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By David Rothman

Pepper PadI was curious. Why the devil should you plop down $700-$750 for a Pepper Pad when you can buy an $850 Tablet PC from Toshiba? And how about the Pepper vs. the $399 Cybook?

John Melamut, VP for sales and bizdev at Pepper, obliged with his company’s side.

But first some other news. Yes, the Pepper is already shipping with Mobipocket Reader and a host of other wrinkles such as a feature said to make Flickr photo-sharing easier–and a speed-up in performance.

A love-it-or-hate-it machine

With e-book software finally running on the Pepper, I’ve asked for a review unit, which should arrive in the next month or so. I’ll see if it lives up to the recent honors from the Consumer Electronics Association. This is the kind of love-it-or-hate-it machine that begs to be tried out, given the wide range of opinions in Amazon reviews and elsewhere.

Eager to address criticism, Pepper says a refined new model will most likely be out by the end of the summer. Also, the company will release a software developer’s kit in the next two months, and if the linux community buys in, that could increase the number of apps available for the Pepper–a big positive. From what I know so far, it appears that the first implementation of the OpenReader standard could run on the Pepper with minimal work involved (reminder: I’m one of the ringleaders of OpenReader).

Pepper vs. Tablet PC and Cybook

So how about the Pepper vs. the slightly-more-expensive Tablet PC and the $399 Cybook? Without a Pepper hands-on, my current thinking is, “It depends.” Jon himself makes these points:

1. The Pepper, as he sees it, is better than the Tablet PC for the nontechnical home user who just wants an entertainment device. The Pepper comes with Mobipocket already built in and you’ll never have to worry about ActiveSync, HotSync or similar horrors in transferring books from your desktop to your handheld. It can do the download itself, thank you.

Of course, Tablet PCs share the above advantage. But Mobipocket isn’t already installed; and, yes, I myself would see that as a consideration for technoklutzes, given the quirkiness of e-book software. The Pepper also comes with WiFi and BlueTooth, which Tablet PCs typically do not.

In addition, there are various entertainment-related apps such as the TitanTV directory, enabling you to use your Pepper as a remote control device. You can also stream audio and video on the Pepper, enjoying Internet radio.

2. Weight of the Pepper is just 2.3 pounds, or far less than that of a typical Tablet PC.

3. Certainly with a 624Mhz processor and 20GBs of mass storage, the Pepper is more of a computer than the Cybook, a CE machine that uses memory cards. The Cybook does have a Web browser, but I haven’t found it up to my needs.

On the other hand, to reinforce the “It depends” theme, the $399 Cybook almost surely would be a better machine for the budget-minded–a compromise between the $800+ Pepper Pad and the $125 dedicated readers from eBookwise. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see what Bookeen does in the way of software upgrades for the Cybook, and whether talk of a linux port pans out. I have a Cybook as a long-term loaner and use it as my preferred machine at home. The Cybook, by the way, weights exactly the same as the Pepper and comes with a ten-inch screen, two inches bigger than the Pepper’s, and works great in uBook’s double-column mode. Away from home, at least for me, the solution remains a PDA-sized machine, which is getting into Nokia 770 territory. But that’s a different story, for a future post.

Pepper priorities and other comments from the company

Meanwhile here are some additional remarks from Jon Melamut, the Pepper exec:

–On the Pepper vs. Windows portables: “The Pepper Pad is by design, not a general purpose device; it is a handheld media computer. All the software applications are designed to have a similar intuitive user experience. By not being a general purpose device the Pepper Pad and included software provides users a much more reliable user experience than a Windows PC.”

–On how low Pepper prices could go in the near future: “Sorry I cannot comment on this other than to say, we are continually looking for ways to make the Pepper Pad more affordable while providing a superior user experience.”

–Whether volume discounts are possible for schools and libraries: “Yes.” Jon didn’t mention the amount of the discounts.

–Hardware and software refinements under consideration:: “In the future, we are looking at enhancing:

Wi-Fi (802.11B => 802.11G).

Storage (20GB => 30GB).

Battery Life both runtime and standby. [PC magazine had some reservations about battery life, which, in a test last year, it found to be less than two hours. - DR.]

Support for additional Audio and Video Formats.

“We are looking into creating a VoIP client application.”

–On whether the Pepper can easily download Mobipocket books from stores besides Mobipockets: Yes, it can–at least based on Jon’s test at Fictionwise.

 
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