Looking forward – Plastic Logic ebook reader
While the growth of the ebook reader market is in full swing in many countries around the world, the UK is still on standby in many ways. While the buzz on the blogs is centred on whether and when the Amazon Kindle will hits our shores, there are many more things for people to look forward to. In this article, the first in the ‘Looking Forward’ series, we’lll take a look at Plastic Logic and their device that we’ll hopefully see in the UK in 2010. It’s just one of the goodies that are being launched around the world and hopefully will be available to us Brits over the next 12 – 18 months.
Plastic Logic’s Mission is to lead a revolution in the way people consume and organise readable information. They have developed their our proprietary technology to create a range of e-reading products. With hubs in the UK, Germnay and the US, it looks like they’ll be launching sometime in the back half of 2009 with a general release promised for sometime in 2010.
Their product, still yet to be named, is one of the most impressive devices i’ve seen to date. Sleek, lightweight and easy to use. Slightly larger than a A4 writing pad, the nameless product measures up at around 8.5 x 11 inches and only 1/4 inch thick. This ebook reader is being positioned as a business publication reader and will support any document that can be printed – Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adove PDF, newspapers, and of course, books.
The screen will be the largest in the market that enables it to supports sp many formats that will be very appealling to the business user. The interface is a gesture based touch screen and makes navigation and annotation very natural. The wireless capability and long life battery will be top features too. The display is actually plastic, not glass like others on the market currently, which makes this ebook reader incredibly light weight too. So far, the price tag hasn’t been mentioned but rumours are that it’ll be very competative in relation to the current market leaders.
See a more detailed video review of the Plastic Logic reader here:
that looks pretty cool. when will it be released though?
Please god, let this be DRM-hassle free. If the designers stick to selling the device itself and stay away from using it to rip off customers in order to sell books and other digital content, it will make a killing. I can’t underestimate the potential of something like this for business users – those in the aviation, medical, legal, mechanical, marketing, entertainment professions etc, who could store all their manuals, documents, images, scripts, etc when they go onsite, instead of having to lump around manuals, a laptop or have to call the office to fax them something.
I’ll buy it if they stay away from the DRM licensing nightmare that ‘owners’ of Kindles and Sonys have to go through to ‘purchase’ their content. This hopefully is a true paperless concept, rather than a vehicle to sell you books.