Possible $13 eBook Reader

[FAST6191]

+1 to Another World- that is well into "buy four and hack them so much it is not funny" territory. Hopefully Calibre gets in there quick.

Bluetooth vs USB.... USB certification (getting yourself a PID and VID among other things) is not the cheapest and bluetooth might actually be comparable, granted you can buy in existing USB chips (generic mass storage USB chips are probably not that pricey) but if they are planning to make money of things other than the initial sale then I shall have to wait for a teardown to call anything.

 

[raulpica]

Bluetooth vs USB.... USB certification (getting yourself a PID and VID among other things) is not the cheapest and bluetooth might actually be comparable, granted you can buy in existing USB chips (generic mass storage USB chips are probably not that pricey) but if they are planning to make money of things other than the initial sale then I shall have to wait for a teardown to call anything.

I'm sure that cheapo chinese gadgets don't get an USB certification, nor a PID and VID

They could've just done that. The Bluetooth thingy smells. I mean, a Bluetooth module costs $2-3, why not go for an USB port which is $0.10?

 

[FAST6191]

Agreed raulpica and although it said German company (at best that probably means CE certification no?) in the opening post I would not be surprised to see an end run around it there either; it is probably most of what cypress do these days after all.

Back to waiting though, even if the software takes jumping through hoops that push me to get working it sure beats trying to make a laptop class as rugged or worrying that I will break the kindle, tablet or PSP when I am rolling around under a truck, being careless with a soldering iron or playing in other such less than consumer electronics friendly locations.

I also looked and apparently the USB battery people (one of the good companies) are looking do AAA batteries as well these days- http://www.usbcell.com/product/4 which makes life even better.

 

[SifJar]

Huh. Very interesting, Germany. Interesting.

I dont like the obvious "AAA batteries go here" thing...

How much battery power can it need if it uses e-ink and has no illuminated display?

Bluetooth uses a fair bit of battery. Presumably it could be turned off when not required though (i.e. only turned on when transferring a book).

Overall, I was finding it an interesting concept until someone pointed out it was $13 with a phone contract. An £8 eReader is definitely something I could get on board with (I've been considering a Kindle but not sure if I'd use it enough to make it worth the £70), but I don't need or want a phone contract. I could deal with the smaller screen and probably lower build quality etc., but the contract is probably the one deciding factor against it.

On the topic of hacking it, I'm sure at this price there will be some interesting things done for it if it becomes well known enough. For example, I'm fairly confident someone will figure out a way to transfer books from a PC over bluetooth instead of from a phone. (Android apps aren't particularly hard to reverse engineer if you know what you're doing a bit, or it may be easier to sniff the bluetooth communications, I don't really know much about that sort of thing though). Of course, there would probably also have to be some way of converting other ebook formats (e.g. ePub or whatever is used) to whatever format this thing uses (assuming it is not ePub or something standard like that), that would probably be in Calibre territory. Beyond that, I'm not sure what would be done. Perhaps something akin to the Kindle "jailbreaks", allowing custom code to run on the device itself. Maybe bluetooth tethering to a phone to get internet access for downloading RSS feeds or whatever onto the device. (In that regard, it may be beneficial having bluetooth over USB). I guess it all depends how much interest there is in the device.

If it is available without a contract, at a reasonable price, in the UK, I may very well consider getting one. As I said, I have been considering a Kindle, and this is shaping up to be a much cheaper alternative.

EDIT: According to the product site, it has 4GB of storage, which it says is enough for 5 books. I though 4GB would store thousands of eBooks?

Plus it says that the batteries will last for about a year (which I reckon depends on how much you read, they say 12-15 books)

EDIT: It looks like their store may sell books in epub format, so perhaps the device will take books in this format? As I understand, this is a fairly common format, that Calibre can work with quite well? If so, that seems like a good thing.

 

[Sterling]

According to the product site, it has 4GB of storage, which it says is enough for 5 books. I though 4GB would store thousands of eBooks?

I think they're missing some zeros on that estimate...

 

[SifJar]

According to the product site, it has 4GB of storage, which it says is enough for 5 books. I though 4GB would store thousands of eBooks?

I think they're missing some zeros on that estimate...

Either that or they're using some proprietary format that makes each book ~700-800MB. Which would be pointlessly redundant. Alternatively, perhaps they made a mistake with the amount of storage. 4MB should probably be enough for 5 books, and would be dirt cheap for them, which would be in keeping with the low price to the consumer. Although I hope it doesn't just have 4MB of storage, that'd be rubbish (although I guess it would be rare for me to require more than 5 books at a time anyway).

 

[FAST6191]

re 4 megabytes.... I am not sure if I can buy a chip that small these days (NOR and combination (S)RAM - NAND stuff aside of course). That said if they found a cache of old chips in the back of a warehouse and said hmm (such things have happened many times in the past) I can see it happening.

That would also serve to end my interest in it pending proper hacks- 512 megs or possibly 256 would be on the small side but I figure I would have a proper reader (or I guess a PSP with many gig memory card) for those times I need to carry the entire ASM metals handbook collection at some couple of gigs, but manuals and such can quite often be nearer to 50 megs than not.

As I seem to be trying to end my posts in this thread with links I guess something like http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/11/kindleberry_pi/ could work with this.

 

[SifJar]

re 4 megabytes.... I am not sure if I can buy a chip that small these days (NOR and combination (S)RAM - NAND stuff aside of course). That said if they found a cache of old chips in the back of a warehouse and said hmm (such things have happened many times in the past) I can see it happening.

That would also serve to end my interest in it pending proper hacks- 512 megs or possibly 256 would be on the small side but I figure I would have a proper reader (or I guess a PSP with many gig memory card) for those times I need to carry the entire ASM metals handbook collection at some couple of gigs, but manuals and such can quite often be nearer to 50 megs than not.

As I seem to be trying to end my posts in this thread with links I guess something like http://www.theregist...kindleberry_pi/ could work with this.

I was actually thinking about the project mentioned in that link when I mentioned Kindle jailbreaks in my previous post. Without a USB port, I guess the Pi would have to have a bluetooth adapter (can this sort of thing be done over bluetooth?), seeing as there's no other connection available as far as the existing information reads. But it would be an interesting (and obviously rather cheap) display for a Raspberry Pi.

As for the 4MB thing, I would indeed doubt it to be the case, but I can't see how their estimation of 5 books could possibly be accurate with 4GB. Hopefully it is actually 4GB and the 5 books thing is the mistake.

 

[DSGamer64]

According to the product site, it has 4GB of storage, which it says is enough for 5 books. I though 4GB would store thousands of eBooks?

I think they're missing some zeros on that estimate...

Either that or they're using some proprietary format that makes each book ~700-800MB. Which would be pointlessly redundant. Alternatively, perhaps they made a mistake with the amount of storage. 4MB should probably be enough for 5 books, and would be dirt cheap for them, which would be in keeping with the low price to the consumer. Although I hope it doesn't just have 4MB of storage, that'd be rubbish (although I guess it would be rare for me to require more than 5 books at a time anyway).

I bought a book that is almost 1200 pages in hard cover print, it's the only book in my e-reader currently and I have 22 MB of 1.3 GB used with it. Also, 4 GB of flash data should cost nothing these days, a 4 GB microSD card costs 99 cents.

 

[notmeanymore]

Also I'd think the book selection wouldn't be as good as a Kindle or Nook.

Uhh no, the selection is the same as the Nook and most all other eReaders, since you can just buy ePubs from the same marketplaces. Amazon is probably the only eBook seller that doesn't do ePubs.

 

[SifJar]

Also I'd think the book selection wouldn't be as good as a Kindle or Nook.

Uhh no, the selection is the same as the Nook and most all other eReaders, since you can just buy ePubs from the same marketplaces. Amazon is probably the only eBook seller that doesn't do ePubs.

Considering the only way to get books onto this thing (at launch, anyway; I'm sure there will be other ways in time if a few hackers take an interest) is via the txtr official app on iOS or Android, I'd say it's safe to assume any books being transferred will have to have been purchased from the txtr store. With this sort of pricing, they can't be making much/any profit on the hardware, so they will be doing everything they can to ensure people buy books from their store, and not someone else's. (Amazon don't even make a profit on Kindle hardware I believe, and it's obviously considerably more expensive).

 

[FAST6191]

Yay necropost.

Seeing the £30 Nooks that hit yesterday and still wanting a "can afford to break and replace" ereader I can use for car, bike and equipment manuals I thought of this and went digging, sadly it now seems it is up around the $70 USD mark http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2...coming-soon-will-cost-the-same-as-the-kindle/

 

[SifJar]

Yay necropost.

Seeing the £30 Nooks that hit yesterday and still wanting a "can afford to break and replace" ereader I can use for car, bike and equipment manuals I thought of this and went digging, sadly it now seems it is up around the $70 USD mark http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2...coming-soon-will-cost-the-same-as-the-kindle/

Wow, that is a very cheap price for a Nook. If I didn't already have a Kindle, I would be very tempted to grab one immediately.