Two new e-readers on the block: one cheaper, one touchier
Two upcoming e-readers demonstrated Wednesday could force changes in the market. They are Plastic Logic's reader and British firm Interead's Cool-er.
Plastic Logic's reader, which has a much larger screen than the Amazon Kindle, targets business readers. The Cool-er has the same 6-inch screen size as the Amazon Kindle 2, but it's priced at almost US$100 less. Both devices were among the items demonstrated at the D: All Things Digital conference held by The Wall Street Journal.
Plastic Logic's reader
Plastic Logic's reader has a screen measuring roughly 16 x 22cm (6.4 x 8.53 inches) with 960 by 1,260 pixel resolution. Overall, it measures around 22 x 28cm (8.5 x 11 inches) - the same size as a sheet of A4 paper. It weighs less than 500g.
Aimed at the business reader, it offers a touchscreen interface and lets users directly load and manage Microsoft Word and Excel documents and PDFs.
Cool-er heats things up
The Cool-er e-reader demonstrated at D: All Things Digital by its manufacturer, Interead, measures 18 x 12 x 1cm (7.2 by 4.61 by 0.43 inches deep) and has a 15cm (6-inch) screen. It weighs about 178g (6.3 ounces) and has a screen resolution of 170 pixels per inch, according to Interead's figures.
The device runs on Linux software, has 1GB of storage and 128MB of RAM. Users can extend the memory up to 4GB with an SD card.
