Archive for January, 2006

E Ink ebook readers round two: Sony Reader vs. iRex Iliad

Thursday, January 5th, 2006

MobileRead compares the specs of the recently announced iRex Iliad (December 2005) and the Sony Reader (January 2006, successor to the Librie):

Dimensions:
Sony: 6.9″ by 4.9″ by .5″
iRex: 6.1″ by 8.5″ by .63″

Weight:
Sony: 8.8 ounces
iRex: 13.7 ounces

Screen:
Sony: 6-inch SVGA 800X600 4 grey scales (same like the Sony Librie)
iRex: 8.1-inch XGA 1024×768 16 grey scales

Internal memory:
Sony: ? “approximately 80 unillustrated books”
iRex: 64MB RAM, 224MB FLASH

Expansion slots:
Sony: SD, Memory Stick
iRex: SD, CF II

Support e-book formats:
Sony: BBeB Book (Sony Librie), Adobe PDF, JPEG, MP3
iRex: Adobe PDF, XHTML, TXT, MP3, others in near future

Others interfaces:
Sony: headphone jack
iRex: headphone jack, WiFi 802.11b, 10/100Mb Ethernet

Price:
Sony: USD $299-$399
iRex: ?

The iRex packs more features into a slightly larger device and supports more formats. Seeing as it has WiFi and can render HTML, I hope they include a web browser. E Ink will be perfectly adequate for mainly text-based pages, such as news sites or webmail. Animations or scrolling are not really essential anyway…

Note: iRex is a Philips spin-out. The first electronic ink ebook reader, the Librie, was a collaboration between Philips, Sony, and E Ink.

___________________________

UPDATE: the iRex Iliad went on sale in June 2006 for EUR 650; the more affordable/basic Sony reader in September 2006 for USD 350.

USB drive with E Ink display

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

This USB flash memory drive features an E Ink storage capacity indicator, made possible by the bistability of the display medium.