Green Book is known for its series of e-ink based e-readers and they had a pleasant surprise at their CES booth this year: a 7 inch e-reader running Ice Cream Sandwich. This new device is set to launch in February for the super low price of $100.00! Normally, when companies announce devices that cost a low amount of cash, it brings up warning signs to denote the quality. During the course of our review I was blown away by the value you get on a hardware and software level.
The Green Book Color is a 7 inch color e-reader featuring a capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. I found the entire touchscreen experience to be quick and robust! Most of the interactive buttons, like settings/forward/back, were all software buttons, but they were built into the chassis.
Underneath the hood is a 1 GHZ Xburst CPU Processor with 512 of RAM and 8 GB of internal memory. There is room to expand it up to 16 GB, if you need more space, via the MicroSD card. There is also a front and rear facing webcam which was a pleasant surprise given the price point. Finally, you can connect it up to your television via the Micro HDMI port, which is a boon and something that even the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, or Kobo Vox has. If audio is your thing, there is a rear facing speaker and a built in microphone to run in conjunction with the webcam.
On a software level, this is running a full and complete build of Google Android 4.0 and it was a breeze opening and closing programs. Running Kindle, Nook, and Kobo for Android allows you to tap into very rich ecosystems and page turn speed was very quick. There are a number of great apps available on the “Go Market,” which is a app store I have never heard of before, but seems to be rich in content. On an internet level, you get full support for HTML5 and Adobe Flash to get a complete browsing experience.
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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.
