What’s this? An eBook reader with a color screen? I bet you never thought you’d see the day, right? It’s the Literati from The Sharper Image–you know, that store in the malls that has the massage chairs, where you never actually buy anything. Yeah, that place.
The Literati features a seven inch full-color LCD screen (not the e-ink that readers that the Kindle and Nook rely on)–something not especially common in an e-reader. The device can access content wireless from the Kobo e-book store, which features content like magazines, children’s books, and cookbooks, which rely heavily on pictures.
I asked the PR rep whether the store carried any comics–he said he’d have to get back to me on that–not that the device is ideal for content that is that image heavy. The screen is pretty slim, and keep in mind that this thing is not a touchscreen device–I had a bit of hands-on time with the Literati last night, and its scrolling capabilities left a bit to be desired for a final product.
One of the upsides of not having a touchscreen, however, is the fact that, unlike certain Apple tablets, the Literati actually reads pretty well in direct sunlight. Of course it’s far less versatile than a tablet. Says Sharper Image, “By dispensing with the Swiss-army knife tablet model, the Literati offers, through its streamlined user interface, an easy and
accessible reading experience.”
I only played with the thing for a bit–the interface is, in fact, pretty straight forward, but (at least on the device I was using) button response times left a little to be desired.
The Literati is half and inch thick and pretty light at 14.4 ounces. It features a full QWERTY keyboard, Kindle-style, 512MB of built-in memory, and an expandable SD card slot.
The reader is pretty affordable, however, at $159 with a little slip cover included. The Literati comes pre-loaded with 25 public domain books and a coupon for 125 more titles.
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