Wiki. C_net stories. Engaget stories. Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide. Ebook Reader Reviews, Ratings & Comparisons. Borders Launches eBook Store, BlackBerry and Android Apps. Borders on Wednesday opened the doors to its new eBook Store, which allows users to purchase books directly from Borders.com and download them to their e-reader of choice.
It also unveiled new BlackBerry and Android apps. Borders on Wednesday opened the doors to its new eBook Store, which allows users to purchase books directly from Borders.com and download them to their e-reader of choice. The company also unveiled new BlackBerry and Android e-reader apps, which will complement its desktop, iPhone, and iPad apps. The new Borders eBook store features over 1.5 million titles for download, including thousands of books for free, and all of the books in the store are available in multiple formats like ePub and PDF.
The eBooks downloaded from the Borders eBook store can be read in any of the Borders eReader apps, or on devices like the Kobo eReader. The eBook Store will include everything from new best sellers to free classics that are in the public domain. Kobo eReader Review & Rating. The e-book reader market just keeps growing, with all sorts of products—some of which are too expensive for mainstream buyers. The Borders-backed Kobo eReader is different. It rings in at a reasonable $149.99 (direct), which puts it $110 below the Amazon Kindle ($259, ) and the Barnes & Noble Nook ($259, ), and $50 below the Sony Reader Pocket Edition (PRS-300) ($199.99, ). Design and Setup Measuring 7.2 by 4.7 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighing 7.8 ounces, the Kobo eReader is smaller than the Nook and the Kindle 2, and slightly bigger than the Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300, though the latter has a smaller, 5-inch display.
The Kobo's front panel is made of matte white plastic. To set up the eReader, I connected it to a 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro via the included USB cable. Reading Books, Downloads, and Conclusions The Kobo eReader can display your e-book collection in a list, as raw text, or in a shelf view. ). E-book readers. Augen The Book LCD ereader on sale for bargain $90 [Update: Reviewed!]
Augen's oddly named "The Book" ereader has gone on sale, eschewing E Ink in favor of a color LCD display in a Kindle-style casing. Available at kmart in limited numbers for just $89, the ereader runs Linux 2.6.4 on a 400MHz ARM CPU - which means no Android, unlike the Pandigital Novel - complete with WiFi b/g, 2GB of flash memory and an SD slot content with cards up to 8GB in size. There's also apparently a web-browser, text-to-speech engine and a media player for images, audio and video. Augen have been pretty ambitious in their ebook spec support, too; The Book will apparently display TXT, PDF, HTML, CHM, RTF, FB2, EPUB, PRC and MOBI files. Update: The Ebook Reader picked up Augen's The Book from their local kmart and has already reviewed it; more details after the cut. We're not expecting great things from the hardware or software, but for the price - down, apparently, from an MRSP of $99.99 - it could be something of a bargain. [via The Digital Reader]
E-book readers, e-book reader Ratings, best e-book readers from Consumer Reports. What are e-book readers anyway? They're portable devices, typically with 5-to-10-inch screens, primarily designed to display the digitized versions of printed books. They're typically quite light--mostly 8 ounces or so and up--and are about as thin as many smart phones.
Prices typically range from around $80 to $300, with many models costing $100 or so. Most use technologies such as E Ink that rely on reflected ambient light to illuminate their screen. That gives them a relatively long battery life--thousands of page turns, or upward of a week or so in standby mode. Others, however, including virtually all color models, use the LCD screen technology of laptops and many phones. While such LCD screens generally produce type that's less crisp, and more difficult to read in bright light, they're backlit, and so are easier to read in dim light. E-book readers offer other capabilities, such as built-in music players, but they're designed primarily for reading. What do e-books cost? Consumer Reports Electronics Blog: First impressions: The Pandigital Novel 7-inch color e-book reader.
Pandigital's Novel e-book reader. Photo: Pandigital A leading name in digital photo frames is putting its small-screen expertise to work on e-book readers. Pandigital, which has several models in our Ratings of photo frames (available to subscribers) today announces its first e-book reader. The Pandigital Novel 7-Inch Color Multimedia E-Reader uses an LCD screen, as do digital frames, and Wi-Fi connectivity, a growing feature for frames.
With a list price of $199—and likely to sell for $180, Pandigital says—the Novel will be available around June 6 in Bed, Bath & Beyond, which now sells Pandigital's photo frames. Other retailers will follow, Pandigital says. Like the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Novel has an Android-based operating system and an integrated B&N e-bookstore—though its look, feel, and navigation are quite different than on the Nook. A brief trial of the Novel last week at a meeting with Pandigital offered no definitive verdict on the device’s performance. E-book readers.