more on ereaders

[toastykitten]

Jeff Bezos apologized for the Kindle controversy in which Amazon deleted copies of 1984 from people's Kindles and refunded their money.



It doesn't make me want the Kindle any more. But I recently discovered that txtr is coming out in October in Germany. It looks great, and I've told Mark he needs to ask his co-workers about it when it comes out. Here's the specs I'm concerned about:

Main Features

• eInk Vizplex 6" display at 600x800 pixels
• 146mm x 128.2mm x 8mm, 260g
• Freescale ARM11 CPU 532MHz
• capacitive slider interface
• next generation Epson display controller
• Linux kernel
• integrated 3D accelerometer for automatic orientation detection
• full integration with txtr online community platform

Communication

• internal 3G/GPRS modem
• USB 2.0 cable connection
• Bluetooth 2.1 for audio, external keyboard and future enhancements
• WiFi
• low power 2.4GHz near range communication

The communication specs means that it can compete with the Kindle better than the Sony Reader or other ereaders. I like that you can read PDFs on it, and they have their own store, similar to the Amazon store, except you don't have to go through the hassle of converting your documents. That they use Linux is a plus and it makes me think that they won't pull the Amazon crap where they tell you there's a limited amount of times you can download a work but they can't tell you how many because it varies with each publisher. And it looks to be ideal for reading comics and manuals. I just wish I knew how much they are going to sell it for.

Comments

[loic.livejournal.com]

The Kindle is Linux too, of course...

The big Kindle win is that they have a store with a shit-ton of books. As we saw with the iPod, that's a prerequisite to competition. And it's hard to get. Google needs to cut a deal with publishers to be able to sell all of their scanned material.

[toastykitten.livejournal.com]

Duh. I totally forgot to look up the specs of the Kindle while posting.

Anyway, I just saw that Apple is coming out with a tablet, which from people's guesses, looks like a giant iPod touch, which could also double as a reader, if it's got the connectivity and ability to use the Kindle app. Then you get access to Amazon's store of books. The downside is you don't have the e-ink display which then makes it kind of like a keyboard-less netbook. Undoubtedly it will be super-expensive.

I still like the txtr for its compact size (no keyboard!) and the connectivity features. I really want to know how they're going to price it, though.