Hasta La Gadget!

The wind sure changes very quickly, eh? Just a week ago the University of Georgia revealed that many of its study participants — Athens residents who were given a Kindle to play with — weren’t happy with their e-reader experience, but yesterday a new study reported something fairly contrasting. Rather than doling out touchscreen-less e-readers to a group of people, the NPD Group surveyed more than 1,000 e-reader owners in late November last year, and found out that 93 percent of them were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their devices, while only 2 percent “expressed any level of dissatisfaction.” The report also reveals that wireless access is the favorite feature for 60 percent of the users, while only 23 percent chose the touchscreen. Compared to last week’s report, this probably shows that consumers who actually buy e-readers don’t really care about the touch feature, whereas those on the outer circle are mainly waiting for more — and no doubt cheaper — touchscreen e-readers. Seriously though, only 34 percent wanted color screens? Those guys sure are easy to please.

E-reader statisfaction study shows 93 percent of users are happy, just not you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In quite a few ways, Apple’s iPad and iBooks announcement today was a shot across the bow of Amazon’s Kindle. Sure, Apple played nice, even saying that Amazon has done a “great job of pioneering” the e-book space, but you can’t help but think that Apple thinks of itself as the evolution of the Kindle, not mere competition. Steve Jobs says that Apple is going to “stand on their shoulders,” and that doesn’t sound quite as benign as perhaps he meant it. So, how do the devices stack up, specifically as book consuming devices? Well, for starters, one of these things costs a whole lot more than the other… let’s break it down after the break.

Continue reading iPad or Kindle: will our wallets decide?

iPad or Kindle: will our wallets decide? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS hasn’t exactly been tight-lipped about its DR-950 e-reader — you know, with it outing photos and all — but apparently the 9-inch E Ink, touchscreen reading device will be ready for buyers in April. ASUS told the guys at Electric Pig that it’s currently in process of shopping around for content partners, but plans to have the e-reader to market by springtime with a price tag in the range of £250 (about $354). Not too bad, though it’s tough to get too jazzed about a black-and-white model with the OLED color DR-570 version on the horizon.

Filed under: Handhelds

ASUS DR-950 to be released in April for a likely £250 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like everyone wants a slice of that steaming-hot e-reader action these days. Right in front of us here is the Tianji — or in our language, Phecda, a distant star — iBook EB-605, which is purported to be launched by Lenovo at some point this year (and we first heard about such plan back in December). Features include a 6-inch electronic ink display, Samsung ARM 400MHz processor, newspaper subscription, music player, picture browser and support for a variety of digital book formats including EPUB (hooray!) and MOBI. ZOL also spotted the SIM card-like icon at the top, which might suggest a thing or two about its wireless capabilities, and estimates a price tag of under ¥2,000 ($293). No word on international release yet, but hey, the more the merrier either way!

Update: eagle-eyed reader charlied spotted this e-reader in its no-frills form from Oaxis. The good news is that WiFi and SD card slot are featured as well, but no mention of a SIM card slot so ZOL‘s probably wrong about that icon. Shame.

Lenovo to launch Tianji iBook EB-605 e-reader? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still patiently waiting for Endless Ideas to launch a 3G-equipped e-reader to compete with the masses, but ’til then, we suppose we’ll have to be satisfied with the WiFi-toting BeBook Neo. Boasting a 532MHz Freescale CPU, Vizplex display (800 x 600 resolution), 512MB of internal storage, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 2.0 connectivity and an SD expansion slot, the 6-inch, February-bound Neo brings to the table very little that we haven’t seen elsewhere — in fact, it’s a dead ringer for Onyx International’s Boox. Naturally, you’ll find support for a multitude of file formats (ePUB, PDF, HTML, JPG, PNG, etc.), and the internal battery is good for 7,000 page turns on a full charge. The company is also playing up the unit’s ability to access a wide variety of third-party ebook venues, which gives you the option of purchasing books from any given outlet rather than a predefined store. There’s also WACOM tech built in, which should delight those who love to annotate and add text mark-ups. We’re told that future software updates will add a multitude of new features, but it’s tough to say if that promise is enough to coax you into dropping $299 on a pre-order.

BeBook Neo e-reader launches with WiFi and WACOM capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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