Hasta La Gadget!

If you didn’t feel you got the whole Story yesterday, here’s a pleasing helping of seconds, this time in the form of a full-on review. The PC Pro team rates iriver’s Kindle emulator as a “serious contender,” and places its readability on par with Sony’s touch-less Readers. While congratulations are also meted out for a decent integrated MP3 player, 3.5mm headphone jack, and the wide variety of supported formats, two issues stood out for the reviewers. One was that the support for Word, Excel and Powerpoint files was somewhat hit-and-miss, with zooming sometimes not working and rendering some files unreadable. But the major gripe related to the asking price of £230 including taxes (around $380), which the Story was not considered capable of justifying. Hit the link below for more — even if your interest is purely academic.

iriver Story reviewed, incites rebellion over price originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re pro-ebook readers but anti-Amazon censorship, here’s a decent alternative for your cashola. The Story reader from iriver has been undressed for our entertainment and rightfully praised for its trendy eco-friendly packaging. It’s not an altogether unique device, but with an 800 x 600 E Ink display, support for ePUB, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and even Ogg / WMA file formats, it’s at least versatile enough. Hit the read link to try and spot the other differences between this and Amazon’s record-breaking piece of authoritarian hardware. Go on — it’s a real rush, we promise.

iriver Story unsheathed, still looks remarkably like a Kindle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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November isn’t even technically over yet, but Amazon’s Kindle has already hit a new monthly sales record. The retailer issued a statement today to that effect, but didn’t actually release any specific sales number. It did add, however that the e-book reader is, “the most wished for, the most gifted, and the number one bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon.”

Despite the addition of a few new players in the market–including, most notably, Barnes & Noble’s new Nook–the Kindle continues to be the most well-known e-book reader on the market, and will no doubt continue to sell well into the holidays.

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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