e-Readers from Asia: Eight articles on this page
China's got an exclusive e-Reader: the Aigo EB6301
It's official: everyone's making an e-reader. Chinese company Aigo has just announced its own model, the exciting named EB6301.
This one boasts a 6-inch E Ink display, a host of buttons running down its left side in addition to the navigation panel, and has 2GB of built-in storage.
There's no WiFi on this unit which is a big liability these days, and it's going to run 2,499 yuan -- about $366. It's only sold in China for the time being, with no news whether it will land in Europe & N. America.
It will cost Yen to read in color: the FLEPia
From Wired, March 25, 2009 - The Fujitsu FLEPia is the first e-book reader to sport a color e-ink screen. It has an 8-inch display capable of showing up to 60,000 colors in high definition. And yet the battery life can extend up to 40 hours, says the company.
Even better, it comes with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. Other features include storage via a 4-GB SD card, touchscreen and a stylus. Includes a browser and Windows Windows CE 5.0 (Japanese version) that allows email and use of Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and other Office applications
Right now the FLEPia is on sale only in Japan, with shipping scheduled to begin April 20. Japanese FLEPia users can purchase e-books from the largest e-book online retailer in the country, according to Fujitsu.
We hope it won’t be long before this device comes to the U.S. and British markets.
Price: Super expensive: $1,025 approx. (99,750 Japanese yen). Update: Dec 28th, 2009 - The FLEPia has not left Japan as of today.
Even better, it comes with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. Other features include storage via a 4-GB SD card, touchscreen and a stylus. Includes a browser and Windows Windows CE 5.0 (Japanese version) that allows email and use of Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and other Office applications
Right now the FLEPia is on sale only in Japan, with shipping scheduled to begin April 20. Japanese FLEPia users can purchase e-books from the largest e-book online retailer in the country, according to Fujitsu.
We hope it won’t be long before this device comes to the U.S. and British markets.
Price: Super expensive: $1,025 approx. (99,750 Japanese yen). Update: Dec 28th, 2009 - The FLEPia has not left Japan as of today.
iRiver Story sold in UK & Korea but not in USA
From Engadget, Sept 24, 2009 - Reports are coming out that the new "Story" e-Reader from iRiver can be pre-ordered in Korea for a late 2009 release. This makes sense since iRiver was founded by former Samsung executives and is based in Seoul, S. Korea.
While we've heard that the reader will eventually get global, we've still yet to heard pricing or release dates for the USA.
The company is now taking pre-orders for the 6-inch, QWERTY keyboarded device, which runs 358,000 KRW ( around $290). The reader will come packaged with a 2GB SD card, the book-impersonating folding case we've spied it wearing in the past, and two free book downloads.
Update, Dec 1, 2009: The iRiver Story is now being sold across the United Kingdom online & in the chain store Zavvi (formerly Virgin Record Stores) but still no imformation about a United States launch.
While we've heard that the reader will eventually get global, we've still yet to heard pricing or release dates for the USA.
The company is now taking pre-orders for the 6-inch, QWERTY keyboarded device, which runs 358,000 KRW ( around $290). The reader will come packaged with a 2GB SD card, the book-impersonating folding case we've spied it wearing in the past, and two free book downloads.
Update, Dec 1, 2009: The iRiver Story is now being sold across the United Kingdom online & in the chain store Zavvi (formerly Virgin Record Stores) but still no imformation about a United States launch.
Samsung Papyrus enters the fray
From Pocketlint, March 25, 2009 - Samsung’s announcement that it plans to release an e-book reader called Papyrus means it is one of at least a dozen companies to hop on the digital-book bandwagon.
With touchscreen capability and an e-ink screen, the Papyrus will cost just $300, Samsung says, making it even cheaper than the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle. Papyrus, when it becomes available, will join an increasingly crowded field that includes the Kindle, Sony Reader, Fujitsu FLEPia, Hanlin eReader, Foxit eSlick Reader and the yet-to-be-released Plastic Logic reader.
The Papyrus launch is still a few months away. Samsung is first expected to make Papyrus available in Korea this summer, says the Pocket-Lint website, with a later launch date in the United States and Britain. The device will come with a stylus for the touch screen, 512 MB of memory but no SD card slot
Update, Dec 28th, 2009: The Papyrus is still not available for sale outside of Asia
With touchscreen capability and an e-ink screen, the Papyrus will cost just $300, Samsung says, making it even cheaper than the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle. Papyrus, when it becomes available, will join an increasingly crowded field that includes the Kindle, Sony Reader, Fujitsu FLEPia, Hanlin eReader, Foxit eSlick Reader and the yet-to-be-released Plastic Logic reader.
The Papyrus launch is still a few months away. Samsung is first expected to make Papyrus available in Korea this summer, says the Pocket-Lint website, with a later launch date in the United States and Britain. The device will come with a stylus for the touch screen, 512 MB of memory but no SD card slot
Update, Dec 28th, 2009: The Papyrus is still not available for sale outside of Asia
The first color e-Reader is from Fujitsu
From Engadget, March 18th, 2009 - Fujitsu has at last released its color e-Reader (or officially, a e-paper mobile terminal) to the Japanese. Featuring an 8-inch XGA screen capable of displaying 260,000 colors, along with Bluetooth, WiFi and up to 4GB of storage via SD card, and all in a device measuring less than half an inch thick.
FLEPia's can be operated by its touchscreen or the assortment of function buttons & either way, you get 40 hours of continuous useage per battery charge.
It's not only a eBook Reader but a Windows' CE device butwith the relatively slow screen refresh times of e-ink (1.8 seconds for a single wipe), it is more suited for ebooks. FLEPia ships on April 20th in Japan for 99,750 Yen (about $1,010 US)
iRiver Story: A Kindle twin without wireless functions
eReader manufacturing heats up in China
According to Interfax China, Sept 25th, 2009 - China Mobile Ltd. is launching two eBook readers made by Datang Telecom Technology Co., Ltd. and Hanwang Technology Co. Ltd. The company released its first device from Hanwang, the “G3 eBook”, back on August 9th and has just launched its latest device from Datang, the “AirPaper50T”, on September 15th. The e-reader from Datang only operates over China Mobile’s homegrown 3G standard, TD-SCDMA, while the Hanwang entry is a dual mode device that operates over both GSM and TD-SCDMA.
In order to expand quickly into the market, which China Mobile views as very important, it has decided to heavily subsidize the cost of the devices with up to a 50% discount — from RMB 2,000 ($292.60) to around RMB 1,000 ($146.30) — although this plan is unsubstantiated.
In 2008, the Chinese mobile reading market was still negligible in terms of revenue but it experienced year-on-year growth of 366%. It was RMB 30.3 million ($4.44 million) in 2008 compared to RMB 6.5 million ($951,581) in 2007. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how big the e-reader market can get with the addition of mobile products.
In order to expand quickly into the market, which China Mobile views as very important, it has decided to heavily subsidize the cost of the devices with up to a 50% discount — from RMB 2,000 ($292.60) to around RMB 1,000 ($146.30) — although this plan is unsubstantiated.
In 2008, the Chinese mobile reading market was still negligible in terms of revenue but it experienced year-on-year growth of 366%. It was RMB 30.3 million ($4.44 million) in 2008 compared to RMB 6.5 million ($951,581) in 2007. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how big the e-reader market can get with the addition of mobile products.
The new NUUT2 e-Reader
From Teleread, June 17, 2009 - Another Korean company has released yet another e-Reader called the NUUT2 and will retail for about $280.00 US.
Except for reading BBeB books, why the devil would anyone want to buy the current Sony Reader, whose effective price is now $300 in the U.S.? Between the NUUT and the forthcoming Cybook about which we broke the news last week, Sony needs to release another improved e-Reader pronto unless it wants to see at least a minor decline in sales.
Besides using improved e-ink for more text-background contrast and faster page refreshes, the Korean machine will offer “512 megabytes of internal memory, large enough for 1,000 e-books or more,” says the article.
Update: Dec 28th, 2009 - While the NUUT is still not available in North America, Sony has released three new e-Book Readers as reported throughout e-Reader Feeder.
Except for reading BBeB books, why the devil would anyone want to buy the current Sony Reader, whose effective price is now $300 in the U.S.? Between the NUUT and the forthcoming Cybook about which we broke the news last week, Sony needs to release another improved e-Reader pronto unless it wants to see at least a minor decline in sales.
Besides using improved e-ink for more text-background contrast and faster page refreshes, the Korean machine will offer “512 megabytes of internal memory, large enough for 1,000 e-books or more,” says the article.
Update: Dec 28th, 2009 - While the NUUT is still not available in North America, Sony has released three new e-Book Readers as reported throughout e-Reader Feeder.
