continue reading Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite gets torn-down, promptly put back together (video)

Filed under: Amazon

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite gets torn-down, promptly put back together (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kobo announced today via its company blog that the Kobo Glo and Kobo Mini e-readers are now on sale at Canadian retailers Indigo, Future Shop and Best Buy, and in the U.K. at WHSmith. The $80 Mini and $130 Glo were announced in September, just ahead of the unveiling of Amazon’s new Kindle lineup. Kobo also announced today that its Arc 7-inch Android tablet will be hitting store shelves in November.

The Kobo Mini is the company’s entry-level e-reader, with a 5-inch touch screen and 2GB of onboard storage, while the Glo is a larger 6-inch device that also offers expandable, microSD storage and what Kobo calls a ComfortLight touch display, essentially the same thing that Barnes & Noble’s Nook with GlowLight offers. It’s also similar to Amazon’s Paperwhite technology, with which the Kobo Glo will go head to head – though not in the Canadian and UK markets just yet.

Amazon’s latest e-reader isn’t yet available outside of the U.S., except in its basic form as the latest generation non-touch Kindle. That will give Kobo a running start in both of these markets, and one that could last into the new year, according to some reports. The Arc could also beat the latest Kindle Fire to Canadian customers, though UK shoppers already have access to the Fire and Fire HD.

Kobo, which was acquired by Japanese e-commerce mega-company Rakuten in 2011, is doing a good job of finding success in markets where Amazon has limited or no reach, and is seeking out additional partnerships like the one it has with WH Smith via new office openings this year in Dublin and Luxemberg, according to Publisher’s Weekly. The company also boasted a 50 percent market share of France’s e-book market, the company shared back in April. Addressing gaps in the global market is a great strategy for a relative upstart like Kobo when going against someone with the U.S. e-reader market dominance that Amazon enjoys.

Its routine FCC appearance from a few months back hinted that it would be officially launching sooner rather than later — and today, our dear friends, marks the day the GBook formally joins the Archos Arnova family. The 7-inch, Ice Cream Sandwich tablet / eReader likely won’t excite many with its run-of-the-mill spec sheet, which consists of a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, 1080p video playback and a meek screen resolution of 800 x 480. In addition to those features, the company’s placing a lot of focus on the device’s eReading capabilities, announcing it’ll offer support for any EPUB and PDF files — including “those using Adobe DRM.” Speaking of which, folks will have to purchase all content from Archos’ own store, given that the GBook does not posses the required credentials to access Google Play. Meanwhile, pricing and availability deets are still unknown, but we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop as soon as we find out. In the meantime, there’s some eye candy down below for you to freely enjoy.

Filed under: Tablets

Archos Arnova GBook gets quiet introduction, reveals its humble powers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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