Baen Bar’s E Ink-based reader might have ‘good feel’ if it’s like the STAReBOOK
No, I’m not the biggest fan of E Ink in the technology’s current stage—Reason #1 is poor contrast between text and background—but one EI gizmo I’m rooting for is the anticipated Baen Bar machine. It’s expected to work swimmingly with plain old HTML and other nonDRMed formats dear to us public domain boosters. The scuttlebutt is that Bookeen, source of the Baen device, might share a supplier with the seller of the super-slim STAReBook (company home page here) shown in the photos.
If so, then a first look at the STAReBook, from Roland Rohde, who I hoped would get a review unit, could be encouraging. He writes that it boots up fast and “feels nice in the hand because the back is slightly rubberized.” A more detailed look from him will be on the way.
In other e-paper-related news, PVI, the actual maker of E Ink screens, will market its own reader in collaboration with the Les Echo daily in France, and Alex at MobileRead has raised questions about contrast-related claims from Nemoptic, an E Ink rival. See earlier TeleBlog item on Nemoptic. I’m going to write the company and see if it cares to comment. Nemoptic display technology, by the way, is one of the technologies that Bookeen has mentioned as a possibility for the E Ink devices it designs. The Sylen reader apparently uses or will use Nemoptic technology. If contrast is indeed better than E Ink’s, I’ll be highly intrigued. Related: More on the Sylen, including video link.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
“Nemoptic display technology, by the way, is one of the technologies that Bookeen has mentioned as a possibility for the E Ink devices it designs.”
E Ink is a brand, just like Nemoptic. You can use one or another, but not one as another. The generic term for such display technologies is e-paper.
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:40 pm
But E Ink’s exact technology isn’t quite the same as Nemoptic’s. Granted, they’re both e-paper technology, but within that, they’d be subset technologies since they don’t work exactly the same. Just my take, Branko. You’re welcome to your own. I’d welcome other readers’ thoughts on this as well. Thanks. David
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Perhaps I misread what you wrote, but to me it sounded like: Bookeen is going with Pepsi’s Coca Cola.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
[...] (I am not linking to particular stories, because there’s too much going on right now. This might be a good start though.) [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:46 pm
My initial STAReBOOK review is up now.
To give you the short-short version:
The device is great, the firmware is great but the .stk format and supplied creation tools are still severely lacking.
If they can get that part going, then they might just have a winner on their hands.
Go here for the review. There is no info on battery-life and durability/long-term ergonomics yet, but there should be some interesting facts for everybody.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9481