Fujitsu has launched FLEPia – “color e-paper mobile terminal”. It features:
8″ 1024×768 e-Ink resistive touchscreen that can display either 260,000, 4,096 or 64 colors. Depending on the number of colors page update time ranges from 1.8 to 8 seconds.
158 x 240 x 12 mm size and 350g weight. This makes it larger and heavier compared to Amazon Kindle 2 (135 x 203 x 9 mm and 289g). I would imagine that version with 12″ screen would be even heavier.
SD slot that can accommodate up to 4GB of flash memory
Connectivity is represented by 802.11b/g wireless, Bluetooth 2.0 and USB
It runs Microsoft Windows CE5.0 on XScale RISC CPU
Battery life is 40 hours or 2,400 page turns which is impressive for a device with these capabilities.
eBook formats supported are: BunkoViewer XMDF and T-Time .book. Both are eBook formats widely used on mobile phones in Japan. Since device runs a generic Windows CE5.0 OS I can speculate that it would be possible to broaden format selection by installing additional applications
Price tag is ¥100,000 ($940)
While I didn’t have the opportunity to play around with this device I’ll speculate a little bit…
Although some news sites might call this device a “Kindle Killer”, it’s obviously not that. First of all it’s geared heavily towards Japanese market and Japanese users. Secondly, it is not hooked to Kindle Book Store which is crucial to Kindle’s success. My personal belief is that Kindle would have been successful even without eInk technology though maybe slightly less. And thirdly even 8″ version costs around $1,000 which is to high for “eBook reader for the masses”
It is good to see this device comercially released though because it would allow for further development of color eInk technology and eventually prices will come down and we’ll see more devices featuring it…
Onyx International presented Onyx Boox e-reader at CeBIT 2009. Endgadget has video and some photos of the device. Current plans are for it to start shipping to US customers around June 2009 with a price tag lower than Sony PRS-700 which is $400. Here are some features I was able to deduce from the video and other sources:
Stylus sensitive 6″, 8″ or 9.7″ 16 shades of gray touchscreen so you can scribble your notes right on top of the text.
Native support for many data formats including PDF, HTML, TXT, CHM, ePub, PDB, MOBI, PRC, JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF, MP3, WAV.
512MB internal storage. Additional storage can be added in a form of either Memory stick or USB drives. 128MB RAM. 400Mhz processor or above
Integrated WiFi. Optional EVDO or 3G wireless module.
1600mAh integrated Li-Ion battery.
Either by accelerometer similar to the one in iPhone or by explicit user input it’s possible to use it both landscape and portrait modes. Cool feature but in my opinion it’s not too relevant to book reading.
It is claimed that it has handwriting recognition. This makes me assume that touchscreen wouldn’t respond to fingers because that requires magnetic sensors similar to ones found in Tablet PCs that capture stylus movements precisely including tilt angle. This allows recognition to be much more accurate at the cost of these sensors ignoring anything but the stylus.
Web Browser that is based on WebKit (same library that powers Apple Safari and Google Chrome). This would probably yield browsing experience that is superior to Kindle.
There is on-screen keyboard available. I wouldn’t mind having something like that on Kindle with extra space allocated for bigger screen that can be used for reading when keyboard isn’t required.
It will be possible to install additional applications but it’s unclear whether SDK will be released.
Text-to-speech capability. Though because of the noise in the video it was impossible to tell how good is it.
Below is the official promotional video.
My personal opintion is that it will not be very successful if successful at all and here’s why:
While it has many cool features like larger screen, touchscreen, large selection of formats that it supports, few of these features are actually useful in day-to-day operations. Overall it looks more like e-Ink PDA rather than eBook reader. WebKit based browser is nice but slow e-Ink screen will negate most of the benefits. iPhone with 3.5″ display would provide much better overall web-browsing experience. Running additional application can’t be good for battery life. And while touch screen is cool, how often would you really need to scribble and use handwriting recognition? Most of these tasks can be much better performed by other devices like PDAs, iPhone, etc.
But most importantly, what about books? Without having access to Amazon’s Kindle Store with 240,000+ titles it would be limited to much smaller selections of the stores that would decide to partner with Onyx and free books. Which is not a whole lot compared to what Amazon has to offer. Most likely book buying experience will not be as easy and streamlined as one with Kindle.
There’s one great feature that really made Onyx Boox stand out – larger screens. Although I’m pretty sure that “cheaper than $400″ price tag that was announced on CeBIT applies to 6″ model and ones with larger screens will cost more. Nonetheless there would be people for whom larger screen would outweigh all cons and they would buy Onyx Boox rather than Amazon Kindle should it have access to the same selection of books. And this is why I believe Amazon would not partner with Onyx to protect it’s Kindle sales.
Poor state of US and worldwide economy wouldn’t help sales either.
So although this post is under “Kindle Killer” category, really it’s Kindle Killer… Not.
I know that this post may sound too Kindle biased, but that’s my opinion. Anyway, we’ll be able to find out if I was right soon enough. I’ll keep you posted.
As if recent release of Kindle 2 wasn’t enough… Kindle for iPhone application was just released to iTunes marketplace and is available for download! What it does is it brings most of the Amazon Kindle functionality to iPhone or iPod Touch. The application is free to download and can be installed either via iTunes (click here if you have iTunes already installed) or directly through App Store…
Once the application is installed – you need to enter your Amazon.com username and password and within seconds you have all the books that you’ve purchased before for your Kindle available in “Archived Items”…
Couple more taps on the touchscreen and you can start reading away.
Ok and now when the hype is gone lets be a bit more specific. The new app can do:
Download and display all textual books that are available in the Kindle Store.
Synchronize bookmarks, annotations, reading positions etc via the WhisperSync.
Add new bookmarks.
Text is displayed very clearly and is readable even at the smallest font size (it fact when smallest font size is contains almost as much text as my Kindle which I have set to second smallest font.
Once application is registered iPhone immediately becomes selectable in the combo-boxes on the Amazon.com so you can send purchased books to the device.
And now on what it can’t do:
It looks like periodicals a missing. At least WSJ that I’m subscribed to didn’t show up anywhere in the application.
There is no text-to-speech
Regrettably there is no special interface to buy more books. It has to be done via PC or iPhone Safari browser which is doable but not the most comfortable experience you would have. Unfortunately using Amazon Mobile application (also free) is not an option since it only allows adding Kindle books to wish-list. Hopefully Amazon will update it soon enough.
There doesn’t seem to be any dictionary functionality.
To sum it up: Way cool, with a room for improvement. While it would seem that releasing such an application would hurt Kindle sales, personally I thing that it would not and overall it would be benefical to Amazon.com. And here is why:
While the text is clear and readable, reading from iPhone is not the best experience.
iPhone is much less autonomous than Kindle because it’s not meant to run long on a single charge but more importantly because when you are reading an eBook a back-lit display is drawing a lot of power from the battery. There is no way you can read 20,000 pages on a single charge and this was a major selling point to me and many other Kindle owners.
So in no way iPhone will be able to even come close to replacing Kindle.
On the other hand iPhone is a great opportunity because it is an undisputed leader by number of e-commerce transactions that are initiated and completed using it. This is because it provides excellent mobile browsing experience. You can actually navigate the web and shop with it comfortably.
There were 10M+ iPhones sold during 2008 alone. Releasing this application gives Amazon better access to this audience. And by defintion this audience likes to consume information and spend money on gadgets. So I imagine quite a few would first buy a couple of books to their iPhone to do some quick lookup or to read something during some long commute and eventually would buy Amazon Kindle to have a better reading experience with these books.
Another reason I happy about this realease is that in the modern world of proprietary mutually incompatible and overly restrictive DRM systems that hurt honest users much more than pirates having a seemless easy way to access useful copyrighted and legally purchased content across several platforms from two different manufactureres is a step in the right direction.
Folks from iFixIt.com have disassembled Kindle 2 and here is brief scoop of what they’ve found:
Battery used is 3.7V 1530mAh Li-Pol battery model number S11S01A. It weights 1.1 oz which is 10% of total weight of the device. It has slightly less capacity than iPhone 3G battery which is 1400mAh. Freescale MC13783VK5 is used as a battery power management chip.
There is no protective cover on the display. So if you scratch it or break it repairs would be quite expensive.
Main processor used is MCIMX31LVKN5C M91E CTAH0850V. It is ARM-11 CPU that runs at 533 Mhz and is manufactured by 90nm process. This is an upgrade from Kindle 1 which used 400 Mhz Marvell PXA255 CPU marked with LUPXA255A0 G7171929.2 0744 KR C400.
RAM is represented by 128MB DDR Samsung K4X1G323PC chip. This is an upgrade compared to 64MB RAM found in Kindle 1.
Flash memory is 2GB moviNAND. Major upgrade from 256MB built in Kindle 1, but as we know it comes at a cost of not having external SD slot.
There is unused space on the PCB for SIM card. This hints to possibility of international versions of Kindle.
We’ll probably get much more comprehensive coverage on Kindle 2 once Igor from Reversing Everything gets his hands on one.
News are out and Kindle 2 will be shipping on February 24th.
So hurry up and get in line if you’re interested.
There are some good news for current Kindle owners who will order Kindle 2 today. According to Jeff Bezos “Current Kindle owners who buy one by tonight will move to the top of the queue” Update for current Kindle 1 owners (from Amazon site):
Even though we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity, we want to be sure our original Kindle owners are first in line to receive Kindle 2. Place your Kindle 2 order by midnight PST on February 10th and you will receive first priority.
Quick summary on features from Amazon
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback Wireless:3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books Faster Page Turns:20% faster page turns Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available Low Book Prices:New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise
I just returned from a trip to Honolulu, Hawaii where I spent some time relaxing under the sun. Well my problem is that max time I can stay on the beach and do nothing is about 30 minutes. After that I get completely bored and need to do something different. This problem seriously disappoints my wife because she is a big fan of sun tanning.
Since this time I knew about this problem beforehand I had my 2 anti-boredom devices with me: Kindle and IPhone. While kindle allows me to read books and pre-downloaded blogs, IPhone gives me a real time access to the internet. The problem with IPhone is that it’s screen is small and it is quite tough to read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs on it. Kindle is great for reading books and already downloaded things on internet but the problem is that wireless is not yet available on the beaches and it is impossible to browse internet on it (which I like the most).
Amazon, Apple, please produce a device which will have a 3G internet connection like an IPhone and a reading comfort of a kindle. Or just let the other devices connect to an IPhone and get cellular internet connection through it. And please make it sand resistant too…
The images above are from a test conducted by Cartwright Reed, with the iPhone on the left and Kindle on the right showing The Stand by Stephen King.
From Cartwright Reed
The smaller, brighter iPhone screen is showing the same number of words as the Kindle. The Kindle is the premiere ebook reader, but I think that the eReader/iPhone combination is compelling. Listening to music while reading off the iPhone screen is a great experience.
The Kindle is still the winner when you’re buying ebooks, though. I bought a few titles from Fictionwise and eReader from the iPhone, but it’s not nearly as easy as Kindle’s Whispernet experience. Of course, you can only go to one bookstore on the Kindle :-).
What is interesting is that the iPhone can squeeze the same amount of words onto the screen as the Kindle, however I suspect you will be squinting quite hard as you try and read the the tiny font on the iPhone. The only solution would be to increase the font size which means less words per screen, which means more page flipping.
You may of heard that over the weekend Apple unveiled it’s new iPhone 3G device, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding the device, mostly because of the software, the actual hardware is not that impressive and mostly includes improvements that the original iPhone should have shipped with in the first place. The iPhone 3G comes in at a impressive $199 to buy, however you will be paying more in the long term compared to the classic iPhone with higher network subscription charges.
Now how does the new iPhone effect us Kindlers? well… Apple has done something remarkable with the software – they have opened it up! which is impressive considering we are talking about Apple here. All this has allowed third party developers to create e-book apps for the iPhone 3G and has turned the iPhone into a e-book reader.
There are already a couple of iPhone e-book reading apps out already, the iPhone Bookshelf is one which supports multiple formats.
Another promising e-book app is Stanza. Stanza is an app which lets you read e-book which are stored on your iPhone and e-books online, make sure you check out the demo at the bottom of the page. Stanza can also read files in the ePub format, which many other apps are able to work with, perhaps the Kindle will eventually support ePub aswell one day.
The only annoying thing about reading an e-book on the iPhone is that each e-book comes as its own individual app, with its own icon on the iPhone home screen, Apple could have done a better job of categorising e-books or even better creating their own e-book reading App.
There is still some speculation on whether Apple will create a dedicated e-book reading device, but for now we know e-books are on a Apple device through third party apps, if you couple this with rumours that Apple is in touch with major publishers this would support the theory that Apple is working on its own e-book reader, or at least a e-book store.
Will the touch screen make it easier to read an e-book? I don’t know since I don’t own a iPhone or iPod Touch, but I suspect that it might be a bit easier to read with the iPhone, swiping the screen to turn the page seems a more natural gesture than pressing a button, however you will be using both hands, whereas with the Kindle you need only use one. With the Kindle accidentally turning the page can be quite frustrating, I cant see it happening on the iPhone.
You can watch our buddy Walt Mossberg review of the Apple iPhone 3G in the video below, he mentions the e-book reading capability of the device.
Can Apple with its new iPhone 2.0 software challenge Amazon?
Researchers from Maryland and UC Berkeley Universities have come up with an e-book prototype which could transform how next generation e-book readers are designed and used. The prototype — which you can see in the picture above — is still in the early stages of development, however the initial user reaction has been positive. The prototype e-book tries to address some of the usability issues that most e-book readers fail at – things like flipping through pages, comparing documents or folding pages. Every single e-book reader out there right now only has one screen, so the switch to dual-screen seem like a natural one.
Another interesting aspect about the prototype is that it is modular in design, meaning you could connect any number of devices together to create a large reading area.
The researches from the universities presented the prototype at the CHI08 conference, you can read the paper here. (1.6mb PDF)
The researches have also put together this video which highlights some of the features of the dual-display e-book prototype.
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