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.

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.

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.

It appears Sony was awake after all.  They have completely revised their line of Readers, giving WiFi to their top of the line model, dumping their old overlay screens that provided touch control but were washed-out in contrast.  Replacing the overlay is the use of infrared scans to determine where your fingers are on the screen and what they are doing.  This is a major improvement.

The picture below shows the larger Daily Edition on the left, the Kindle 3 in the middle and the Pocket Edition on the right.

Also, Sony has adopted the new Pearl E-Ink technology which makes for more contrast.  The two most popular models, the Touch Edition and the Pocket Edition have slimmed down.  The Pocket Edition has kept its five inch screen, but it now has 16-level gray scale instead of the older 8-scale.

All are good moves by Sony.  They certainly plan on staying in the game.

On the down side, all the new readers come with higher prices.  The Pocket Edition jumps from $149 to $179 and is without expanded memory options or WiFi.  The Touch Edition is $229 and without WiFi, but with expanded memory options.  The Daily Edition is not yet available for delivery.

For a more detailed review, follow this link.

Ray Hendon

An Article by Daniel Lyons in Newsweek, “Why the iPad hasn’t killed the Kindle” is the first I have seen that addresses some of the potential reasons the Kindle, and by implication, the Sony Readers and Nook, have continued to prosper in the face of the iPad’s success.Click here to read the full article.

The bottom line is that dedicated eReaders are easier on the eyes, lighter to hold, have longer battery life, and have a seamless integration with Amazon’s website.

Many observers of the eReading industry also see the need for Amazon and B&N to extend the usability and flexibility of their devices to allow for more of a multi-function existence.  A better browser, for example, would go far in making the Kindle and Nook better competitors and would probably extend their life into the future.  How they do that with the existing black and white E-Ink screen, though, is not any easy question to answer .  No one has found the exact solution, yet.

For an interesting anti-Kindle survival, Wilson Rothman, writing for MSNBC, takes a different angle.  Mr. Rothman insists that the iPad is so superior to the Kindle in multi-tasking, that it will be hard for eReaders to survive.  I do find reading on the iPad much more rewarding when I want to look something up that is within the book I am reading.  On a Kindle, it is not practicle.  But the iPad, even without multitasking, makes research a joy while reading.

Link to full article

By Ray Hendon

The eReading industry, though young in age, is in the midst of a profound crisis that appears to threaten its very existence. The iPad had this effect on the current crop of eReaders and has set in motion a worldwide scramble for answers to the new challenge.

Sony Corp. introduced the first eReader using E-Ink technology to the American market in 2006. It was a revolutionary product at the time. It turned on in a few seconds and was immediately available for use. Its screen was easy on the eyes, and it was light enough to be held for hours at a time without fatigue. An abundance of internal memory made it possible to hold over a thousand books inside this skinny little gizmo.

Amazon added heft to the industry in 2007 when it began selling the Kindle. Its device has since seized the lead in this now burgeoning market, and their success has attracted other competitors. Late last year, Barnes & Noble threw its Nook into the ring, and since then a few other suppliers of E-Ink display devices have entered the market. None, however, have sold enough to gain traction against the major players. The iPad, though, with its LCD screen, has achieved market presence that is both undeniable and probably irreversible.

Until this year, Amazon’s Kindle has dominated the hardware side of the industry. Its two Kindle models are said to account from 60% to 70% of all E-Ink device sales. On the software side it’s even more dominant; according to some estimates Amazon delivers an estimated 80% of all eBooks sold.

Sony is thought to account for almost all of what is left, with up to 25% to 30% of device sales. Although Nook sales were not taken into account when these estimates were made, since B&N began their sales efforts only recently, I doubt their omission would alter the estimates much. Keep in mind that none of the vendors report their actual sales, so there is a large area of uncertainty in any estimates published.

One of the more respected forecasters, Forrester Research, estimates that sales of E-Ink devices will be about 6.6 million this year, up from 3.1 million in 2009. If this estimate is anywhere near accurate, it goes a long way in explaining why other device designers and book sellers are seriously trying to elbow themselves a place at the table.

Apple can claim the sharpest elbows this year, since sales of its iPad have reached three million units in less than ninety days after its introduction. Its success as an effective eReader has thrown the entire eReading industry into a frenzy of uncertainty and speculation. Is this the end of E-Ink’s brief and happy life? Those who love reading will answer this question with their wallets over the next year or so, but speculation is rampant in all directions.

On the cataclysmic side of speculations is the view of the iPad as being a “Kindle killer.” This language has been widely circulated in the blogosphere. More prudent predictions, however, see the iPad as capturing about one third of the eReading market, leaving the remaining two-thirds to conventional E-Ink devices.

I don’t pretend to know how much of the eReading business iPad will gain, but it is clear that Apple’s new gadget is a strong competitor to single-purpose devices like the Kindle, Nook and Sony Readers. Its success most likely contributed to the price cuts recently announced by B&N and Amazon. There are probably more shoes to drop before this episode is closed.

Price is but one way the E-Ink vendors can compete against the onslaught of “pads” that are expected in the coming months. E-Ink vendors could bring out their own multi-purpose devices, but to do so would force them to de-emphasize E-Ink screens in favor of internally illuminated LCDs—a heresy in prior years. Or, they could stay with what they have, and continue with marginal improvements and lower prices, hoping the merits of E-Ink will keep a significant portion of serious readers in their camp.

Although there are some promising new innovations with E-Ink color and video capabilities, they are far from being close to production and of questionable quality in their current state. It is difficult to imagine a rate of growth for this technology in the future anywhere near where it has been. This is a serious limiting force for the growth plans of Amazon and others, so it may force them to come out with me-too products in order to stay competitive.

Pricing, though, will be the first line of defense against the new multi-purpose devices. Observers inside and outside the industry have been discussing the need for lower prices for E-Ink machines for months. The consensus, if there ever can be a consensus in such a chaotic industry, is that eReaders at $100 is a fair price. Even today, predictions by industry insiders generally see E-Ink readers in the near future falling below $100 at the low end and not much above it at the high.

Lower hardware prices, though, may not spell the doom that some predict. Costs of production will fall when hardware production is ramped up to millions of units. And if production costs do fall, it will help offset the hit on income caused by selling their products at lower prices.

Additionally, the largest source of profits for the industry is expected to come from sales of eBooks. Lower hardware prices will, in turn, stimulate the already burgeoning growth of electronic titles. The net effect of these counter forces of lower hardware and more software sales may well be positive for earnings, but it won’t be known until the dust settles, probably late next year.

Keep in mind, too, that market share of hardware sales does not necessarily equate to market share of software. Even if the Kindle loses all or much of its market share to other devices, Amazon could continue prospering from sales of electronic books. Their huge inventory of electronic titles will be attractive to many of those that are new to electronic reading, so it is not unreasonable that Amazon will remain a major player in this market.

From its actions, it is clear that Amazon believes they have a future in selling their electronics inventory to non-Kindle owners. Their Kindle eReader for the iPad was available to download on April 3, the day the first buyers got their new toy. This made Amazon’s huge library of electronic books immediately available to iPad owners, and put the camel’s nose squarely in Apple’s tent.

Other noses are also pressing in. B&N got their excellent iPad eReader in the apps menu a month later than Kindle. Kobo has one now, too, and there are a few other specialty readers available for comic book formats and PFD documents not burdened by digital rights management restrictions.

Looking forward, the major clash of the conflict is probably going to be between Amazon and Apple. Each has different advantages in this contest:

Amazon’s advantage lies more on the software side. And here their strengths are formidable:

· A huge inventory of electronic titles ready to be downloaded today.

· A wealth of experience in on-line retail sales of eReaders and eBooks.

· A large installed base of dedicated eReader owners who trust Amazon and think of them first when looking for a new title to read.

· A sophisticated eReading/syncing system that allows its electronic titles to be read over a wide range of electronic devices, including iPads, iPhones, iPod Touch, BlackBerries, PCs and Macs. An Android app is also promised “soon.”

· A sterling reputation for honesty and integrity in all segments of their retail operations .

Apple has its share of advantages:

· The iPad is alone in its category of devices. It seems years ahead of any other device on the market today. From what I have seen of the first competing offerings headed for retail shelves this year, none of them are within a light-year of the iPad.

· Considerable on-line retailing experience, although not in eBooks.

· A loyal and devoted customer base for all their products.

It is, of course, possible that both Amazon and Apple will prosper over the long run. I don’t see either actually “killing” the other. Mr. Bezos’ attitude appears to be to let Apple run with what they have. He probably has a few new things up his sleeve for later, but he seems unexpectedly confident that his products will continue to prosper, regardless of the hype and hubris of Apple’s new product.

Other competitors in the E-Ink world also must be considered. B&N, which dominates the printed book world, is too important to ignore. Their advantages are more on the brick and mortar side, which seems likely to be a critical factor. They have yet to translate their success in brick and mortar to the digital domain, but they are struggling mightily to make the transition. The Nook is a credible product in this effort, although it doesn’t stand up well to the iPad(what does?), but at least they have something to sell to their many customers. B&N gives me the impression that they are going “all in” for a share of this new market. It would be foolish to discount their efforts.

Borders is the last book seller to enter the digital market, and they seem content to outsource the hardware to others, and they are relying heavily on the on-line eBook experience of Kobo to power them into digital success. If results follow effort, their expectations should be low.

Sony, of course, is, as always, a different story and more than a little inscrutable. Their eReader hardware and software are quite good, and their software eReader is available to PCs and Macs. But they lag in making their eReader software available on the iPad or on smartphones, and they lack Amazon’s or B&N’s mega-inventory of eBooks. On the plus side, they have a sizable number of eReader owners who look to Sony for titles to buy. I hope they have the midnight oil burning somewhere in Tokyo.

For the eReading public, the future will be exciting as new hardware is deployed—more choices and lower prices. There will be a life or death struggle, however, for some of the weaker players who lack the cushion of a deep product line and pockets deep enough to fund new product development.

For all vendors in the industry it is a challenging time. The players are talented, diverse, and, for the most part, have the financial resources to devote to the battle. If the moves and countermoves made thus far are an indication of the future, then we should expect a tumultuous and exciting story to unfold, and I am prepared for a surprise ending.

My goal with the blog is to bring current information about ereaders to those who are interested in evaluating the different models available today.

At this time only two mainstream brands of ereaders are available for immediate purchase: 

Amazon’s Kindle with two models, and Sony’s Reader Editions with three models.

Amazon’s Kindle

 

Kindle & Kindle DX

The 6” Kindle sells at $259 at Amazon, and the 9.7”  DX for $489

The smaller Kindle is the mainstay of Amazon’ stable.  The major features of this device is its relative small size, 3G wireless connectivity (AT&T), , 10.2 oz, storage for up to 1500 ebooks, and large selection of electronic books, magazines and newspapers from Amazon’s library.

The display is easily read, with good definition and high contrast, using E Ink technology.  The Kindle also has an internet browser,  and it works quite well for Amazon’s shopping site.  It is not suitable for browsing a conventional PC website, with its color and graphics content.  But it is adequate for shopping for most ebook sites.

The screen orientation and font size are controllable from a menu, and the design is well tested for easy reading.  An alphabetic and numeric keypad at the bottom of the device allow for easy note insertion and other typing chores associated with browsing.

The Kindle’s will also read the texts aloud with a masculine voice if you choose that option.

The DX, with its much larger screen, has an auto-rotating display turns to a horizontal or vertical oriented screen depending on which way the device  is turned.  The DX also has about twice the memory of the Kindle.

Video of Kindle Review: The reviewer made this video at the time when Kindle used Sprint 3G network for wireless connections.  The Kindle now uses AT&T

Sony’s Readers

The Sony Readers

All the Sony Readers feature touch-screens, meaning you can turn pages and navigate both the menus and reading screen with your finger.  The smaller two models, the Touch Edition and the Pocket Edition, are both smaller in overall dimensions that the Kindle because they omit the physical keyboard and replace it with a graphic touch keyboard that is displayed on the screen when called for.

Neither of the smaller models have wireless connectivity, so ebooks and other reading materials are first downloaded to your PC and then transferred with a USB cable to the Reader.

Storage capacity is 440 megabytes for the Pocket Edition and 380 MB for the larger Touch Edition. The memory is expandable on the Touch, however,  with a memory stick Pro or SD card for up to 1.6 GB of total capacity.  The Pocket Edition is not expandable.

To their great advantage, all the Sony Readers recognize a wide range of file formats, including the Sony proprietary format as well as ePub,  Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) ,and documents from a PC.  This features opens up a wide range of free books that are available only in the public formats, including freedom from the Digital Rights Management locks that most books for sale are saddled with.

Sony has an eBook store on its website, with fewer titles than Amazon, but the ePub and PDF abilities open up a much wider range of reading material for these devices.

The Daily Edition of the Sony Reader line has wireless internet capabilities using the cell-phone 3G capabilities that the Kindles use. The Daily also sports a 7” screen, similar to the Kindle DX, but with the addition of a touch screen and wider range of file formats.

Video of Sony Touch Edition

Comparing the Kindle and Sony Touch Edition

The following Video CNET compares the two most popular ereaders:

B&N Nook

Barnes and Noble Nook

The Nook is not yet available for sale, so its specification and features will be reviewed when it becomes available for sale.  Preliminary features, though, look good.  It has 3G and WiFi connectivity, a definite plus for mobility, and it sports a second, color screen used for navigating the reading material and, presumably the web.  There is a video, however, that provides a good look at the Nook.

Video of Nook

The next generation of ereaders previewed at the Consumer Electronics show look great.  They  all will have 3G and WiFi capabilities, and some have features of dual screens, with touch and stylus writing abilities.  The good news is that several new ereaders are coming in April.  One will have a second screen at 31/2” that is internally illuminated and quite suitable for browsing.

The last video is a good review of all three major ereaders provided by Consumer Reports:

Video Comparing All The Majors:

I will be posting pictures and specifications on the new devices soon.  The next few months promise to be very exciting.  I’ll also post some of the first impressions expressed by those in the industry who have had a chance to see them in action.

I will also be providing links to other reviewers of ereading devices

Check out the video below by clicking on the link headline.  The video will start in a new browser.  Good videos of some of the new devices coming later this year.

NY Times Video of eReaders shown at Consumer Electronics Show

Expect the addition of links next week, and a more thorough review of the Nook by mid February.  Other posts coming include interviews with some of the executives responsible for the new products, and previews of the new generation of readers before April.

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