When I first found out about e-ink technology, all I could say is: awesome. We web productivity freaks don’t have time for a lot of reading. And ever since I heard about Sony’s e-reader, I couldn’t get my eyes off one of these babies.
There’s a new kid in town, though: the Bookeen Cybook Gen3, and this device is what I want to talk about today.
Unlike Sony’s device, which is pretty expensive and still has ‘coming soon’ status (no changes since summer 2006), including huge limitations, the Cybook is available now.
E-ink enables this gadget to economize in a much larger scale than other palm devices of the same size - with a fully charged battery the Cybook can endure 8000 page-turns (the e-ink monitor, in contrast to other monitors, does not need electricity to show a statical image). Not bad, huh?
It is much smaller and lighter than the Kindle, but the real treat lies inside: The Cybook uses Linux! It has also got a 6″ screen with an 800×600 resolution, you can read PDF, TXTs, HTML Mobipocket and lots of other formats, and not only that, you can listen to music, too (mp3 support) and use the device as a picture viewer. You get 200 Mhz and 16 mb RAM, with an SD card reader and 64 megabytes internal space.
The price is currently revolving around 350 euros… pretty good for new technology, I’d say.
May 15th, 2008 at 01:11
I am a HUGE fan of the Cybook. I love how light and easy to read it is. I bought mine in the States, so with current exchange rates it was significantly cheaper than 350 euros. They have the new version of the Cybooks out now, which isn’t different enough for me to buy a new one, but has enough improvements to where I want it.