Hasta La Gadget!

Haven’t seen enough of KDDI’s fall 2010 product line? Good. The company has just outed a new e-reader, and shockingly enough, it actually manages to differentiate itself quite well in the sea of me-too alternatives. The biblio Leaf SP02 (a followup to last year’s model) is right around the size of Amazon’s newest Kindle, packing a 6-inch E Ink display (800 x 600 resolution), 2GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, included stylus, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, inbuilt 3G and a battery good for around 7,500 page turns. Curiously, there’s also a small solar panel adorning the bottom right, and we’re guessing that you can (slowly) rejuvenate the internal cell while reading under the sun — just make sure you keep your right palm out of the way. Unfortunately, there’s no direct mention of an expected price, but those stationed in Japan should see it on sale this December for somewhere between free and Yenfinity.

KDDI tacks solar panel onto biblio Leaf SP02 e-reader originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Borders enlists BookBrewer for its e-publishing portal, ‘Time Cube’ guy asks where to sign up

Borders enlists BookBrewer for its e-publishing portal, ‘Time Cube’ guy asks where to sign up originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 12:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s no question about it: Sony had its work cut out when it came time to improve the next generation of its e-readers. Amazon’s Kindle isn’t only the best selling electronic reading device out there, but its new $139 WiFi version is the fastest-selling yet. And then there’s the Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which is an equally capable competitor, especially with recent firmware updates. Oh, and don’t forget about the $140 Kobo. Yep, Sony had some serious work to do and its cheapest option – the $179.99 Pocket Edition — does differentiate in some striking ways. The aluminum reader has been upgraded with a new 5-inch E Ink Pearl display and now has an extremely responsive touchscreen for navigating through books / menus. The updates certainly have put Sony back into the final four, but there’s a few lacking features that just keep it from going all the way. You’ll want to hit the break to find out just what we’re talking about in our full review of this little guy.

Continue reading Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-350SC) review

Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-350SC) review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, this isn’t good. We didn’t have the highest of hopes for the Sharper Image’s Literati e-reader, a $159 7-incher announced back in August. Well, it’s just gotten a review and… it sounds much, much worse than we expected. In fact, the reviewer failed to find one decent attribute of the reader, but does detail its slowness, its unstable and buggy UI, and poor formatting. The Kobo-driven reader has absolutely no annotating options, not even bookmarks, rendering its full keyboard totally useless. The whole thing sounds like a serious mess to us. Hit up the source link to check out the entire, disparaging review.

Sharper Image Literati e-reader gets a ‘don’t even bother’ review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It ain’t exactly summer, but we’ll take it. Launching just a few days after we’d been told to expect it, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! self-publishing portal is finally open for business. As you’d heard before, this platform is essentially designed to give independent writers a venue for hawking their masterpieces, with PubIt! converting files to ePUB for use on a wide range of e-readers (read: not only the Nook). Published titles will be available for sale within 24 to 72 hours after upload on the B&N eBookstore, and the company’s pretty proud of its “no hidden fees” policy. Unfortunately, the compensation model — which is being detailed today for the first time — has its quirks. For PubIt! eBooks priced at or between $2.99 and $9.99, publishers will receive 65 percent of the list price for sold content; for those priced at $2.98 or less, or $10.00 or more, publishers will only receive 40 percent of the list price. In other words, there’s a no man’s land in that $10 to $15 range, so you’ll probably be settling for a $9.99 price point or reaching for the skies at $19.99. But hey, at least all PubIt! ebooks will also be lendable for a fortnight — surely that counts for something. Right?

Continue reading Barnes & Noble opens ‘PubIt!’ self-publishing portal, details compensation model

Barnes & Noble opens ‘PubIt!’ self-publishing portal, details compensation model originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 22:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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