The last time we heard a product described as “magical and revolutionary” was during the launch of the iPad. But that’s not the end if the Australian company Kogan Technologies is to be believed. For they too have come up with something similar in the form of the Kogan e-reader that they claim can shake and stir things up in the market.
The Kogan e-reader is one more in the 6 inch category and has been priced competitively at $189 which includes free shipping along with a free leather carrying case. This also allows the Kogan e-reader a price advantage vis a vis the Borders’ Kobo e-reader that costs $199 in Australia and the Kindle that Amazon intends to sell in the country for $215. However, the company also maintained the lower cost does not come at the cost of quality of the device which they explain is as good and competent as any in the market.
“We’re seeing e-book readers dropping in price, but many are still far too expensive for mainstream use.” “When you have these devices up to and above $500, you’re really asking too much of Australian consumers,” this is what Ruslan Kogan, the company’s founder had to say of the price.
“Most importantly, it’s open-market technology. This device isn’t tied down to one content provider. Anyone is free to buy this, and download or buy e-books from almost any online store and view them on our device,” further added Kogan.
And as for the e-reader itself, it does look impressive. Based on the Linux operating system, the Kogan e-reader comes with a 6 inch 16 level grayscale e-ink screen that has a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. On board memory size up to 2 GB which can be extended further to 32 GB via SD card slots. Then there’s also a USB port as well as a 3.5mm standard headphone jack included in the e-reader that’s less than a centimeter thick.
A 2 GB storage space can be enough for thousands of e-books, and there’s 1500 of them that comes preloaded completely free, the bulk of which are made of out of copyright classics. Literary creations of several Australian authors are also included, like those of Henry Lawson, author of the famous titles ‘The Romance of the Swag.’ So after having purchased the e-reader, you can start off right away with it without having to look around to procure e-books.
The e-reader is compliant with 16 e-book file formats which includes all the major formats like PDF, ePub, text, HTML and RTF files. So with the Kogan, users will be able to comprehend pretty much anything. The e-reader also supports the popular mp3 audio formats. For managing e-book libraries, the Kogan e-reader will be able to synch with Adobe’s Digital Editions software.
The e-reader offers five font sizes to choose from while also being compatible with six languages, which includes English, Italian, French, Russian, Dutch and German.
This is also the right time for Kogan to come up with the e-reader as e-books and devices to read them are gaining increasing acceptance in Australia and the segment is poised for a quantum jump.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
