A low price tag always gets our attention. So, when Infibeam.com launched its e-reader Pi at nearly half the price of Amazon’s Kindle, it not only made headlines but also drew our interest.
Infibeam Pi
Price: Rs 9,999
Infibeam.com, an online retailer in India, has launched a cute little e-reader with a petite six-inch display (800×600 screen resolution), 512MB internal memory, SD card slot and a 3.5mm audio jack. Pi is extremely handy, weighing just 180 grams. And, being less than 10 mm thick, you can easily fit it in a folder.
Still, it will do you good to keep your expectations grounded with the Pi. The e-ink display is quite standard, with only eight greyscales displayable, as opposed to 16 in leading e-readers, and lacks touchscreen functionality. With just 512MB of memory, it is definitely on the sparse side, but you can expand it with a 4GB memory card.
When you turn the page, there is a slight delay and a little flash as the e-ink readjusts itself to the new content. This is an inherent trait of the e-ink technology. Although it can be a bit disconcerting in the beginning, it is quite easy to get used to.
Pi has eight buttons around the outer edge, all labelled with inarticulate icons, except for the obvious power button. There is no feedback when you press the buttons — a minor annoyance, as we prefer a satisfying click typical of most e-readers. The battery is good for about 8,000 page flips on one charge. One of the few unique features of the Pi is that it comes loaded with Sudoku games. Since it provides support for music, PDF, document and image files, you can also transfer personal data from desktop to the e-reader.
Pi owners have the choice of downloading over 100,000 digital books and content from Infibeam.com, priced at Rs 50 and above. If you’re looking for a cheap, pure-function e-reader, then look no further than Infibeam’s Pi.
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Sony Reader PRS-505
Price: Rs 18,500
We stumbled upon the Sony PRS-505 on eBay and could not resist ordering this six-inch diagonal screen with 600x800 pixel display size, courtesy an acquaintance in Hong Kong. We got it for Rs 18,500 (including shipping). Measuring just 17.5 x 12.2 x 0.8 cm, the Sony Reader resembles a thin paperback book. Although at 250 grams, it’s much heavier.
The controls and menu systems are simple and intuitive (though the directional pad needed some pressure to click). There are various functions, like making bookmarks, picking up where you left off, fast forwarding and searching a collection by author, title, date, etc. To be fair, even the home-bred Pi had these functions.
The device has 256MB of memory (can store about 160 books) and can be expanded up to 8GB, if you use the Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo. And to make sure you get to enjoy as many books as possible, the PRS-505 comes with a lithium-ion battery that can last up to 7,500 continuous pages (or up to three weeks of active reading) on a single charge of internal rechargeable battery. However, if you do not shut it down completely, the standby mode can kill the battery. There is no speaker, so audio playback needs a set of earphones.
Unlike the Kindle, the only way to access content is through an internet hookup to a PC (the Sony Reader lacks wireless capability). We were disappointed with another fact — there was no support for importing RSS feeds. On its part, Sony Reader allows easy access to many open source or free ebooks. You can even go to sites that offer ebooks without any digital rights management.
Adding your favourite content to PRS-505 is as simple as a drag and drop, requiring no additional software. Sony has allied with content partners, including Random House, Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins, among others, to provide digital content.
It’s a good value for money, if you can’t get your hands on the Kindle.
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Kindle DX
Price: Rs 39,000
Again sourced via eBay, Kindle DX can be shipped for about Rs 23,000. A 9.7-inch diagonal display on the Kindle DX makes it an instant hit with bookworms. It measures 26.4 x 18.3 x 0.96 cm and weighs about 530 grams. The Kindle DX is as thin as a pencil and lighter than an average paperback.
There is a five-way joystick-like controller, allowing you to easily select from menus. The screen automatically rotates from portrait to landscape when you turn the device — perfect for viewing maps, graphs, tables and web pages. Also unique to the new device is the full-zoom capability — essential for technical diagrams in PDFs. It also has an in-built PDF file reader that is perfect for reading personal and professional documents. There’s a Text-to-Speech feature in Kindle DX that works great as long as the author and publisher have approved the function. You can choose between a male and female voice and you can also slow down or speed up the speech.
A memory of 4GB (3.3 GB of which is available for user content) can store nearly 3,500 books, although few people will have this many ebooks or PDFs. So, it’s likely that music or images take the left over space.
The Kindle DX can play MP3s through speakers or through the headset jack. You simply copy the MP3 files from your computer to Kindle. We do recommend readers take a look at other sources for ebooks, particularly for classics in the public domain that are available for free.
A basic web browser (which no other e-reader except the Kindle 2 has) is quite handy (runs on Wi-Fi connections). Though best for simple, text-centric sites, the idea of being able to check email on the go, without having to lug around a laptop is definitely a big plus.
The Kindle DX has a fully functional QWERTY keyboard, albeit a smaller one. Kindle directly links to over 390,000 books from Amazon’s own catalogue.
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