Hasta La Gadget!

Google’s little green man has been getting quite an education lately, popping up in a number of e-book readers (why hello there Nook, Alex, eDGe). Not to be left out, Netronix is reportedly also looking to work with Texas Instruments on assimilating Android into its product line, according to company chairman Arthur Lu (via DigiTimes). Neither are bad trends to follow in this still-infant industry, but the questions remains as to when and how it’ll actually work. Also on the company to-do list? 3G and 3.5G capabilities, supposedly coming sometime in the middle of 2010. Bated breath? Hold it.

Filed under: Handhelds

Netronix looking to Android, 3G for its e-book readers originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Publicly, at least, The New York Times has seemed perfectly kosher with the way things are moving in the newspaper industry. Rather than freaking out and wondering why they didn’t make the move to digital earlier, it’s apparently looking to push the digital distribution of its content via discounts and partnerships with hardware providers. In a rather unique and unprecedented move, the paper has today announced that prospective readers can receive $100 off of a Samsung Go netbook if they subscribe to Times Reader 2.0 for a year. The machine will come pre-loaded with the Adobe AIR-based application — which pushes published content to one’s machine on the double — and will be sold exclusively through J&R Music and Computer World. Of course, NYT wants $179.40 for a one-year sub, so the deal’s not exactly awesome or anything, but the offer stands for first-time subscribers until March 2010 if you’re interested.

Samsung Go netbook gets $100 cheaper with one-year Times Reader 2.0 subscription originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still not quite sure this mad rush to produce e-book readers will result in anything but tears and heartbreak, but that isn’t stopping BenQ from joining in: it’s just announced the nReader, which will hit Taiwan in January along with an online bookstore, followed by Japan and China. The hardware itself is pretty standard fare, with a six-inch touchscreen electronic ink display, 2GB of memory, and ePub / HTML / PDF support, so we’ll see if this thing manages to move 300,000 units next year like BenQ says it will — that seems fairly optimistic to us, but it’s just a drop in the bucket according to BenQ, which says that over 100 million e-readers will sold in ten years. We’ll see.

Filed under: Handhelds

BenQ bringing nReader e-book reader to Asia originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A few nasty rumors were circulating that Barnes & Noble wouldn’t accept its own gift cards for ebook purchases, but thankfully, the outfit has come clean today to refute those claims. ‘Course, it’s possible that this change in policy was a direct result of all the bickering, but either way, the company will be accepting physical gift cards and online gift certificates as payment for ebooks really, really soon. The cards will work on purchases made at B&N’s website and through the Nook itself (not to mention “other devices using the B&N eReader software), and we’re told that the new policy will be in full effect come “mid-December.” In other words, all those gift cards you just purchased as stocking stuffers for to-be Nook owners are good to go. Phew.

[Thanks, David]

Barnes & Noble accepting gift cards for ebook purchases starting mid-December originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still reserving our doubts about the viability of the enTourage eDGe — after all, at $490 you can buy yourself a respectable netbook and a halfway decent ereader for the appropriate occasion — but we won’t say that we’re not interested. Just under a month after it hit the scene, the dual-screen device has landed (in prototype form) over at Gearlog, and while some of the features weren’t functional, the physical build shouldn’t change much when it goes final. At first glance, the whole thing just looks a bit dated, but then again, we’ve still got the ultra-fresh Nook on the brain. Hit the read link to have a look yourself, won’t you?

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Dual-screen enTourage eDGe ebook reader gets a little hands-on time originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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