The Xiaomi e-Reader is complete and it should be announced sometime next week. This new device is likely going to feature a 7.8 inch screen and would be a dedicated ebook reader. It would be competing against a number of e-reader brands in China, such as Boyue. There has been little to no pre-launch news, but the company has just released a new picture.
This e-reader was first announced in November by Xiao Mu, the general manager of Xiaomi’s intelligent hardware department, and Li Chuangqi, the senior product director of Xiaomi. It wasn’t released sooner because the company was focusing on smart home accessories.
Xiaomi is no stranger to E Ink products. They have released a few products over the years, such as a Digital Thermometer Hygrometer. It remains to be seen what they intend on doing for ebook content, whether they are going to do business with China Literature, which is owned by Tencent. There might be other possibilities such as JD Read, Baidu, Netease, Mig and Wechat. I think the most realistic option is Xiaomi tapping into their own Duokan Read platform, which is bundled on all Xiaomi phones. It has 99,603 Chinese titles and around 8,600 ebooks in English.
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.
