Energy Sistem may not be a household name in North America, but they have been developing e-readers in Spain for the last four years. The company recently unveiled their new product line for 2015, which comprises of three different e-book readers. Today, we take a look at the Slim, which is their entry level model.
The Energy Sistem Slim e-reader features a six inch screen that uses e-Ink Pearl and has a resolution of 600 × 800 pixels . The e-paper technology that the Slim uses is fairly antiquated by modern standards. Most of the latest generation devices all use Carta, Regal or even Pearl HD.
Older e-ink technology really matters from a practical standpoint. Whenever you are reading an e-book and turning a page the entire screen will refresh. For a split second the entire screen will flash, which breaks immersion when you are really into a book. If you are used to older generation readers this might not be a big deal, if you have bought a cutting edge e-reader in the last few years, it will be noticeable.
Energy Sistem never publicly divulged the processor, but it is running 128M of RAM and has 8 GB of internal memory. You can expand the memory via SD if you need more room to store your books.
Speaking of books, one of the most exciting elements about the Slim is the sheer number of book formats it can read. It has support for EPUB, PDF and MOBI, this means it will play nice with the vast majority of books you will download or buy from the internet. In order to get you reading right away, there is 500 titles that come bundled, in a myriad of different languages.
This reader is fairly bare-bones, which is why it only costs 69 euros. There is no touchscreen or built in light, instead you will navigate around with the D-pad and physical buttons. If you ever used the Kindle Basic models from 2013 or older, you will know what I mean.
In the end, this e-reader is running Linux, which means you can’t install your own apps like the Energy Sistem Pro. It doesn’t have wireless internet access either, so you will have to download your own books from the internet.
I would recommend this for more advanced users that know where to find e-books online and know how to use Adobe Digital Editions to load them in.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.