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?

Our collection of readers will not be complete without mentioning Jointech JE100. The first news about its development appeared in June, but only we know its parameters and price.

The reader with a 7-inch touch screen is not using the technology of electronic paper. Its screen is an LCD panel. Lights may be useful for reading in the dark, but in bright sun there will be problems with the image. The obvious advantage is that the screen has an opportunity to play video.

The second feature is the operating system. The gadget is running the English version of Windows CE 5.0. This means that it supports formats MS Office, MS Excel, MS Power Point, PDF. Nevertheless, a processor with a frequency of 400 MHz, 64 MB RAM and 128 megs of NAND flash memory in combination with Windows does not inspire much confidence.

The price of this gadget is $270.

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).