The prices, they are dropping, dropping. Yesterday had Amazon lowering the bar yet again with the announcement of a new, improved, and cheaper Kindle. Today we have news of a 5″ tablet (the same size as the Dell Streak) selling for a paltry $99. It’s called the Ocean Reader, from a company called Copia, and although they’re marketing it as an e-reader, its 5″ LCD screen suggests it’s more of a tablet.
Incidentally, there was actually news of a device like this at CES, but this is totally different from the hardware they showed then. They must have decided E-ink was for the birds. In fact, the WSJ refers to the picture at right as the Ocean Reader but it may be called something different when it is released later this year.
I firmly believe that there is room for both e-readers and tablets on the market, but I also believe that devices like this that straddle the line are going to peter out. After all, at $99 (including the price of the LCD), this thing must be severely underpowered. As Amazon likes to point out, a huge majority of books are black and white, so why bother with color unless it makes the reading experience better?
There’s little information other than the name and screen size, but a social aspect is mentioned. I’m just not sold on the “social reader” concept yet. Do you really want to check Facebook while you read? And if you do, does it really need to be on the same device?
But to say too much about this thing without more information would be too much speculation. We’ll update later when there are more specs and info.
HAHA… Take that somewhere else. Not revelant to this topic at the very least.
Who died and made you king maker of e-readers?
Lets face it: competition is a good thing.
The introduction of various types of e-readers (crappy or not) will mean availability to a broad spectrum of users and reduction in price.
Choice -especially if the appliance is open source based- means that the consumer wins, ultimately.
Now, the question for the new e-readers should be:
1. How open can they be?
2. Can they give the user the ability to customize the internals and really be put to work?
I am sure someone is working on this.
This Copia thing looks like classic vapor. The private beta of the platform has been delayed since January and not only has hardware yet to be seen — it now all of a sudden changes to include a color tablet?? Magic! I dare you to try and find some information about the company behind it. I’ll believe it when it’s in the hands of an actual reviewer – by the time that happens we’ll be cruising around in Jetsons’ style cars.