Welcome to another edition of the Good E-Reader Slate and E-Reader Weekly News summary. There was lots of exciting news this week with new retail deals being struck, specs announced and tons more. If you want more details on any of these stories click on the story headline.
Earlier in the week Amazon signed a deal with long term partner Target for the Kindle line of E-Readers to be sold at Target Stores everywhere as soon as April 25th. There are also plans for gift cards for Amazon books.
Barnes and Noble Signs distribution deal with Bestbuy.
Barnes and Noble Nook E-Reader has been on the market since around march. It was exclusively sold at the Barnes and Noble website, or in book retail locations. This week, Barnes and Noble announced that their Nook E-Reader will be sold at Bestbuy locations nationwide as early as April 18th.
Barnes and Noble announces 2 new e-readers
In the last few days the CEO of Barnes and Noble announced the development of two new E-Readers to compliment the Nook. The two new E-Readers are the Nook Lite and Project Encore, or the Nook 2.
The Nook Lite will be $199.99 and will feature WI-FI only and no 3G, it will otherwise look and function exactly like the Nook.
The Nook 2 has little official information available, but it will have an internet browser, have 3G and WI-FI , it possibly might have a 9 inch screen and employ Freescales new Color E-Ink technology.
Barnes and Noble (here and there)
The CEO of Barnes and Noble announced in a recent Fox Interview that Games are coming to the Nook in the next month.
The New Firmware 1.4 Update for the Nook should be ready in a few days, no information on what the fix encompasses.
Fujitsu Announces a Color E-Reader
In a recent event in Asia, Fujitsu showed off a new prototype of their new full color e-reader. No details or specs were announced during the event. People said it was around 9 inches 1024×768 resolution and is a touch sensitive screen.
Spring Design Alex has shipped!
For everyone that wanted to get their hands on the Spring Design Alex E-Reader, it’s in stores now at Boarders Bookstores nationwide. The Alex is great, 6 inch E-Reader, full internet browser, access to the android market place and tons of app options.
ViewSonic making 2 new E-Readers
ViewSonic the company known for making LCD monitors and Laptops have announced they will be bringing to the European market in October, two new e-book readers codenamed VEB620 and VEB625. Both models are slated to cost approximately $270 and $315 US.
These two new eBook readers have a 6-inch screen with 800×600 as the resolution and provides a 16-level gray scale. They come with 2GB of internal memory to store around one thousand books. It also has a G-Sensor to turn the pages and rotate them automatically, a slot for SD memory cards, and a USB port.
The two models read many different formats such as PDF, ePub, RTF, TXT files. Many E-Reader companies are making their defaults able to read ePub and PDF because those two make up the bulk of all e-novels on the internet.
Neofonie WePad Specs and Ship date announced.
At a recent event in Berlin, Neofonie announced the WePad, a Google Android tablet with 11.6 inch touch screen display, 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor, 16GB of flash storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1, and 1.3 megapixel camera starting at $611 and will have another model with a 3G-32GB version that will be available for $774 USD. The We-Pad launch date according to the company is August 2010. They will take pre-orders starting May 11 2010, and hope to compete with Apple in Germany.
Other notable features include memory card reader, two USB sockets, audio output, accelerometer, ambient light sensor, stereo speakers and Flash and Adobe AIR support. Additionally, the WePad will also come touting HDMI out as well as a Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator for 1080p video playback.
Apple iPad sells 500,000 in first week.
In the first week of in store sales, they have shipped over 500,000 iPad’s blowing away expectations of market demand.
Apple iPad announces App Restrictions
Apple has disallowed all Apps submitted to the Apple App Store with the name PAD in it, although they do not own the trademark on the word PAD, they have disallowed many notable applications lately and Steve Jobs replied in a E-Mail to a app developer that “It is just makes sense not to use other peoples trademarks in your app name”
Flash Work Around for the iPad
RipCode has made an application that bypasses Apple’s blocking of Flash. What they do is transcoding Adobe Flash video to play right in Apples Safari web browser, much like you can stream various video codec’s over your home network. Their program named “TransAct Transcoder V6″ can intercept Adobe Flash-based file or live video” and translate the video into a format compatible with both the iPhone and the iPad.
No word yet whether or not Apple will address this in a future firmware update, or will disallow the application.
As we have reported in the past the HP Slate will run $549 in its base configuration, which has a 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive multitouch display, a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor with UMA graphics and an accelerator for 1080p video playback (we’re assuming it’s a Broadcom Crystal HD chip), 32GB of flash storage and 1GB of non-upgradeable RAM.
There is also a new version $599 with 64GB of storage, and both models will have a five-hour battery, an SDHC slot, two camera, a USB port, a SIM card slot for the optional 3G modem, and a dock connector for power, audio, and HDMI out.
The Dell’s Streak and Mini range of Tablet PCs it seems is growing up. From the 5-inch tiny Dell Mini 5 Tablet that Dell unveiled at the CES earlier this year, the latest news that we have points towards a new range of Streak Tablet PC that will have 7 and 10 inch screen, which sure is enough to qualify it as a full blown tablet pc. The 5-inch Mini 5, on the other hand, looks more of an enlarged Smartphone running on Google’s Android operating system.
Dell is loath to reveal any technical information as regards their new Tablet PCs or when these are expected to hit market. However, what can be guessed is that the 5-inch Dell Mini 5 is slated for release this summer while the 7-inch Streak is likely to make it to the market by the end of 2010. And as for the Streak 10, one will have to wait till 2011.
That about sums up the most notable news of this week! There were quite a number of New E-Readers and Slate and Tablet PCS announced such as BENQ NReader, many new Slates from Taiwan, a new Slate from Blackberry and the Gemini. Also Palm might be sold to rival HTC. If you want to read about these stories, check back in the archives or check out past articles by clicking on Next Page at the bottom of all of the articles.
We sum up all of the notable monthly news as well in the Good E-Reader Magazine, if you want the latest and most important summaries of all the months news, take out a subscription today.
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.
