Tablets, from the iPad at the high end to the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet at the low , have dominated the press coverage and public attention this year.  Now with both new low-end devices in the public’s hands, and hands-on reviews coming in hourly, much of the mystery about them has vanished.  The excitement, it appears, has faded with the exposure.  These new devices will eventually dominate electronic reading, but many readers still prefer the old-fashion e-Ink displays, so they will probably be around for some time to come.

The new crop of e-Ink readers from the three major suppliers:  Amazon, Nook and Sony, all have great displays, faster page turns, touch interfaces (with the exception of the low-end Kindle) and are light to hold.   It is the best of times if you want to experience the joys of having a thousand-book library in your back pocket, ready in an instant, that can be held and read for hours at a time without eye strain.  And as the product has improved, prices have fallen from $400 when they first appears to as low as $80 now.

To whom do you turn for your e-Ink reader?  Sony, Kindle, Nook?  These are the best of the best, and given that the best in quality and support also have such low prices, it leaves, in my opinion, no room for lower quality products.

Before beginning my reviews and comparisons, let me get my prejudices out of the way.  I have owned a Kindle 2, which I recently gave away, and I owned a Nook for a few weeks.  I liked both products, and each has good reason to support it as the one to own.  With the Sony product, it also looks good, but I have had only a brief exposure to it.   I gave away my Kindle not because it is not a great eReader.  I found myself using it less and less and using the 7-inch tablet from Samsung as my primary eReader. 

From the outset, I don’t think it makes much difference which brand you choose.  All of them will give you a good user experience, and you will probably find yourself reading more than you ever had before.  All are high quality products in both design and build-quality. 

Kindles

Kindle now has three models with variations of each.  The low-end is anchored by the Kindle at $79.  It has no touch and no keyboard, but it does have WiFi so you can download books directly from Amazon’s vast library.  The screen is about the same as the other models, but to turn a page you must use a five-way button at the bottom of the device.

It weighs less than 6 ounces, is easy to hold and the screen looks great. Reviews of the Kindle are uniformly good.

"

The new Kindle is the best e-reader $100 (or less!) can buy." - Engadget

… if what you want is pure e-reading pleasure for the lowest price around, this is a big, definite winner." – GigaOm

At $79 the user must endure ads displayed when the reader is not in use.  This can be avoided for an extra $30.  It, and all other Kindle models allow you to borrow books from your local library if your library offers the service.  If your local one does not, find one on line in another location and open an account with them.

Next up the line is the Kindle touch.

The Kindle came late to the touch party, but their implementation of this technology is first rate.  Multi-touch control is enabled, so the old form of scrolling through titles is gone.  At $99 with ad support and $139 without, it is, in my view, the sweet spot unless you want 3G ability in addition to WiFi.

This model also has a “read to me” feature that may be handy for those who like it.  It can also read audio books.

The same model with 3G is for sale at $149 with ad support or $189 without.  this feature will allow you to download books without being tethered to WiFi.  The 3G connection is free—no other reader has this feature.

The last model offered is the Kindle Keyboard.  It does not have a touch screen but includes the older design physical keyboard.  This is handy for tasks that require alpha-numeric input.  Personally, I would prefer the touch screen, but that is a personal preference.  Notice

the toggle switch at the bottom left of the picture.  That is how you turn pages.

With ad support this old model it is priced at $139 and $189 without.  The same pricing is available for their 3G version that has 3G and WiFi. 

The Kindle line is by far the most extensive in the industry.  Both Barnes and Noble and Sony now sell only one model of e-Ink screen readers.  But Amazon sees something in the market that allows it to expand its offers to such a wide array of choices.

The reviews of all these models have been uniformly good.  The screens are readable, employing the new Pearl technology and an infrared touch scheme that doesn’t dull the screen like the older versions of touch-control did.

Amazon has nothing on Sony or Nook on this issue, however.  Both its competitors employ the same set of technologies.

The last word I will leave to David Pogue, technology editor of the New York Times.  He concludes his review of the Kindle line: “Is your primary interest in an e-book reader, well, reading? Then Amazon’s refined, dirt-cheap Kindle and Kindle Touch are no-brainers.”

But read the reviews on the Nook and Sony devices, too.  You may find something there that is appealing.

Nook

The Nook Simple Touch is now priced at $99 without a power adapter. Add another $10 to get a functional price. 

The Nook has always had a good looking design.  The screen is great for an e-Ink display.  The page turns are fast, font selection is good.  There is nothing not to like about their eReader.

Barnes and Noble also have a wide selection of books to choose from, including many that are free.  I have had a B&N account for several years, and I find their selection to be excellent.  They have some free books that Amazon doesn’t have, which is a plus.  And their sync option between different reading devices is quite good.  It operates on a different principle than Amazon’s Whispersync, but it works well.

B&N has also done a fine job of making their eReading software available on a wide range of devices.  I use the Nook reader on my iPhone, iPad, PC and laptops.  They also have a BlackBerry version.

Connection with the Nook is through WiFi or side-loading from your computer. No 3G option is available. Barnes and Noble also tout that you can get in-store support from their huge chain of book stores.

You can also borrow books from your local library on the Nook. All in all, it is a fine machine that few would have complaints of, and the price is competitive.

the Nook uses the ePub  as their default format, but it will also read PDF and some other formats.  It can handle Digital Right Management or not, so it is quite  flexible. 

Reviews on the Nook are uniformly good. It is a high quality machine with a good backup in terms of support.

Sony Reader WiFi

Sony has trimmed their line of eReaders down to one. The Reader WiFi features an excellent touch screen with infrared technology and the Pearl e-Ink display.  As usual the build-quality is good and their range of file formats supported is extensive.

The Reader WiFi is priced, not surprisingly, at about $50 higher than Amazon’s or Barnes and Noble’s comparable models.  At $149.99 it has specs similar to Amazon’s and Barnes and Noble’s $99 machines.

They have an offer to give $50 off on a trade-in for any other eReader, so that would bring their price in line, however.

Nevertheless, Sony has not kept us with its competitors in terms of wider support.  Their book store is anemic when compared with the others, but their wide range of format acceptance leaves the owner with many options for third-party books.  They have their reader software on PCs and Macs, but not much else.  And they do not offer any kind of syncing of reading bookmarks between devices.

Sonk kept their older designs longer than any of their competitors, and did not offer WiFi until recently.  While their build-quality can be counted on, one does not have the wide range of support for other products and amenities that its two competitors offer.

For a thorough review from Engadget, Click Here.  The reviewer concludes his statement:

“There’s a lot to like about this new guy. The WiFi Reader has a lot of compelling functionality, including dual-touch pinch to zoom, handwritten note taking, audio playback and built-in access to public library and Google Books content. At $149.99, it’s also quite reasonably priced for a Sony reader, down $30 from the Sony Reader Pocket Edition (which, it’s worth noting, failed to include WiFi). That number still marks a premium over the $79 starting price for the new ad-supported Kindle and the $99 ad-supported Touch, and with that in mind, don’t expect Sony to overtake Amazon on these shores any time soon.

10/21/2011:  Amazon to Allow Trade-ins of Old Kindles

Amazon has announced they will accept old Kindle reader models as trade-ins on purchases of new equipment.

The old equipment will be taken in exchange for a gift certificate valued from the information shown above. 

10/15/2011:  Motorola To Sell New “Family” Version of Xoom for $379 This Weekend

Motorola is trying something new tomorrow.  At Best Buy stores, and only at Best Buy, Moto has reduced the internal memory of its Xoom to 16BG, added a bundle of kid-friendly software and renamed the product as the Family Edition of the Xoom.  They have also chopped $120 from the price, and now, starting tomorrow, will be sold for $370.

No one knows if this will be permanent or temporary, and whether the old Xoom will long continue not selling at its $499 price.  It may be a trial balloon to see how sensitive the tablet market is to a price cut.

No Android tablets are selling well at $499.  The iPad2 dominates this market at that price, and none of the competitors are offering a compelling reason to pay the same amount for what is a lesser product.  Adding some bells and whistles is not, so far, enticing many to buy their “almost” iPads.

All the producers are looking for ways to keep prices as high as possible but low enough to attract buyers.

10/14/2011:  Kindle Fire May Ship 5 Million Units by End of Year

An analyst for Rodmart and Renshaw, Mr. Ashok Kumar, now predicts that Amazon will ship as many as 5 millions Kindle Fire 7-inch tablets by the end of the year. This is an increase of about one million over previous estimates.  When asked why he was upping the forecast, he said. “They [Amazon] have received record orders.”

A potential fly in this ointment of optimism is the ability of Amazon to get delivery on enough of the 7-inch display screens.  This form factor has put a huge burden on existing manufacturers, and the total supply is highly constrained by existing production capacity.

By comparison, Apple is shipping about 12 million iPad2s each quarter.  Given that the Kindle Fire doesn’t begin delivering until November 15th, it puts the Kindle Fire in the top rank of iPad competitors.  The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 shipped only about 2 millions units its first year.

10/11/2011:  Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus at $399 and $499

I was clearly wrong when I said earlier that Samsung got it about the proper pricing policy on 7-inch tablets.  I said that when they reduced the price of their Tab 7, the original 7-inch Android tablet, to $200 with a data plan.

As you can see from the ads above, the replacement of the original isn’t priced to sell.  It isn’t known yet whether the new Tab + will be able to take a SIM card for GSM cell phone capabilities, but if it is, then that would make these prices a little less onerous.  But if not, the prices they are starting with will leave this 7-incher sitting on dealer shelves.

10/10/2011:Acer Announces an Ultra-thin Laptop, The Aspire S3-951

Acer is first to market with a low-priced Apple MacBook Air competitor.  Acer is offering its second generation Core CPU (i5 Dual Core), a 13.3-inch HD screen, both a SSD and HDD, and a 0.51-inch thick aluminum and magnesium chassis that weighs just 2.98 pounds.

At a suggested retail price of $899 one can buy a configuration similar to the 13.3-inch ultra-thin MacBook Air, which retails at $1299.  The 13.3-inch 16:9 Acer screen features a 1366 x 768 resolution as opposed to the 13.3-inch MacBook Air’s 1440 by 900 (native) resolution.

The Aspire S3-951 comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, and the MacBook Air runs Apple’s iOS Lion.

Besides the price, another interesting feature of the Acer is its combination SSD and spinning hard drive.  The 20GB SSD handles the system files for quick boot times but a 320GB HDD gives the owner plenty of storage room.

The S3-951 will be in stores later this week, and an i7 model with greater SSD and HD storage capacity.  No hands-on reviews promised soon with are available as yet.

10/5/2011: Kindle Fire Orders @ 250,000 in Five Days

Least we doubt the effectiveness of Amazon as a marketer of tablet computers, A leaked document to TechCrunch shows that about 50,000 orders a day are coming in.  In the tablet world no other vendor except Apple’s iPad has equaled this number.  It looks as if Amazon has a winner with their new tablet.

10/2/2011:  Amazon Buying WebOS and Palm?

According to the technology site Aventurebeat is reporting that Amazon is in serious negotiations with HP to buy the WebOS system. According to the report Amazon is negotiating for the entire Palm portfolio which includes the Palm smartphones, WebOS and many patents.

A case can be made for Amazon wanting WebOS. It is a capable OS that would distinguish Amazon’s Kindle line of tablets from all the Android system. It is harder to see that Amazon would want Palm itself, however. Them getting into the cell phone business as a producer seems farfetched, but it could happen. The Palm line of phones is so tainted with failure that it is difficult for me to see how Amazon could benefit from it.But, that is a call Mr. Bezos must make.

10/01/2011:  HTC Flyer Drops to $300 Today

One of the earliest pricing reaction in the 7-inch tablet world is HYC Flyer.  Yester it retailed for $500; today it sells for $299.

It is hard to make a case for a $300 price of the Flyer, although it is one of the best 7-incher devices on the market today.  Two cameras, high res screen, fast, dual-core processor, and pen input.  Will tablet buyers go for an extra hundred in order to get these things?  We will keep out eyes out for signs of another price cut before the selling

9/30/2011:  Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus Coming

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus was unveiled today, delivering an Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet that comes with a 7-inch display and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. Boasting 802.11n wireless support as well as HSPA+ compatibilities, the new tablet also comes in two sizes: 16GB or 32GB with a microSD slot to add more storage.

No pricing is available yet which is not surprising given the blockbuster pricing announcement made by Amazon a couple of days ago.  It is rumored the Tab 7.0 Plus will sell for $200 with a 4G data plan contract with T-Mobile., but this has not been verified, nor has the availability of this new tablet.

It will be rolled out in Australia in October, and, presumably, later in the U.S. market.

9/27/2011:  Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 In Next Few Days

The Galaxy Tab 8.9 will be available for sale in the United States beginning October 2, according to Samsung.  Along with the announcement of the new device’s availability Samsung also mentioned a 4and 5-inch media player that will be available soon after that.

The price of the Tab 8.9 is said to be $469 for the 16GB version, with higher prices for more memory.  The new model is also apparently a WiFi-only model.  Perhaps 3/4G versions will be offered later.  Screen resolution is strong, at 1280 X 800, so the graphics should be great.

8/26/2011: Motorola Xoom in New 8.2 and 10.1-inch Models?

The rumor mills are flying now with photographs of two new Motorola Xooms in the factory. The top picture above is of the new 8.2-inch Xoom, supposedly to be called Xoom 2 Media Edition.  The second picture is of the back sides of the 10.1 and 8.2-inch Xoom 2.

The current preproduction models are said to be full of bugs, so it may be some time yet before we see these new machines.

The original Xoom does need an update to be faster and have more capacity, as well as lose some weight.  My first guess is that we will see both these new devices before December.

The news of the leaks have been reported in several blogs this morning.

9/24/2011:  Color Kindle Announcement on Wednesday?

All eyes will be on New York, N.Y. this coming Wednesday as Amazon convenes it recently announced press conference there.  The timing of the announcement and the mailing list of invitees strongly supports the supposition that the announcement will be about the Color Kindle, the highly touted potential competitor to the iPad2.

It is no longer a secret that a Color Kindle is in the works.  This has been confirmed by the top executives of Amazon.  Neither is it doubted that the new device is slated to be available for the upcoming holiday sales season.  Given this state of affairs, an announcement of its future availability will help put a stop to some of the early Christmas shopping for tablets, especially for Kindle aficionados.  It would be a major mistake to wait much longer before at least announcing the details of their new gadget.

It is possible, of course, that they could be announcing a new thinner touch Kindle or some other item.  But this scenario seems decidedly unlikely.  October is less than a week away.  The Christmas selling season is looming large.

I look for a seven-inch device, more like the Nook Color in design and price than the iPad2.  But I don’t know.  It could actually be more than one form factor—perhaps a seven-inch and a 10.1, too.

9/22/2011: Kindle Accepts Library eBooks

Amazon’s Kindle, for most of its existence, has been the leader in both sales and features of electronic books and book readers.  But for the last year or so it has lost the feature leadership to Nook and Nook Color.  The Nook was one of the first to joint the public library eBook lending.  Even the stodgy old Sony Reader series could borrow books from a public library.  Kindle was left out of this important ability, as is has in touch control.

But this changes today.  Now Kindle owners can set up a borrowing account with their local library and “borrow” an eBook for two weeks.

This move was done in the face of a clear trend for public libraries to get into the eBook business—pushed, of course, by the many eReader owners.  The growth statistics of library lending of eBooks is impressive.  From January to September of this year, according the to New York Times, the number of e-books checked out from public libraries increased by 75 percent over the same period last year.

There has also been an astounding growth of libraries around the nation that offer access to eBooks.  Two years ago only 12 percent of public libraries had this ability.  Today it is 67 percent.

Forrester Research estimates that roughly 15 million eReaders would be purchased in the U.S. this year, which will increase the demand for electronic services even more.

It is good to see Amazon responding to this new wrinkle in the electronic reading market.  The strength of the Kindle brand will contribute significantly to the growth of electronic reading of books and magazines, and it will help the Kindle stay competitive to an increasingly effective competition from Barnes and Noble and other reader sellers.

9/22/2011:  RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook Sales  About 1/4th of Projections

In April of this year, RIM forecast sales of 4-5 million PlayBooks in 2011. Unfortunately, RIM shipped fewer than 800,000 units during the first half of 2011 and monthly shipments have dropped to about 100,000 units in the third quarter, according to their manufacturer in Taiwan.

The discrepancy in the difference in forecast and actual sales is attributable to several factors:  features on the PlayBook were decidedly lacking, depending on owning a BlackBerry smartphone to even get one’s email or access to contacts, and the price was too high.

The PlayBook was originally priced at $499—the price of a low-end iPad, but the owner would get only a fraction of the screen size for the same money, not to mention fewer features and a more stable operating system.

In an earlier article I noted that the 7-inch tablet cannot reasonably be expected to sell for the same price as a full-sized tablet.  And, it appears, RIM is getting the picture.  They are offering some Canadian citizens who work for one of the primary cell-phone service providers a half-priced PlayBook.  I hope this price will stick, because that is probably the only way they can begin to meet their inflated sales expectations.

9/20/2011:  Samsung Galaxy 8.9 to Launch Sept. 22 at Best Buy

Samsung has announced that its new 8.9-inch tablet will be offered at most Best Buy stores on September 22.  Some stores will not get their inventory until the 25th, however.

This is a new form factor that places the screen size just under the iPads’s 9.7-inches and 1.3-inches above their new 7.7-inch device.

In my testing I find the 7-inch form factor to be almost unusable for ordinary surfing, since a full web page cannot be viewed in a readable font size.  But, the 8.9-inch may solve this problem, although there will be much added weight.

But the smaller dimensions are handy for eReading, eMail and other activities where the screen size is less critical. The small size make for easier hand holding and stuffing in a back pocket. The industry will, some day, settle on some standard sizes, but in its current stage, every brand seems to be searching for the best size for customers.

The specifications for this new form factor include overall dimensions of 9.1” X 6.2” X .3”.  Weight is under one pound.  This may be a viable product, but the final verdict will have to wait until some hands-on time.  I will file a report as soon as my local store gets its inventory. Comparing a couple of other small screen form factors.

Length/Width	Screen Size	% of iPad 2	Brand
9.1 X 6.2	56.42 Sq.Inches	81%	Galaxy Tab 8.9
7.48 X 4.74	35.45 Sq.Inches	51%	Galaxy Tab 7
10.1 X 6.9	69.69 Sq. inches	100.36%	Galaxy Tab 10.1
9.5 X 7.31	69.44 Sq. Inches	100%	iPad 2

The price of the 8.9-inch tablet is said to be $470 for the 16GB model, which is 94% of the iPad2’s $599.  This makes it more expensive per square inch of screen size, but apparently Samsung is counting on the benefits of the smaller screen and weight to make up for this discrepancy. 

9/16/2011:  RIM BlackBerry Playbook Heading for Lower Price

The rumors are that the BlackBerry Playbook, RIM’s 7-inch tablet, will soon fall in price, although no one is saying how much the price cut will be.  Sales of the Playbook have been from half to one third projections.  About 900,000 have been sold, but the units are nor measured in sales to customers but in sales to stores.  So no one knows yet how many have actually reached customer hands.

RIM’s profits for the last quarter were down over 50% from the previous year, so something must be done to correct the problem.  Since a brisk selling tablet was part of the company’s strategy for success this year, adjustments must be made.

The rumors are also stating that a coming software upgrade will bring a native email application and other enhancements, so the upgrade should help push sales when combined with lower prices.

Prices on 7-inch tablets has been dropping lately, so I would look for a $399 price or even lower. 

9/13/2011:  Windows 8 On Display on Tablet

Windows 8, the new OS from Microsoft that represents Microsoft’s answer to the touch interface of Apple’s IOS, is demonstrated in the video of Engadget. Click her for video and article on a hands-on demo.

5/20/2011:  eBooks at Amazon Outsell All Print Copies

Amazon announced that since April 1 of this year, sales of Kindle books at their site have exceeded sales of all print titles.  According to their press release, for every 100 printed books sold, 105 eBooks are sold.  Furthermore, free books are not included in the sales figures.

This change has been building for several years.  eBooks sales exceeded hard-cover sales last year.  But now both hardcover and paperbacks combined sell fewer copies than the Kindle books.

5/11/2011: New Android Releases To Be Consistent

The Android Operating System has been an astounding success.  According to Google, 310 different devices run on Android, and there have been more than 100 million activations of the OS to date.

But there have been problems.  There are so many versions of Android that work on only one devices, and the versions between devices is confusing to everyone, developers and the public. 

Google announced that a new release out later this year will be of a new type.  Any application written for any Android device will work on any other Android devices.  To accomplish, the app will adjust itself to whatever device it runs on.  Thus, a developer who releases an app for a smartphone will find that the same application will work on tablets and television sets.  The version number will no longer relate to any specific device.

This is huge for Android.  Not only developers but those who use the app will also gain much from this consistency.

5/06/2011:  Kindle to Walmart Stores Soon

Walmart has been selling eReaders for a long time, but they have not sold the most popular eReader, Amazon’s Kindle.  Walmart offered the Nook and a cheap Kobo to their shoppers.  But that deficit will be remedied with a couple of weeks as the nation’s largest retailer picks up the nation’s most popular eReader, the Kindle 3G and the cheaper WiFi-version that is ad-supported.

This is probably the final stage of the life of the Kindle and other E-Ink readers.  Tablets have been eating into their once sacred domain, and recent data from Nielson suggests the transition from a single-purpose reader to a multi-talented iPad, or Xoom or Galaxy Tab is strongly under way.  Only steep price drops will keep the E-Ink devices in the game.  Perhaps we will see a $75 Kindle in the future, or even a $50 price tag for the low end units.

5/5/2011: Barnes and Noble With a New eReader?

Barnes & Noble has filed an 8-K form with the SEC that reveals its intentions to introduce a new e-reader.

“The form, filed earlier today, says that the company "indicated it expects to make an announcement on May 24, 2011 regarding the launch of a new eReader device. . ." Considering the Nook Color just got Froyo, is it possible we’ll be seeing a Honeycomb version come the 24th?” (Engadget)

Nothing more is known about B&N intentions, but I will be monitoring this with great interest.  Is it possible they will beat Amazon to the punch again by bring out a full-fledged Android tablet to market?  Stay tuned.

4/28/2011:Moto Xoom Sells 250K Units 1st Month

Motorola reported that they sold 250,000 Xooms in the first month of its young life.  Apple’s iPad 2 has sold about 4.7 million over the same period.  There is some speculation as to whether Xoom is a success or a failure, although it is impossible to say unless the sales goals Moto had for its tablet were known. I have yet to read a single review of the Xoom that put it on parity with the iPad, so given its high price and limited configuration offerings, it seems like a moderate success.  Motorola expects to sell 1.5 to 2 million units for the full year.

A better test of Android’s operating system 3.0 will be when Acer, Asus, Samsung and Toshiba announce the sales of their10-inch tablets.  By the end of the first half of the year, we will have a better picture.

4/27/2011: Archos’ Arnova 8 Tablet Now Available

Archos, the maker of cheap tablets and other devices, has their latest tablet, the Arnova 8, a $161 budget tablet, available for shipping at Amazon now.   The tablet has an 8 inch, 800 x 600 pixel display, Google Android 2.1, 4GB of storage, and support for 720p HD video playback.

These are not impressive specs.  It has has a resistive touchscreen rather than capacitive and has an estimated battery life of up to 5.5 hours of video playback.

This device doesn’t qualify as a quality tablet, but at $161 plus shipping it may be of interest to some buyers.  It could do email, for example, and it has WiFi g.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Sold Out on First Day

“The tablet just went on sale in the States, and it’s already out of stock at most retailers. Buy.com, Amazon, B&H, TigerDirect, DataVision, Newegg, and Best Buy all show the tablet as either out of stock or available for pre-order.”  source: Liliputing

It isn’t known how many units the retailers had in stock when the sale began, but it must have been few.  But all of them running out so soon seems to indicate a strong potential demand for the new tablet/keyboard combination.

4/25/2011: World’s Only Typewriter Factory Closing

The last standing typewriter factory in the world, Godrej and Boyce, is closing its plant in Mumbai, India.

Typewriter sales have plummeted in the past several years: the company sold less than 800 machines in 2010, down from the 50,000 it produced every year in the 1990s.

The last models produced were for the Arabic language.

Time marches on.

4/24/2011:  Nook Color Upgrades to Android 2.2, Adds Apps

Barnes and Noble is sending out an over the air upgrade to its Nook Color owners.  The upgrade will install Android 2.2 on their device and give users access to the Nook Color’s own app store.

The new app store has about 125 appst to begin with, some free, some paid, including Angry Birds, as you can see from the upper right icon on the photo to the right.

The new app also include a default email application, which, when added to an upgraded web browser, brings significant enhancements to the eReader that make it closer to a standard Android 7-inch tablet.

The upgrade will be rolled out over the next few weeks to existing Nook Color owners.

Dell Streak 7-inch Tablet, WiFi Only for $399

Dell is ready to begin selling its 7-inch Streak with WiFi-only for delivery in a week or so.  Dell’s price for the WiFi model is $399.  Amazon is charging $20 less on their site.

04/23/2911 $499 HTC Flyer 7-inch tablet pre-sale next week at Best Buy

Best Buy will begin taking pre-sale orders for the HTC Flyer 7 inch Android tablet on Monday, April 25th. The tablet will be available in the US later this spring at $499.

The HTC Flyer features a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel capacitive touchscreen display.  It joins a fairly limited field of 7-inch screen tablet.  The Flyer will also accept pressure-sensitive input from an included stylus.  This ability gives it an edge against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and the BlackBerry Playbook, neither of which accept pen input..

The tablet has a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon single core processor and runs a customized version of Google Android 2.3. An Android 3.0 Honeycomb update is expected later this year.

/22/2011: Kindle eReader App for Android Up-dated For 3.0

The original Kindle eReader app for android was for smartphone-sized screens.  Although it would work on the Honeycomb 3.0 version, which was designed for tablets, it did not take advantage of the many features of the new OS.

Amazon has now fixed the problem by releasing a 3.0 version of the Kindle eReader software for Android.  This is good news for those who are in the market for one of the many new Android tablets coming to market.

The new tablet version offers a new layout for newspapers, magazines and is optimized to take advantage of the larger tablet form factor.

This was an essential update if Amazon want to continue its “buy once, read everywhere” policy.

4/21/2011;  Asus Eee Tab Transformer in U.S. April 26th, $399

This is good news for tablet buyers.  My earlier article (Click Here) provides the specifications and a couple of reviews.  A keyboard that attaches in a way to give it a notebook look and feel is said to cost another $150.  When Microsoft brings out an ARM based Windows this will be a viable product for laptop replacement.

4/20/2011: Amazon To Allow Kindles to Join Library Lending Services

Amazon announced Wednesday that it would join a library loan program for electronic books. The press release didn’t say the precise day the program would begin, but simply said “Later this year.”

More than 11,000 libraries in the United States participate in this electronic-book-loaning program, managed by a company called OverDrive. To see if your library has a contract with OverDrive, go to overdrivesearch.com and type in your ZIP code.

Amazon is late to the lending party. The Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Readers already allow users to check out digital books from their local libraries using the service. The company offers more than 400,000 digital books and has had a library loan program for e-books since 2003.

The electronic-book checkout process is similar to that for real-world books. Eligible books are checked out for a certain period of time — two weeks in many cases — after which they become locked and inaccessible on a person’s e-reading device.

One needn’t own a Kindle to use the service, but it is necessary to have the free Kindle app on the device you want to use for reading the book.  This can include Android smartphones, iPads, PCs, BlackBerries, Macs, iPhones, iPods and Windows Phone 7s.

4/19/2011: LG G-Slate on Sale Tomorrow at T-Mobile

LG’s G-Slate for-Mobile goes on sale in the US tomorrow, for $529.99 after rebate with a 2-year service plan. It will run $729 with no contract..

The G-Slate features an 8.9 inch, 1280 x 768 pixel HD display, a 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor, 32GB of storage, and runs Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb. It features an HSPA+ modem for speedy mobile interenet access.

It also has a 3D camera.

The early reviews for the tablet are in, and here’s what people have to say:

• BGR: The G-Slate has excellent build quality, but there still aren’t many apps designed specifically for Android 3.0 tablets. The 3D video feature apparently works well, but BGR dismisses it as a “novelty.”
• Laptop Magazine: The 8.9 inch display makes the tablet smaller than other tablets, but it weighs just as much as the Apple iPad 2. The viewing angles are great and the screen is very bright, but text seemed a bit too sharp on some web pages. (That’s a problem I experience regularly on 10 inch netbooks with HD displays).

• Android Community: The tablet is one of the fastest around in terms of benchmarks, and the battery life is on-par with the Motorola XOOM.
• TechnoBuffalo: The form factor is great, but T-Mobile’s HSPA+ isn’t as fast as Verizon’s LTE.
• SlashGear: Aside from the pointless 3D feature, SG seems to like the tablet — but not the price tag.
• Engadget: One of the few reviews to run a real battery life test, Engadget found the tablet ran for over 8 hours when playing HD video. That’s about the same as the Motorola XOOM but it falls short of the Apple iPad or iPad 2.

Also, Edgadget rated it:

Narrower profile fits nicely in the hand
Lighter than the Xoom
Solid 4G speeds

Plasticy back
No WiFi version available
Poor cameras

it weighs 1.3lb;

Review of Engadget: Click here.

4/15/2011:  E-Book Sales Take Over

From a CNN report:

“The publishing tide is shifting fast: E-book sales in February topped all other formats, including paperbacks and hardcovers, according to an industry report released this week.

E-book sales totaled $90.3 million in February, up 202% compared to the same month a year earlier, according to a study from the Association of American Publishers. That put e-books at No. 1 "among all categories of trade publishing" that month — the first time e-books have beaten out traditional publishing formats.

Update on BlackBerry Playbook Reviews

For an answer to the recent criticism of RIM’s new PlayBook, the BlackBerry CEO, Jim Balsillie, said in a Bloomberg interview that  "We’ll have an over the air email client to announce very very soon. We haveBlackBerry World — our user conference — in a couple weeks. Stay tuned for all capabilities we have coming out on this stuff."

The reference to the email client was the absence of that critical application on the PlayBook itself.  Owners of BlackBerry phones can link their devices to the new PlayBook and take advantage of the phone’s email capabilities, but this was not seen as sufficient for most users.

The reference to BlackBerry World was referring to the absence of many apps for the new device.  Although they promise Android apps and the legacy BlackBerry apps will eventually work on the PlayBook, it is just a promise.  For those buying today, that isn’t much consolation.  If the “couple of weeks” prediction is true, it means that there will be some apps available when the new gizmo begins selling later this month.

RIM stock declined 3% yesterday after the raft of middling reviews were absorbed by investors.

New Generation 13.4-inch ultra-portable announced by MSI

My recent post about the new generation of 11.6-inch ultra-portables can be updated for a new entry into the market, although with almost two additional diagonal inches of screen real estate. MSI, the originators of the netbook, announced their new 13.4-inch ultra-portable, the X370.  Their new gadget uses the same AMD Fusion dual-core processor that Lenovo, HP and Sony use, the E-350.

4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, HDMI-out are included along with a 1.3MP webcam, a 4-in-one card reader and an 8-cell battery for about 7 hours of use time. It weighs 3.8 lbs with the 8-cell battery.

Listed at $599, Amazon is taking orders for $579.

My review article of the new generation of ultra-portables is seen Here.

For a Laptop Magazine review of the new MSI, click here.

4/13/2011: Video of The New WebOS Emulator in Action

An instructive video of how HP’s WebOS will look and feel when the HP Tab is released.

 

 

4/11/2011:  Kindle Price Falls to $114 With Ads

Amazon announced today that the new Kindle with Special Offers will sell of $114 — $25 less than the currently lowest-priced Kindle.  The price reduction comes at a cost, however, as ads will be shown at the bottom of the device’s home page and its screen savers.  The new units will begin shipping on May 3, and it will also be sold in Target and Best Buy stores on that date.

This is another of a long line of price reductions of the Kindle, which began its life at a price of $399 in 2007.  No word on the Nook, yet.  It will be interesting to see if Barnes and Noble responds or keeps the Nook ad-free.

4/8/2011:  Acer Joins The Tablet Fray:  $450 10-Inch Model

Acer has announced its entry into the tablet world with its Iconia Tab A500 that will be available for sale in Best Buy and other retailers on April 24th for $450.

The new tablet will run Android 3.0, and the specs are impressive, essentially duplicating the Motorola Xoom:  a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 250 SOC, a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 LCD screen, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage, a 5 megapixel camera around back and a 2 megapixel imager up front, HDMI-out, not to mention a pair of 3260mAh batteries that Acer claims are capable of eight full hours of life while playing HD video.

No reviews are out yet, but I expect some soon.   This is important because it breaks the $500 price barrier for a full-featured tablet.

Apple Applies For Patent on E-ink/LCD Switching Display

According to information released by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple has applied for a patent that will allow displays on a screen to switch between LCD full color and an e-ink paper.  The device would detect when an eReading environment was needed and switch from internal illumination to e-Ink, making the display easier on the eyes and be capable of being read in direct sunlight.

This must be sending shivers through Amazon’s R&D department, for it would completely obviate the need for a separate Kindle-type of eReader in addition to, say, an iPad.

The sketch to the right is from the patent application according to AppleInsider.

This is only a patent application, so it is far from being a product, but it seems like a sterling idea to me.  I am one of those who likes to read on the light-weight Kindle with its e-Ink screen, so I have to carry it with me if I’m traveling.

Admittedly tablets are heavier and can’t be held as long as the Kindle, but it would still be a big advantage not to have to carry two devices.

 

4/7/2011:  Samsung Galaxy Tab WiFi for $350

The Galaxy Tab has not been a good seller for Samsung.  It was priced too high, way too high, and its feature set was good but not outstanding.  The prices of its 3G models have been slipping, and now the WiFi-only version is to go on sale April 10 for $350.  This price puts it $100 above the Nook Color, but its design and feature set may justify a slightly higher price, but the specs on it are less than compelling than they were last year.

It includes a 1 GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor, a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel capacitive touchscreen display and runs Google Android 2.2. It has 16GB of storage and weighs 13 ounces. It’s also one of the few Android 2.2 tablets to come with access to the Google Android Market  and Flash video.capabilities.  The tablet has 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Blueooth 3.0, and a USB 2.0 port.

The press release mentioned that it will be available at multiple retailers for that price

4/6/2011: Moto Xoom and Atrix Not Selling
Well

A report from analyst James Faucette of Pacific Crest says that neither of these new tablets are selling well.  The Xoom is priced too high and was up-staged by the introduction of the iPad 2.  The Atrix is also too expensive, and dismissed by some as a gimmick. Reviews have been mixed.

The sales of both are well below forecasts, with competition from the iPad 2 and from a welter of new Android tablets contributing to these high profile flops.

4/5/2011:  Dell’s 10-inch Win 7 Tablet Delayed

According to leaked documents from Dell, there is a new 10-inch tablet under development that runs Windows 7.  Its code name is Rosemount.

A recent insider story from Forbes indicates that the Rosemount tablet will be not see its first sale until the fall of this year.  Past rumors had it appearing in the summer months.

This will be a tablet aimed at the business user, and given Dell’s recently released five and seven-inch tablets, Rosemount will not make much of a ripple in the tablet-hungry population.  It appears to be more like the HP Slate rather than the iPad.

3/28/2011:  Samsung’s New Series 9 Challenge MacBook Air

Apple has owned the “Wow” factor for years in the ultraportable category of laptops.  The MacBook Air has been in a class by itself with the thinnest, sleekest, sexiest design available. Although there has always been a tradeoff between thin and performance, the MacBook Air keep its balance in an acceptable zone for those who demand a super thin and light ultraportable.  The image at right has the MacBook Air on the left facing the 13-inch Series 9.

Samsung has now joined the competition with its Series 9 laptops.  The two models are thin, light and powerful with a Sandy Bridge design i3 or i5 Intel processor.  Both the 13-inch and 11.6-inch models are drawing rave reviews for their looks and performance.  Price, as usual, though, is high.

The 13-inch Series 9, shown on the right side of the above graphic, is priced at $1,649.  I have no word on the price of the 11.6-inch version which is to be available in early April.

CNet has reviewed the 13-inch model and has a video of their demonstration.  I like their early statement: “. . .if ever a Windows 7 lover dreamed of getting his or her own MacBook Air, the Series 9 is it.”  This sets the tone of the review.  The new Samsung takes only three seconds to awake from hibernation, for example, and compares well in other categories.

CNet Hands-on Video Here

Their full review can also be read on the same site as the video reference.

3/25/2011  RIM BlackBerry Playbook to Run Android Apps

In an important achievement, Research In Motion announced on Thursday that users of its PlayBook tablet will be able to run Android and Java applications.

If the RIM’s new 7-inch tablet is to be successful, it must be able to have a wide library of applications available to its users.  With a brand new operating system, QNX, however, there would be few to no apps available for the Playbook.  By making the new OS capable of running Android apps, then, RIM has taken that objection away.

The details of the announcement state that the Playbook will be able to run Android apps of version 2.3 and later, and they will not be available on the Android Market.  Publishers will submit their apps to RIM who will make them available in BlackBerry’s own app site.

Rumors now stress mid April as the release date for the Playbook.

 

3/22/2011:  Amazon to Open App Store Tomorrow, We Hope

An unnamed "trusted source" has told Wired that their App store for Android devices will launch Tuesday, March 22. Customers will be able to purchase apps both online via the Amazon website and through a native application designed for Android devices.

It is already known that the store’s launch will come with at least one major exclusive: the latest in Rovio’s Angry Birds lineup, Angry Birds Rio, will launch first in the Amazon App Store before being distributed to other online outlets.

It will be handy to use Amazon’s “One Click” buying procedure on Android Apps, whether for paid or free content.  Also, a hacker got a look at the App Store earlier and found that many of the app prices are lower on Amazon than on the Android Market.

 

3/21/2011:  Asus Eee Pad Transformer in America Soon

Asus has a good idea in its new tablet design.  It may be bought with the optional keyboard that transforms it into a conventional netbook-like device.  Notice that the tablet mounts on the keyboard in a horizontal mode rather than vertical.  Good for Asus: I dislike the iPad’s vertical mount.

The specifications are familiar: A 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor and a 10.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS capacitive multitouch display. It comes with 1GB of memory and 16GB to 32GB of storage. While it will run Google Android 3.0.  802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a mini-HDMI jack, audio jack, and microSD card reader complete the  basic configuration.

If the keyboard looks and preforms as well as it appears in the picture, this will be an important innovation in the tablet sphere—possibly ending the existing division between netbooks and tablets, although tablets cost much more to buy, a combination would be preferable for those who value the extra flexibility gained by a detachable keyboard.

The new device will be available in Taiwan by the end of this week and in America soon thereafter.

3/20/2011:  Amazon Working on Android Tablet Reader

The rumor that never dies: Amazon is developing a color eReader that competes with the Nook Color and the iPad.  There is a good reason this rumor refuses to die:  Amazon needs to offer a more comprehensive solution to eReading than its black and white eInk Kindle. In the latest round of competitive moves, Barnes and Noble clearly beat Amazon when they introduced their Nook Color. 

The color tablet fro B&N has proven popular, although precise sales figures have not been published.  In the blogosphere many in the technical press have praised the $249, 7-inch eReader/tablet.  It has been rooted and seems to make a credible alternative to other tablet designs.  Surely Amazon has been reading the tea leaves about a color device.  It appears that B&N beat Amazon badly with their Nook Color.

The new  rumors are fueled by hiring ads for Amazon’s Lab 126 website.  The New York Times reported: “At least five new jobs were added in the last week alone seeking developers with Android programming experience.”

Although Android programmers could be doing many things, the arrow seems to point to a new machine, and few would argue with the need for such a device from Amazon.  They have nothing on the market to counter B&N’s tablet/eReader, and they need one.

If Amazon is working on a competing device, I hope they go all the way with it and omit the proprietary layer of software that surrounds the Nook Color.  A pure Android OS would, in my view, be a much more competitive device.  It would capture some of the pure tablet market as well as conventional eReading, and Amazon’s marketing muscle could help them gain a foothold in this new market.

3/16/2011:  Motorola WiFi Only on March 27th

Motorola has officially announced that a WiFi-only version of the XOOM tablet will be  web available in the US starting on March 27th for a retail price of $599.  The WiFi + 3G model currently sells for $799.

Amazon, Best Buy, RadioShack, Staples, and other US retailers are reported to be authorized resellers and should be available in those stores on the launch date.

3/15/2011: HP Touch Pad With WebOS in June

The new CEO of HP, Leo Apotheker, announced that the TouchPad will be available for purchase in June.  HP announced the Tab in February for Summer availability. The Tab will sport a 9.7 inch display, a dual core 1.2 GHz processor, WiFi, Bluetooth, a 1.3MP camera, and a 6300mAh battery.

Significantly the tablet will be the first device to run webOS 3.0, a version of HP and Palm’s webOS smartphone operating system optimized for tablets

The new OS is what excites most of the technology  community.  The forerunner of this new OS was written by Palm for smartphones, and the reviews of it from the technical side were quite good.  It was praised by programmers as friendly and competent.  HP has spent the last year working on it to make it usable on larger, tablet-sized screens.  This device will be as highly anticipated as the Xoom was for Motorola and the Playbook for BlackBerry.

3/9/2011:  Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9” Set For 3/28 Debut

Samsung has made it official.  Their 8.9-inch Tab will be unveiled at a special press event on March 28th.

This side shot shows an exceptionally thin tablet, so it will rival the iPad2 thinness.The bulge is to accommodate the headphone jack, so you can get an idea of how thin it is if you look closely.

Samsung also has a 10-inch model that will be revealed sometime soon, giving them a total of three models: 7-inch, which has been out for months, a 8.9-inch and a 10-inch model yet to be shown.

 

Nook Color Gets GPS App Via Smartphone Tether

In a novel adaptation of a software app for the Nook Color, you can now use a $2.99 app to tether your smartphone to the Nook Color and get driving directions on the larger screen.

TetherGPS is available from the Android Marketplace for $2.99.

 

3/4/2011: Motorola Xoom WiFi Only for $539 as Sam’s Club?

An employee at Sam’s Club has leaved a photo of a large sign showing the Motorola Xoom with WiFi and no 3G for sale for $539.  This may or may not come to pass, but if it does it will relieve some of the pressure against Motorola for pricing its new baby too high. A $40 premium over the iPad 2 is certainly justified by the huge advantages of more storage memory, external ports and system memory on the Xoom.

3/4/2011:  Windows 8 Will Run on ARM Chips

Microsoft announced that the next versions of Windows, Windows 8, will run on System on a Chip (SoC) processors, including ARM.  Microsoft also demonstrated Office applications running in native mode on an ARM SoC device.

For the entire press release: Click here..

This is huge for the entire industry.  ARM chips are powering most of the tablet computers, such as the iPad, Motorola Xoom, Galaxy Tab and RIM;s BlackBerry Playbook.  ARM chips also run almost all smart phones. And most of these devices run either Android, iOS or RIMs older OS,  With this move, Microsoft has made itself a player.

Using tablets and smartphones with native Windows applications will open up portability of documents between architectures for the first time.  It will eliminate the often clumsy and time-consuming steps of converting documents from Word format, e.g., into Pages format for the iPad or other word processing apps on all the other ARM based tablets.

Partners on the new SoC project include NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Intel and AMD.  I would expect a rush of all the other OEMs to jump on this bandwagon soon, as it would be a huge competitive disadvantage not to have the ability to read and write legacy Windows application programs.

The big looser in the long run may be Android, which is now the leading operating system for tablet and cellphone devices.  The ability to run Word, Power Point and Excel files will give Google a serious run for its money.

The release version of Windows is expected in 2012, with Beta release expected in the second or third quarter of this year.

3/1/2011:  Barnes and Noble Selling Nook Color for $199 on eBay

Engadget reports that Barnes & Noble is currently selling itsNook Color on eBay with a $50 coupon code.  This bring the final price down to $199, which is $50 less than it sells them for in stores or on its own website.

This may be B&N’s way of testing the waters for how elastic demand is for their flagship product.

2/28/2011:  AT&T To Sell Kindle 3G in March

AT&T announced today that they will carry the Kindle (3) with 3G and WiFi connections in their company-owned stores in the United States.  Sales are set to begin on March 6, one week away.

The 3G part of Kindle relies on AT&T 3G signals, so it is natural for them to sell Kindles.  This will certainly increase the availability of Kindles, but the price will stay at $189.  For a video of a Kindle commercial look below.

2/25/2011:  Google Books Available on Androids and PCs

Google has created a new Books section of the Android Market. The Books tab shows up if you’re running the Market app on a tablet with Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb (such as the Motorola XOOM which hit the streets today). But you can also browse the book listings in the web version of the Android Market by visiting market.android.com/books in a browser.

You don’t need an Android tablet to use the new books directory. You can select any title and click the “Get it Now” button to add it to your Google Books account. From there you can read the title on any computer with a web browser, or access the books from a mobile device running the Google Books app for Android or iOS. The Barnes & No

 

2/23/2011:  New iPad to be Announced March 2nd

Apple has scheduled an event for March 2nd, and according to Kara Swisher at All Things D, the company will likely unveil the second generation iPad at the event.

There isn’t much speculative about Apple’s plans to up-grade the iPad with new features.  This has been in the works since the day after the first iPad was introduced.  Rumors about new features include a much higher resolution screen, dual-core processor, and two cameras.  Light Peak ports are also talked about as well as multiple 3G mobile broadband capability.

2/17/2011:  Kobo Assures its Borders Customers All is Well

It was some months ago that Borders decided not to develop their own eReader hardware or  its own library of electronic book titles.  Rather than make a major investment in the new technology, Borders farmed the entire job out to a third party, Kobo.

It was Borders’ attempt to get by on the cheap; in retrospect, probably not a good idea.

Now that Borders has filed for bankruptcy, Kobo is out with a note to their Borders clients that there will be no interruption to their reading experience.  Kobo is financially independent of Borders and can continue supporting their clients.

I wonder without the draw from Borders how Kobo will do in the future.  Of course, Borders will emerge from bankruptcy eventually, but their long term survival is by no means assured.  Their management was too far behind the curve to make the cut in the new electronics world.

9/28/2011:   Kindle Fire in the 7-inch Tablet Market

The most surprising announcement from Amazon was that their new 7-inch tablet will retail for $199.  It weighs in at 14.6 oz and features a new, advanced browser named Silk.  Silk uses some advanced cloud techniques that will speed up the browsing experience.

 This will blow the doors off the 7-inch market.  For now the only competitor, the Nook Color, has been selling well at $250, and it is slower and has less capacity than the Kindle Fire.

An up-grade to the Nook Color is expected next month, so I expect prices on the original model to come down to $100 or less in order to clear out the inventory.

On the downside, the Kindle Fire has no camera, no 3G connectivity and no microphone.  But these do not sound like killer omissions.  The iPad didn’t have a camera, either.  Although I find the one on my Galaxy Tab 7 handy at times, I do not think it essential.

New Kindle Touch also announced.  Similar to the Nook and Kobo touch screens, the new Kindle Touch uses an infrared screen system to “feel” the touch strokes, meaning that the screen readability will not be affected.  No physical keyboard, Tap on the right to turn to next page, the left side to go back and the bottom for menu.  The new model will sell for $99 and it includes a major new feature, X-Ray that adds information similar to the definition look-up but is greatly expanded in terms of the subject matter.

There is also a Kindle Touch 3G coming at $149.  No contract for the 3G, no monthly cost regardless of use.

For users who don’t want touch screen ability, a touchless screen Kindle will sell for $79.

9/27/2011:  Tomorrow the new colorful Kindle Fire, will, it is said, be introduced at Amazon’s press conference.  From TechCrunch comes the latest rumor, based on strong evidence.

First the new tablet will be more like the RIM BlackBerry Playbook than the Nook Color. 

The mockup shown below was created by one of the staff members of TechCrunch based on a description of one who got to use it for an hour.

The insides of the Kindle Fire will also be more like the Playbook.  It is use a dual-core OMAP chip of an ARM design byf Texas Instruments, perhaps running at over 1 GHZ,.  Its speed would be much faster than the Nook Color’s single chip 800 MGZ design.

Furthermore, the rumor states that the new tablet will not be available until the second week of November—about the same time that Barnes and Noble will unveil their Nook Color 2, running on a similar chip as the Fire.

The operating system will be based on Android 2.1, but one will not recognize it because Amazon has written their own user interface, and it will tightly integrate all of Amazon’s store shopping features, including eBooks and streaming video.  They are also said to be beefing up their movie selection.

5/18/2011:  New leaks about Amazon’s tablet plans are now circulating.  The latest, tied in to the post here on 5/15 get more specific.  There are two tablets coming, possibly one 7-inch model that will be configured with a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, code named Coyote.

The second tablet will be powered by an ultra quad-core processor known as the Tegra 3 which could run graphics up to 3 times faster than today’s popular Tegra 2.  This machine is code named Hollywood.

The second tablet, Hollywood, would push the cutting edge of tablets and would have to be ready soon after the Tegra 3 ships.  This would put Amazon in the leading position for power and graphics for all existing tablets.  However, Amazon will not be the only producer to bring out a model with the new generation processor. 

5/15/2011:  The latest spate of rumors about Amazon’s tablet are making the rounds in the blogosphere.  The current one focuses on two sources:  the first is a casual remark from Jeff Bezos himself that there will be an entire family of Android devices rather than on single device. 

The second rumor comes from Taylor Wimberly by Andoidandme, who has good contacts within the world of Amazonia.  Mr. Wimberly insists, through personal leaks from those inside the industry with direct knowledge of the project, that there will be new products coming from Amazon in the fall of the this year, and that one would be a direct competitor with the iPad.

Other rumors about this project insist that the new tablet will be a competitor with the iPad, but that it will be a Kindle-specific product—something that sounds much like the Nook Color.  In other words, the new tablet will be an Android device but one that is oriented primarily toward eReading but that has general surfing ability with Android apps capability.

Another interesting idea is that one of the new devices will be an Android phone.

The screen of the new tablet device is rumored to be everything from Pixel Qi to Mirasol.  The processor will most likely be an ARM device, but it could be anything from NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm or others.  No one seems to think it matters much as to which processor is adopted.

The consistent trend, though, is that the new tablet and other devices are coming.  Amazon is throwing its hat into the ring.

5/3/2011:  The rumors are now beginning to filer in from the up-stream suppliers of Amazon’s new color tablet/eReader.  One of the sources of the new rumor is DigiTimes, a sometimes-reliable supplier of rumors about American contracts with Taiwan’s manufacturing sector.  They predicted last year that Apple would come out with a 7-inch iPad.  It turned out that Taiwan manufacturers did receive contracts to manufacture 7-inch devices, but they were not for Apple.

DigiTimes is now reporting that Quanta Computer has received a large order for tablets from Amazon.  The order numbers in peak season are to be in the 700,000 – 800,000 a month and are expected to begin deliveries as early as the second half of 2011—which means June or July.

Quanta Computers also manufacturers the RIM Playbook and eReaders for Sony Corp.  And Quanta is also reported to be in the running to manufacture the Le Pad for Lenovo.

And interesting side note in the rumor is that Amazon’s Kindle eReader continues selling well, but only in the American market.  Amazon is supposedly working on a plan to further reduce the price of the Kindle to make it more attractive to schools and other institutional buyers, so it will keep the Kindle in production in addition to their production of the new color tablet.

There has been some speculation that they would go to Mirasol type display, but this rumor insists on an LCD with Fringe Field Switching technology.  This technology comes from the manufacturer of e-E-Ink displays.

First Rumor:

There is no argument that Barnes and Nobel beat Amazon to the punch when they brought their Nook Color to market last year.  The device has been popular and it has given B&N new life in the electronic books market.  It is also a fairly decent Android tablet.  If B&N would juice the speed up a notch it would be even more so.

It is no surprise, then,  to learn that Amazon is working on a Kindle color tablet.  The credibility of the rumor has ratcheted up a few notches when it was reported by Peter Rojas of gdgt that he was 99% certain that Samsung will produce a device of Amazon’s design.

Speculation is rampant about what the new device will cost and what it will look like.  No one who knows is talking, so none of those talking know.

Given the importance of this event—when Amazon does something in this space it deserves attention—I am posting this first installment of Amazon’s Rumor Central.  I will keep this post updated with each new rumor that seems credible, so check back here for a summary of the rumors as they surface.

For the complete article by Mr. Rojas Click Here.

Further speculation by ZDNet, James KendrickClick Here.

Stay tuned for further developments.

Ray Hendon

MG Siegler of Tech Crunch Blog has posted an account of his one hour session with the rumored Amazon Kindle. His time with the new entrant into the tablet arena is instructive as for what to expect from Amazon this coming November.

Rumors of Amazon’s entry into the iPad territory have been too widespread to be ignored for the last few months, and it looks now that the final touches are being added to the new device, with the expected date of release during November—in time for the 2011 holiday buying season.

The picture shown is a guessed-at look based on Mr. Siegler’s description of what he saw.

The fundamentals of the new tablet are:

· A 7-inch tablet with capacitive touch sceeen.

· Internally illuminated—no e-ink to be found, and color defines the experience.

· Tight integration with all of Amazon’s current offerings: e-books and magazines, downloadable music and videos, the Amazon market place in place of Android Market.

· Android is the underlying operating system, but we may not recognize it because of the extensive modifications Amazon has instituted in the interface. No Honeycomb or otherwise a recognizable Google version of Android—this it Amazon’s baby all the way.

· Cost is $250—about the same as the Color Nook of Barnes and Noble.

· A 10-inch version will not be this year, but one may be released early next year.

· A full browser included.

· Mr., Siegler guesses the 7-inch version will be a single-core processor. The 10—inch, he assumes, will be dual core.

· Minimal RAM (probably 6GB) emphasized the “cloud” nature of the device.

· WIFi only for the first version, but Amazon will be working with carriers to bring a 3G/4G version to the market later.

· No camera.

· Overall looks are similar to the RIM Playbook.

Overall the new entry is designed more to compete with the Color Nook rather than the iPad, or so it appears. The 10-inch version will be more in the iPad’s category.

With the price point now revealed, or at least guessed about, it is becoming clear that the 7-inch tablets do not compete well with the 10-inch models. The original 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab now going for $200 from Verizon, with a service contract for 3G services, and the Color Nook priced at $250, it is clear that 7-inches will sell at a price size-adjusted for the area of the screen.

Having used the Galaxy Tab 7-inch model for a month or more, this seems about right. There is a huge difference between surfing on the iPad vs. the Galaxy Tab. $200-$250 seems about right using screen area as the dominant criterion.

As an e-Reader, however, the 7-inch device has advantages over the 10-inch devices. The lightness and small size allow the G-Tab to be held with one hand and held for a long time. The iPad is simply too heavy and clumsy for prolonged one-handed operation.

With the heft of Amazon’s marketing and strong and loyal installed base of e-Readers, Amazon is going to be accounted for in this new area. Although late to the party, they will get some notice, and they will probably outdistance the Nook efforts for their fine color machine. The game isn’t over just yet.

I have followed the efforts of Barnes and Noble to establish its place in the eReader market since the introduction of the original Nook in February of last year. Although their original Nook got off to a shaky start, several upgrades and refinements have made it a credible competitor to the Kindles of Amazon. But their homerun, using a baseball analogy, was the Nook Color, formerly known as the Color Nook.

This seven-inch eReader is in fact an Android tablet computer disguised as an electronic reader. Not that the eReader part of the package is less than excellent; it’s just that this little device’s abilities as a tablet computer are so under-stated. B&N priced the color machine as an eReader, trying to stay price competitive with its eReader competition with Amazon and Sony. This established the Nook Color as an eReader in their minds, at least, but not in the minds of their more imaginative customers.

Less than a year on the market, the Nook Color is B&N’s rising star and giving them untold credibility in both the tablet computer market and the eReader market at the same time. Amazon completely missed this opportunity. B&N simply outdid them with their desperate attempt. Perhaps Amazon needs a little desperation themselves if it would allow them to think out their eReader box.

To put some heft to these remarks one has only to look at the latest sales figures estimated by Digitimes. (Click here for the Digitimes release) According to the suppliers of Nook Color parts and pieces, one million of these new gadgets have shipped in last year’s fourth quarter, and 600,000 to 700,000 have shipped in January and February of this year. Over is life of less than one year, it has sold about 3 million units.

These figures are, to me, astounding. When viewed as a tablet computer, the Nook Color now accounts for one half of all sales of devices competing with Apple’s iPad. Given that there are many such competitors, and the total mounts daily, Barnes and Noble has demolished competition for a device they didn’t even know they were competing with.

The troubled bookseller has finally recognized what a stellar product they have on their hands, and they are taking steps to bolster the Nook Color’s credentials as a tablet. In April they will bring out a new software update that take more advantage of being an Android tablet. They are adding a dedicated email app, for example, and they are strengthening the apps for their eReader that are more appropriate for tablet use than as a pure eReader.

Hackers have also taken a liking to it. They have rooted the device to allow it to run a full Android OS, including Android 3.0. It is uncertain that B&N will ever go that far with their authorized version—they insist on adding a proprietary overlay to Android, and they restrict the apps that will run on it to those that have been modified to fit its own customization. Hopefully B&N will realize one day that all their proprietary efforts are counterproductive and release a version that is a full Android Tablet.

The end result of B&N’s efforts are a rousing success, and now Amazon is hurrying to play catch up. It’s amazing what a difference one year makes in today’s dynamic market for electronic devices.

To read my first article on the Nook (not the Nook Color) Click Here

First review of the Nook eReader Click Here for Not Hooked on Nook

Re-review of Nook Color (November, 2010) Click Here

Netbook sales were robust in 2009, jumping eightfold in the United States, to 7.5 million devices.  Worldwide sales tripled to 34 million, but the rapid pace of growth stalled last year.

For example, according to the market research firm NPD, year-end retail sales of netbook computers in America fell 38 percent from a year earlier, .

The market research firm IDC predicts that worldwide sales will fall in 2011 by about 7 percent, but that would still be 32.9 million netbooks which would account for roughly 10 percent of the total PC market.

On the tablet side of the equation, there is an opposite story. The Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report shows the last year’s growth of worldwide tablet sales at nearly 200%. They expect 55.7 million tablets to be shipped in 2011, and total shipments of the mobile PC market (netbooks, laptops and tablets) are expected to reach 503.8 million units by 2014. Tablet PCs are expected to account for 35% of this share.

Netbooks continue to enjoy brisk sales in cost-conscious markets, including China and Latin America, and in sales to schools, which want an affordable way to equip students with computers.

But the limitations in the first generation of netbooks will continue being an impediment to increased sales. The first generation devices were under- powered for many tasks that PC owners demand. They were slow to boot, slow when forced into multitasking, had cramped keyboards and a 10.1 inch screen.

The new generation of netbooks is beginning to be sold. They feature multi-core processors with better battery life and much improved multi-tasking. Although the screen size is still small, and there have been big improvements in the keyboard, they are still somewhat cramped. The price, however, is still staying generally between $300 and $500;  this will keep the device in contention even with its limited functionality.

Such has been the fortune of netbooks. They got off to a fast start when first introduced, with growth in triple digits, but their growth rate began slowing even before the iPad came on the scene. The iPad turned a slowing growth rate into an absolute fall in total units sold, with growth now negative, as is shown in the chart above.

There is still a future for the netbook. Its low price, its low weight and long battery life make it more convenient to use than the heavier and bulkier laptops.  It also has an improved keyboard, is better at multi-tasking, and it has the huge advantage of being able to run a wealth of Windows software. These advantages still give it an edge on the tablet computers for specific uses.

Another area of competition is coming from the higher end of the laptop spectrum—the conventional laptops. These devices have more robust computing power, internal hard drives, and larger screen sizes. There is not much competition, though, with screens above 13 inches. The weight alone of a 14 through 17-inch screen makes them too heavy for comfortable portability, and their bulk is inconvenient when placed on a table.

The greater threat to the netbooks lies in the ultra-portable laptops. With screen sizes running from 11+  to 13.3 inches, their weight is generally  four pounds or less. Their processing power is much greater than the netbooks, with full storage spinning drives and even lighter weight and faster SSD drives becoming increasingly available. Prices are from $800 to $1000, but some go over $2000 with SSD built in.  This makes them too expensive for many netbook owners and will keep netbooks in the market.

From my experience with laptops, netbooks and tablets, my final mix will include only three computers: a desktop that will remain as my primary machine for heavy duty work and play; an ultraportable for mobile use when serious work needs to be done, and an iPad or some other tablet for supplemental and mobile use.

Stand-alone eReaders are also facing similar constraints in their market. Tablets, laptops, netbooks, and desktops all have eReading applications from the major suppliers.  A few, such as the Nook Color, have elements of use similar to both tablets and eReaders. A slew of new tablets coming to market this year, many with 7 inch screens, may provide another competitor for stand-alone eReaders. This part of the market is not showing signs of a major slow-down, however, so its fate is yet to be determined.

Ray Hendon

For those who recently acquired an eReader one of your first urges is to load it up with new books. Understandably, this urge is strong and eBooks stores are happy to help.

However. before jumping into paying for current titles, be aware of the availability of tens of thousands of books that are absolutely free of costs–all of them available for virtually any device, regardless of the brand. Even better, many if not most of the free titles are among the best books ever written.

In the United States, for example, books published in 1922 and prior years are no longer protected by copy-write restrictions and are free of fees to publishers. Before electronic reading began its growth stage, many publishers would print these old titles and sell them at significantly reduced prices in paperback format.   T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman are a few who come under this rule.

In Europe it is about the same, so we have available, free of charge, the high quality novels, poetry and essays of some the world’s greatest writers. Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Wordsworth, Blake, Pope, Flaubert, and thousands of others are available.

Printed copies of these titles are still being sold, but a major new wrinkle in publishing came along when the Gutenberg Project was begun. The Gutenberg Project takes as its mission in life to scan the huge library of copy-write-free books into a digital format and then give them away to anyone who asks. The internet has made this dream a reality, and the development of compressed formats of electronic titles made it easy and fast to download.  Regardless of your device, you can download a huge volumes of works to a PC, Mac or proprietary electronic reading device—Kindles, Sony Readers and Nooks, e.g.

Now there are hundreds of sites that either feature these free classic titles or at least carry many of them along with their regular for-sale inventory. Below you will find some of my favorite free sites.  Don’t forget, most of them have a variety of formats available. If you have a Kindle, you simply ask for the Kindle format. For most other eReaders, ePub and PDF formats are also available.

Gutenberg: Click Here. : The original site has a great selection of about 33,000 titles. Their site is not as slick in layout and user-friendliness as others, but once accustomed to its clunky interface, it is worth the effort. The main thing here to lookout for is that their search engine is not sophisticated in guessing what you are looking for. Spelling and precise names and titles are required to bring up a hit. Many of their titles are also available as audio books, wonderful for blind readers and others who prefer being read to.

Manybooks: Manybooks.net is much more civilized in its web page layout, and it boasts over 35,000 titles, all free. Many of the titles will be the same as Gutenberg, of course, but they have many of their own. The file formats available for download are many—all the usual suspects plus many you may have never heard of. This is almost always my first choice when looking for a classical title. Their search engine is also unimaginative, so be precise with titles and authors, or use their browsing by category system or browse alphabetically by author.

Inkmesh: Inkmesh has no inventory of its own, but will search sites for you to see if your title of choice is available and if so, where. It is also handy for fee-type titles if you want to compare prices. They also have classifications that you can browse by: adventure, romance, business, etc. It is a handy site to have available.

Amazon Free Books: Amazon has a rich library for free books, but they are not easily found. This link will get you directly to their free book section, but expect to have to fiddle with it some. Also, be careful and observant on their title searches. They will often bring up a range of options for any title, and many of the titles have fee versions as well as free. You may end up paying 99₵ or more for a title that may also be free if you look further down the list.

Barnes and Noble Free Books:  Everything I said about Amazon is true for Barnes and Noble. They have a good selection of free books, but the only file format available is ePub.

Kobo:Kobo has the ePub format, so Kindle users need not try. But Kobo has many free books. Finding them, though, is not easy. Usually, searching by a classic title will bring up paid and free versions of the title.

There are other sites, but this list should last for the first few thousand titles. Also, if you have an iPhone or Android smartphone, all the reader apps for Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo (Borders) are available. This way, you can download to your Nook, for example, and have the same library available on the iPhone or Droid. This is handy for short waits that allow you to read your current selection for a few minutes of productive fun.

From engadget, the following quotation: “About a year ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said he believed general-purpose gadgets were the future, and dedicated devices such as the Kindle were on their way out. Early numbers suggest he may be right.”

A marketing research firm, ChangeWave, tabulated results from the 2,800 people who responded  to their survey of eReading.  The results, shown in the graphs below, indicate that the iPad is rapidly gaining on Kindle as the eReader of choice. 32 percent said they used an iPad as an e-reader, while 47 percent said they used a Kindle.

If the survey results are truly representative of all those who use eReaders, the iPad is headed for domination of this market by the middle of next year.  This is a phenomenal rate of a market shift in response to the iPad and, probably, by implications, all color multipurpose tablets.  E-Ink, again, if these results are a true indicator of the buying public, is soon to find itself relegated to the back burners.

ChangeWave also asked their respondents about their plans for purchases of eReaders within the next  30 days: 42 percent said they were likely to buy an iPad, while 33 percent said they’d probably buy a Kindle.  These results are graphed in the second chart, below.

The story doesn’t end here, though.  The repercussions for the sale of eBooks, supposedly what they all are aiming for, promises to help sooth the pain for Amazon.  Its eReader software for the iPad and Android devices continues in widespread use, so the sale of eBooks by Amazon will probably continue prospering, regardless of the fate of its E-Ink reader.  According to research firm Cowen, Amazon sales through the eBook store were on track to grow 195 percent to $701 million this year.

The evidence on the side of Amazon’s eBook software, however, is clouded by the revelation from ChangeWave that 60% of iPad customers whom they surveyed are downloading apps through the iBooks store while only 31% go for the Kindle app.

This particular statistic may or may not be stable over time.  New owners of iPads are likely to use the iBooks store and its eReader more at first, but as they gain experience, and sample the virtues of Amazon’s larger library and well-functioning reader app, they may migrate more to Amazon’s side.  At least anecdotal evidence supports this interpretation of the maturing process of eReading on the iPad.

According to the AllThingsD, “Credit Suisse analystSpencer Wang predicted earlier this year that Amazon’s share of the e-book market will shrink from 90 percent to 35 percent by 2015.

There are a couple of other factors to consider before jumping to any of these apocalyptic conclusions.  First, the survey was carried out before the advent of the Nook Color and many of the current crop of color tablets hit the market.  This dynamic is unaccounted for in their results.

Secondly, the study was done before Google announced its intentions to bring their eBook site live in December of this year.  That would probably indicate a further eroding of Amazon’s market share of eBook sales.

One conclusion I draw from this research report is that the eReading market is undergoing a rapid change in response to new technology.  Any firm that stays too long with its tried and true solutions will likely find the market quickly moving away from them.  In this industry, what was true yesterday is likely to be untrue tomorrow.

Ray Hendon

11/20/2010

The month of November has been a watershed for this website.  For the period from November 14th through the 26th, the number of inquiries per day jumped about 600%.  And then, on November 24th, the drop off was dramatic.  Black Friday marked the end of the surge.

During this time of greatly expanded inquiries, I noticed that certain articles were receiving a huge proportion of the hits, and now that it is over, I have gone back to my data and painstakingly compiled exactly which ones got how many requests.

The results for the top 14 of the eReaders are posted in the table below:

Name of eReader	Percent of all Inquiries
Nook Color	20.3
ViewSonic 10”  and 7” Tablet	18.5
Velocity Cruz	18.5
Galaxy Tab	8.75
Kindle	8.0
Archos	6.8
Faceoff*	4.8
RIM Playbook	2.8
Sony Readers	2.0
Sylvania	1.85
Pandigital	1.75
Nook	1.4
Kobo	1.04
iPad	1.0

*Face-off is for a single article posted that compared the iPad, the Sony Reader series, Kindle and the Nook.

A bar chart of the percentages is shown below.

I tracked six additional names, but none of them got to the one percent level.  Also, the iPad got relatively few hits, but this is a site for eReaders, so those looking for information were, I assume, looking at the iPad as an eReader and not as a full functioning tablet computer.

A number of things stand out in the data.  First, color rules.  I didn’t count the request under the generic heading of “Color eReader,” but if I had, this generic label would have placed rather high in the ranking.

Secondly, the numbers of requests for Kindle information is not good news for Amazon.  From a third to half of the Kindle requests were for an article I did on the possibility of a color Kindle in the near future, and which I answered in the negative.  Thus a large percentages of the Kindle requests resulted in an answer that would possibly point the interested party away from Kindle.

If my conclusion that color rules is correct, then that explains part of the reason Sony, the third largest supplier of eReading devices, places so poorly in the rankings.  It also expalins why the Nook (without color) didn’t even make the top ten.  I expect the price of it and the Kindle to fall in the not too distant future, if this shift to color is as pronounced as it appears.

A third conclusion is that the seven inch tablet is a strong product, at least for those looking.  The Nook Color, Velocity Cruz, View Sonic, Galaxy Tab and RIM Playbook are all seven inch screens, and all with color and fast refresh rates.  If they dominate in sales the way they dominated the requests my site received, seven inches is a winning number.

The last thing that stands out in the numbers I collected is that there is a great deal of price elasticity for tablets.  This means that a small price drop will bring in more revenue to the seller through a large increase in sales.  There is some pent-up demand for colorful surfing and eReading from a segment of the population that can’t pony up the $500 or more for an iPad or Galaxy Tab.  A manufacturer that can bring a good quality tablet to the market under the $500 price mark will likely be rewarded by large sales.

For these reasons, it looks to me that Barnes and Noble has won this Christams from Amazon.  Its Nook Color has hit a sweet spot among those looking for eReaders with color and surfing ability.  My guess is the the Nook Color is going to be under many Christmas trees soon.