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By David Rothman

imageA $399 e-reader with an 8.1-inch E Ink screen will go on sale from iRex Technologies by next month—at hundreds of Best Buy stores, according to a report in the New York Times.

No photos are on the Web yet. The one here is of an existing iRex model. A promising preview of the new one’s looks?

3G wireless

Excerpt from Brad Stone’s Times article: “Owners of the new iRex DR800SG will be able to buy digital books and newspapers wirelessly over the 3G network of Verizon, which is joining AT&T and Sprint in supporting such devices.”

The iRex will connect with an online bookstore from Barnes & Noble, as well as Newspapers Direct—offering 1,100+ newspapers. And the wireless will work outside the U.S., unlike the Kindle’s.

B&N inventory vs. Amazon’s

I haven’t checked, but I suspect that with public domain titles excluded, Amazon may well offer more books than B&N does, and the Kindle DX’s screen is 10 inches, two inches more than the iRex’s.

Yet another issue may be indirect competition from the Apple Tablet, which, most observers agree, will be a mutlipurpose machine rather than a dedicated e-reader.

And most all e-readers now suffer from a major problem, consumer price resistance. A $100 price, if the analysts are right, would help mightily.

Can read ePub

Still, the DR800SG will have some nice things going for it, such as the ability to read ePub, presumably via an Adobe app with DRM. I suspect that eReader is among the other formats supported.

What’s more, iRex expects to release a color screen e-reader by 2011.

Related: Engadget, PaidContent, Publishers Weekly and Techmeme roundup.

 
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