AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT! A CHINESE LANGUAGE eREADER.

The Chinese company Aigo have produced an eReader that is aimed at the Chinese market, which if it takes off will be selling in HUGE numbers - there are after all 1.3 billion people in the PRC, not to mention all the Chinese in the diaspora all over the world who would probably welcome an eReader that supports Chinese characters.

THE AIGO EB 6031 - EXCITING NAME, ISNT IT?

SCREEN:

It has a 6" e-Ink display, so conforms well with the world standard for screens in this respect (Other Chinese eReaders seem to favour LCD screens, sadly).  I can find very little information on this eReader on the net just now, but I imagine more will appear in time, so I can revisit this eReader later.

MEMORY:

It has 2GB of on-board memory, which is ample for a huge collection of books, so no problems there, even though it doesn't have the possibility of using memory cards of any sort.

WiFi SUPPORT:

Simple, it doesn't have it, which is curious, as other Chinese eReader manufacturers are selling machines that can use the Chinese 3G network to download books, so I have no doubt that Aigo will add this to later models before long.  One thing that the Chinese know about is how the markets work, and  they hate missing any tricks!   They have 5000 years of practice after all.

NAVIGATION:

As you can see in the picture, this eReader comes complete with no end of buttons all over it, sadly I have no information about what they all do (Duh!), but obviously they have decided to give it every conceivable navigation possibility, especially for the left handed among us obviously.  Is this a subtle political comment?

SUPPORTED FORMATS:

Apparently it supports all the standard eBook formats, so our Chinese brothers and sisters will be able to access Chinese books on all the better online book sites, especially ones such as Gutenberg, who have Chinese texts available.

COST:

I only have information about the price in China just now, which is about 2500 RMB, which at current exchange rates equals about 360 USD, so it is not cheap, but equally not too expensive, and from my experience in China, no one will pay that price for it.... they all bargain like mad things.

Sadly this Blog cant be seen in China, as the government there blocks all Blog Spot Blogs for some reason, but in a matter of weeks I shall be transferring this whole Blog to a WordPress host, which can be read in China...

A LIST OF ALL THE eREADERS OUT THERE THAT I CAN FIND

As there are already dozens of different eReaders being made by loads of companies, I thought perhaps a list of all of them (or at least, all that I can find) might be helpful to you.  At the very least, it will give you a good broad selection to choose from, and surely a number of them can be purchased either online or in shops wherever you happen to live in the world.

I shall list them in no particular order, give a link to the manufacturer and model (if there is an apart link to the model) of each eReader, so that you can easily surf around and get the more specific information you will need in order to make your choice.   Thus this will be a post of links, and no comments about the qualities - or otherwise - of the various eReader.

In due time I shall be contemplating all of these eReaders in some detail, and reporting on what I find, what others have thought of them and any other information that I think might be of interest to you.

Almost all of these manufacturers also supply a wide range of accessories for their eReaders, covers, reading lights, reading stands and so on, and a number of them have even gone so far as to produce their eReaders in a wide range of happy, if slightly alarmingly bright colours.  This last I suspect is aimed chiefly at the South East Asian market, as I discovered whilst living in Beijing, people there love to have their electronic things in all manner of bright colours... I was astounded to see bright pink laptops, purple DVD players and so on... the brighter the better seemed to be the rule.   Quite fun really some of them.

If you come across any models that I have missed, please do let me know, and I shall amend this list of links accordingly.

Remember when looking at the specifications of any model that interests you to pay especial attention to which formats it can read, to avoid tying yourself in to a particular internet eBook supplier.  The ePUB format is currently the one to go for, as almost every eBook shop or free eBook site supports this format, and even if you have to download your books as HTML or TXT or PDF, you can always convert them to ePUB with Calibre.   But even the wondrous Calibre cant convert to the Amazon format, for example.

So, here we go!  Simply click on any link you are interested in and you will be taken to the relevant site.

italica GmbH ereader

Condor Technology Associates  eGriver Touch

Onyx   Onyx Boox 

Sony   Reader Daily Edition PRS-900   Reader Touch Edition PRS-600  Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300   

Barnes & Noble  nook

Iriver   Story

Hanvon    N518  N526  N520

PocketBook  PocketBook 301

Bookeen    Cybook Opus  Cybook Ge

Endless ideas  BeBook

Interead  COOL-ER

Samsung  Papyrus

Amazon  Kindle DX  Kindle  Kindle 2

Foxit Software  eSlick

iRex Technologies  Digital Reader 1000

Jinke   Hanlin V3  Hanlin V5 

So there you have it, the fruits of rather a lot of surfing on my part, but I hope it will be of help to you as you attempt to find your way around the rapidly growing jungle that is the eReader world.   For my part I am still perfectly happy with my Sony PRS-505, it does everything I want it to, apart from making me a decent cup of coffee.

All I look for in an eReader is the ability to use ePUB documents and to have the basic function set needed to enable me to read my books comfortably and simply.  But there are many people who for a variety of good reasons, need all manner of other functions in their eReaders, and these requirements are rapidly being addressed by almost all the makers of eReaders.