Hasta La Gadget!

The guys and gals at MobileRead have scored hands-on time with the Cybook Opus and early impressions are good. They were smitten with the ergonomics of the device and its “gorgeous” 5-inch e-ink display, but oddly neglected to point out any weaknesses. Equipped with an accelerometer, 1GB of storage, microSD expansion slot, and a user-replaceable battery, the Opus is able to read PDF and ePUB files — with or without DRM — and organize them into folders. There are rumors of a €250 ($349) asking price, but the exact details of when and where it will be available remain unknown. Click through for a video of the reader doing its thing or hit the read links for more extensive coverage.

[Via Slashgear]

Read – MobileRead exclusive : sneak preview of the Bookeen Opus
Read – Cybook Opus: Discovering the reader, video

Continue reading Video: Bookeen Cybook Opus ebook reader gets handled and adored

Filed under: Handhelds

Video: Bookeen Cybook Opus ebook reader gets handled and adored originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Elonex has been dabbling in small screen wares for quite some time now, so it’s not a huge surprise to finally see it join the likes of BeBook, Sony and Amazon by introducing its very own eBook reader. Design wise, the 6-inch reader looks an awful lot like that played-out OEM model that everyone seems to start with, but hey, you won’t find us kvetching about competition. The device is launching exclusively at Borders UK, and with that comes the new Borders eBook Download Store. With a 4GB expansion card, there’s room for some 8,000 ebooks, and the 9 millimeter-thin frame ensures that this one won’t bog you down too much. Interested consumers over in the UK can snap this one up right now for £189 ($311), and that price nets you 100 free ebooks, a charger, data cable and a great sense of pride.

[Thanks, Sam]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Elonex launches £189 6-inch eBook reader through Borders UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon already sent a pretty clear signal that it has grander plans for Kindle than just its own devices when it launched its iPhone app earlier this year, but Jeff Bezos has now made those intentions clearer than ever, and dropped a few hints of things to come. Speaking at a Wired-sponsored conference yesterday, Bezos all but confirmed that Amazon sees Kindle books and Kindle readers as two separate businesses, and he even went so far as to say that “we are going to give the device team competition” by making Kindle books available on “mobile devices and other computing devices, although he obviously didn’t specify other e-book readers. Interestingly, Bezos also confirmed that Amazon had considered selling the Kindle with a monthly subscription plan to lower the cost, or require a minimum number of books purchased, but said that he preferred the simplicity of providing one flat up-front cost, which he says has helped account for the Kindle’s success.

Filed under: Handhelds

Bezos suggests Kindle books will appear on more devices, compete with Kindle readers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While you might say Amazon’s Kindle is lucky to have a single CDMA / EV-DO radio built-in, IAC would likely venture to disagree. Over at Computex, said firm was showcasing its Prodigy e-reader, which just so happens to pack every major wireless radio we can think of. EV-DO Rev. A? Check. WCDMA / HSPA? Check. WiMAX? Oh, definitely. 802.11b/g WiFi? For sure, dudes. And the fun doesn’t stop there — it’s packing a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-paper touchscreen, 256MB of NAND Flash memory, 128MB of DDR memory, 2GB of NAND storage and a Marvell PXA310 processor. If all goes well, this little bugger will ship in Q4 over in Taiwan, but it’ll be a cold day in Hades before it arrives on US soil. Video’s after the break.

Continue reading IAC Prodigy e-reader does EV-DO, HSPA, WiMAX and WiFi

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

IAC Prodigy e-reader does EV-DO, HSPA, WiMAX and WiFi originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve always heard that most things come in packs of three, so just as soon as some other dodgy source affirms that Hulk Hogan will actually be replacing Steve Jobs in August, we’ll be set. Shortly after seeing a 32GB iPhone placeholder over at T-Mobile Austria, we’re now staring at a comically brief report from Digitimes that pegs Wintek as the “panel module supplier for Apple’s upcoming e-book form factor netbook product.” If you’ll recall, Wintek was already independently confirmed as said panel supplier for said product back in March, but obviously Apple has remained tight-lipped on the whole netbook / tablet / e-reader thing. That said, we do find it interesting that this report clarifies that whatever’s purportedly cooking in some dark, highly guarded lab in Cupertino looks more like a tablet with a netbook-sized display rather than a conventional netbook. Whatever the case, we wouldn’t expect it at WWDC, but any Tuesday morning after that is fair game.

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

Wintek pegged as panel supplier for rumored Apple tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 06:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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