Portable Ebook Reader

The brand spankin’ new Fujitsu Flepia is the world’s first color wireless reading device. Unfortunately it’s currently only available in Japan…and is priced at a jaw-dropping $1000 USD (99,750 yen)!

Details:

• Windows CE 5 OS
• 8″ screen (260k colors)
• Wi-Fi (802.11 b & g)
• Touch screen (including a stylus)
• On-screen keyboard
• USB port
• Bluetooth
• 40 hour battery life
• SD card for ebook storage
• Price: $1000 US

Considering all these features, the Flepia is pretty much an ebook reader on steroids. With Windows CE 5, users should be able to e-mail, use MS Office apps, browse the internet,…basically all the tasks you’d expect from a tablet or PDA, not an ebook reader.

There’s no word yet when this futuristic device will be available in North America, but it’s definitely bending the ebook reader rules and it’ll be interesting to see how it’s priced when it arrives and how successful sales are.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Kindle 2 was released by Amazon on Feb 23, 2024 and has many improvements over the original Kindle.

These improvements include:

• Better battery life
• 20% faster page refresh speed
• Text-to-speech
• Thickness reduced from 0.8 to 0.36 inches
• Storage; can hold 1500 books compared to 200

Details:

The Kindle 2 would be suitable for you, if:

1. You commute to work on a train or bus and enjoy spending time reading
2. You travel a lot and are fed up with having to purchase printed books at the airport (not to mention how much space they take up)
3. You just plain read a lot of books!
4. You’re a student and want to save money on textbooks (who wouldn’t? )

Various opinions from Amazon users:

Ben C. Hobson - I love reading the newspaper every day, but reporters love to push the boundaries of our vocabularies, but the Kindle 2 dictionary is right there to keep us reading, and make sure we know exactly what we are reading so we don’t misinterpret anything. The improved dictionary lookup is amazing.

Gadget Queen - I have a tremendous volume of Kindle content (public domain and Amazon). I discovered that I could not directly transfer from my computer backup for Kindle 1 to the new K2 (why my backup is on the computer is addressed later in this review). All my content had to be reformatted by Amazon and re-downloaded from their site specifically for and to the Kindle 2 (I am NOT in a Whispernet area). Major pain. Major time-investment. Major inconvenience. Major turn-off.

Kacheek - Sleeker look and feel (it feels solid in your hands), sharper screen, no longer accidentally depressing the next page button by accident and having to find your place in the book again…you can read about these from various sources)
- Page loads are much faster. I can feel that the delay between pages is much less. Only issue is I need to recalibrate now-in general, I try to anticipate how much time it will take the next page to load, and when I’m two lines from the bottom, I would hit the next page button. Now I need to push the button later.
- Dictionary is improved. Now you can highlight a word and it automatically gives you a definition at the bottom of the screen.

I hope this review was helpful! I personally like reading as many reviews as I can before purchasing a product, so I’d recommend you find out more by reading Kindle 2 reviews at Amazon.

Rating:
(8.00 out of 10)  Loading ...

Popularity: 21% [?]