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By David Rothman

readius Mike Cane, our link Santa, lives in New York. Hey, Mike, as a straphanger—you’re not into limos, are you?—just what do you think of the current and future specs for the Polymer Vision Readius?

This compact handheld holds the promise of becoming a subway rider’s delight for book and newspaper reading. At least that’s my impression from afar, if PV can keep improving the Readius. Details:

  • Present samples not functional. Commercial launch next year. First customer will be an Italian telecommunications company.
  • Screen now five inches. “For truly mobile usage (pocket-size device) we think 8-9″ is the sweet spot to be working on.” Monochrome reflective. 4:3 aspect. QVGA res with 16 grey scales. 10:1 contrast and 35 percent reflectivity. Updates at half a second to a second.
  • “The user (via a PC application) will be able to download content to the device and configure the types of favorite info he/she would like to be updated about when on the move (e.g., RSS feeds).”
  • 4GB minimum storage.
  • 3G connection. Kindle-easy downloads of e-books coming in time?
  • Dimensions: 100 mm x 55.6 mm x 21 mm (l x w x h)
  • Weight: 150 gram
  • Supports: RSS feeds, PDF’s, e-books, e-mail and other text files. Including HTML.
  • Dimensions of 100 mm x 55.6 mm x 21 mm (l x w x h).
  • Weight: 150 gram

Big thanks to MobileRead. More details here. Also see press release announcing volume production and a PV rep’s answers to readers’ questions (source of the quote on screen size). Yes, the Readius was supposed to appear in ’07, not in ’08, but it would seem to be worth waiting for, especially if screen res and refresh rates can eventually improve.

So, gang, what do you think? What’ll it take for you to buy a Readius? Or do you want one now?

The inevitable Kindle angle: If nothing else, this gizmo, in a perfected form, could give the Kindle a fit. See the risk of building the e-book world around one bleeping machine?

We need e-book standards that will work on many readers. Let’s look ahead beyond the current Kindle craze; what happened to the media’s Sony fixation? While I’ll keep writing about the Kindle—lots of myths to refute, both pro- and anti-K—there’s a lot more to e-bookdom than Gadget K

Related: Coming up in the next day or two will be some thoughts on small e-publishers who are also doing P, especially Twilight Times Books. This is an example of the kind of story that the @$#@# Kindle forced us to put on hold, because people were talking and writing about nothing else.

 
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