New Gadgets

We gadget nerds have to endure unspeakable atrocities in order to slake that early adoption jones: first-run gear shipped DOA, buggy pre-release software, and months of waiting after a product leaks only to be greeted by a jacked-up price premium at launch. So we feel your pain, original Kindle owners, after Amazon announced a major firmware update that brings native PDF support to the 6-inch Kindle 2 and DX readers with the promise of a staggering 85% increase in battery life to all Kindle 2 devices — if you haven’t already received it OTA, the 2.3 software update is now available for download and installation via USB tethering. At least owners of “some earlier versions of Kindle” (quote from the press release) will receive native PDF support whenever the 1st generation firmware update (currently at version 1.2) is released. It’s worth noting that Amazon’s PDF reader lacks a zoom function which makes many PDFs entirely unreadable on the device. Good thing Amazon’s store is chock full of easily zoomable books in a proprietary format then, huh?

Most people already know about the gadget – Amazon Kindle E-reader 2. This device has a lot of positive characteristics. The only, but significant drawback is that it works exclusively in the United States and only with shop Amazon.

In Europe there are also devices for reading electronic books. In this article we will discuss the gadget Pixelar E-Reader and its features.

First we’d like to mention that Pixelar E-Reader differs from the American Kindle. Thus, it has no keyboard let alone the ten required buttons. It is also not so popular worldwide as Kindle. However, despite this, European gadget has its own advantages. One of them is the possibility of supporting 20 file formats, and quickly download content from a PC.

Pixelar E-Reader has the following dimensions: 18,4 × 12,05 × 0,99 cm and its weight, together with the battery, is within the limits of 220 grams. The gadget is equipped with 6 inch E-Ink screen, which has a 600×800 resolution. Moreover, it can be connected to the SD card of up to 4 gigabytes. Pixelar E-Reader also has a slot for headphones (3.5 mm) that allows you to use it as a player, slot for SD cards and mini-USB to connect to a PC.

This gadget supports the following file formats: BMP, CHM, Djvu, EPUB, FB2, PDF, MOBI, DOC, WOLF, MP3, HTML, TXT, FB2, PNG, TIF, GIF, JPG, PPT, LIT and PRC. The reader has a very important object in the form of a mini-flashlight that can be used for reading in the dark.

Regarding to the cost, the price of Pixelar E-Reader is almost comparable to the Kindle 2, and e-books from Sony. But this gadget has several advantages comparing to these models. First, it is not tied to shop Amazon and mobile networks of the United States, as in the case of the Kindle 2. Secondly, it is equipped with a more powerful battery (8000 pages) compared to the gadgets from Sony (7500 pages).

We have repeatedly written about various e-book readers based on the use of electronic paper technology and are likely to write about them more, as this market looks very promising.

So, Company Interead presented another similar gadget. This small, light and elegant device became known as Cool-er, and although its characteristics do not make a serious competition with Amazon Kindle, but certainly find their consumers, primarily through low price.

Cool-er has a size of 18,3 X11, 7h1 cm and weighs only 175 grams. The gadget is equipped with a 6-inch screen of the type E Ink Vizplex with a resolution of 170 dpi, 8 displays of gray shades, 1 GB of internal memory, is expandable through SD cards up to 4 gigabytes, while the battery capacity of 1000 mA / h allows to read 8000 pages from one charge . By the way, Linux is used as the operating system.

With Cool-er, you can not only read books in the formats PDF, EPUB, and, of course, TXT, and view JPEG-image, but also listen to MP3-music; there is a 2.5-mm audio output and the kit includes power supply adapter for normal headphones.

Cool-er is already available for pre-orders at a price of 250 dollars, and it will be released in early June.