This is my attempt to catalog the multitude of reading apps available for the Android platform (and there are a lot more than I ever thought there were). I’ve tried to include a listing for every app available along with basic information such as the formats it supports and its system requirements. Hopefully this will give users looking for apps an easy way to see what’s out there since searching the Android Market can give mixed results.

This is just a catalog so there are no reviews, but I have done reviews of some apps that you can find here, here, and here. While all of the links go to the apps listing on the Android Market (where you can read about features and user reviews) many of these apps can be found at third party markets or direct from the developers website. If you don’t have the Android market and need info on sideloading and third party markets, I wrote about that here.

First up we have the apps which are primarily for use with a specific store, however some of these apps allow sideloading which can greatly expand on their usefulness. I myself find that I use the Kindle app more than any of the others, but occasionally do use the Kobo app as I have a lot of books on my “shelf” there as well.

Kindle Formats: azw, topaz (azw1), drm free mobi Requires Android: Varies with Device Price: Free	Nook Formats: B&N ePub, drm free ePub Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free	Kobo Formats: Kobo kePub, drm free ePub Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free
Google Books Formats: ePubs and PDFs purchased from Google eBook store Requires Android: Varies with Device Price: Free	Sony Reader Formats: ePubs purchased from Sony eBook stores   Requires Android: Varies with Device Price: Free	eReader (beta) Formats: eReader PDBs     Requires Android: Android 1.0 or higher Price: Free

Other bookseller apps

Ebook Reader: Supports books purchased from ebooks.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Borders Australia: Supports books purchased from borders.com.au; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Angus & Robertson: Supports books purchased from angusrobertson.com.au; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Whitcoulls: Supports books purchased from whitcoulls.co.nz; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Dymocks: Supports books purchased from dymocks.com.au; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Inktera: Supports books purchased from inktera.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Blio: Supports books purchased from the Blio store also imports DRM free ePubs; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Book Place: Supports books purchased from toshibabookplace.com also imports DRM free ePubs (this is the Blio app re-skinned); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Go Spoken: Supports books purchased from gospoken.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

DNL eBook Reader: Supports DNL DRM’d books purchased from ebook.com and drm free ePub; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free
 

Non-English language eBook store apps

Numilog: Supports books purchased from numilog.com (a French eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

BooksV: Supports books purchased from booksv.fmworld.net (a Japanese eBook Store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

E-books by greekbooks: Supports books purchased from greekbooks.gr (Greek eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

My eBooks: Supports books purchased from myebooks.gr (Greek eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Tradebit eBook Reader: Supports books purchased from tradebit.com also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Libri.de eBookS Reader: Supports books purchased from libri.de (German eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM & txt; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

OYO eReader: Supports books purchased from thalia.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

Weltbild.de eBooks: Supports books purchased from weltbild.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Weltbild.ch eBooks: Supports books purchased from weltbild.ch (Swiss eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Weltbild.at eBooks: Supports books purchased from weltbild.at (Austrian eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

textunes eBooks: Supports books purchased from textunes.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

PagePlace eBooks: Supports books purchased from pageplace.de (German eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Carturesti Reader: Supports books purchased from librarie.carturesti.ro (Romanian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Metaixmio: Supports books purchased from ebooks.metaixmio.gr (Greek eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

eLibris: Supports books purchased from ebooks.metaixmio.gr (Finish eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Libroteca: Supports books purchased from libhumanitas.ro (Romanian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Tavasli Reader: Supports books purchased from tavasliyayinlari.com (Turkish eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Biblio.bg Reader: Supports books purchased from biblio.bg (Bulgarian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Evripidis Reader: Supports books purchased from evripidis.gr (Greek eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

TD Bookstore: Supports books purchased from tritiumdigital.com (Singapore eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM, Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

DLivre: Supports books purchased from dlivre.com (Belgian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or highe; Cost Free

CLB eBooks: Supports books purchased from clb.ro (Romanian eBook store) also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Digibooks4All: Supports books purchased from various bookstores also ePubs & PDFs both DRM free and with Adobe DRM; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

HyRead eBook: Supports books purchased from ebook.hyread.com.tw (Tiwanese eBook store); Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

iPubu: Supports books purchased from pubu.com.tw (Tiwanese eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Handheld Culture: Supports books purchased from handheldculture.com (Chinese eBook store); Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

UPaper: Supports books purchased from upaper.net, ePub (Chinese eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

MuchMarts eBook/app market: Supports books and apps purchased from MuchMarts (Chinese eBook store); Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Nexto Reader: Supports books and audiobooks purchased through the app (Polish eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

E-Booki T-Mobile: Supports books purchased at ebooki.t-mobile.pl (Polish eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Saraiva Digital Reader: Supports books purchased at livrariasaraiva.com.br (Brazilian eBook store), ePub and PDF with or without DRM; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Naver Books: Supports books purchased at books.naver.com (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Mekia: Supports books purchased at mekia.net (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Ridi Books: Supports books purchased at ridibooks.com (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Bookcube: Supports books purchased at bookcube.com (Korean eBook store); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Next up are general purpose reading apps. These apps support various formats and some support DRM’d content, but they aren’t primarily tied to any give store (some do have catalogs/links to various stores such as Aldiko’s link to All Romance eBooks catalog). I’ve used a fair number of the more popular apps and have settled on Mantano as my go to app. Other apps I’ve liked for various reasons include Aldiko, BlueFire, Moon+ and Cool Reader.

Mantano Formats: Adobe DRM ePub, B&N DRM ePub, drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free/$7.49	Aldiko Formats: Adobe DRM ePub, B&N DRM ePub, drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free/$2.99	Bluefire Reader Formats: Adobe DRM ePub, B&N DRM ePub, drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF Requires Android: 2.2 or higher Price: Free
Moon+ Reader Formats: ePub, html, fb2, txt, umd, zip and chm   Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free/$4.99	FBReader Formats: epub, oeb and fb2(.zip)     Requires Android: Varies with Devices Price: Free	Cool Reader Formats: ePub, fb2, doc, txt, rtf, html, chm, tcr, pdb, prc, mobi, pml Requires Android: 1.5 or higher Price: Free/Donations
OverDrive Formats: Adobe DRM ePub from OverDrive sources Requires Android: 1.5 or higher Price: Free	Wordoholic Formats: epub, fb2 & txt   Requires Android: 1.5 or higher Price: Free	iReader Formats: txt, chm, pdb (eReader & Mobi), UMD, HTML Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free

Other general reading apps

txtr ebooks: Supports Adobe DRM ePub (uploaded through txtr website), drm free ePub, Adobe DRM PDF, drm free PDF; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

DL Reader: Supports ePub & PDF (drm free, Adobe DRM, B&N DRM); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

SE-ED Reader: Supports ePub & PDF (drm free, Adobe DRM, B&N DRM); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

AReader: Supports ePub, PDF, txt; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

DuoKan: Supports ePub, txt; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Nomad Reader: Supports ePub, fb2; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

iSilo: Supports iSilo, Palm Doc, and plain text files; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost $19.99

Booqua: Supports fb2; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

LDS Reveal Reader: Supports ybk (YanceyWare), oeb; Requires, Varies by Device; Cost Free

Palm Book Reader: Supports pdb (palmdoc, no iSilo or eReader), txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Android txt eBook Reader: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Android chm eBook Reader: Supports chm; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

HyReader: Supports ePub, txt, chm, umd, html; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost $0.99

eBook Reader (by SpicySquid): Supports prc, epub, oeb and fb2(.zip) [based on FBReader]; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

eBook Reader (by S4BB): Supports S4BB format; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Speak Text Easy: Supports ePub and PDF; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost $1.45

Captionary eBook Viewer: Supports ePub, txt ,zip, pdf; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

ePub Reader for Android: Supports ePub; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

Himawari: Supports ePub; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free/$1.56

Wattpad: Supports stories from wattpad.com; Requires Android 1.1 or higher; Cost Free

Nightbook: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free/$1.50

Multireader: Supports PDF, ePub, txt, Word, RTF , Power Point; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost $4.82

Foliant (beta): Supports ePub, txt, fb2; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Legimi: Supports ePub & PDF uploaded to Legimi cloud; Requires, Varies by Device; Cost Free

GeckoReader Lite/Paid: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free/$1.59

Chaek: Supports ePub, txt, html; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

PDB Book Reader: Supports pdb, txt; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Fanfiction Reader: Supports, for reading material from fanfiction.net; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free/$2.96

Fiction Press Reader: Supports, for reading material from fictionpress.com; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Compact Reader: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.0 or higher; Cost Free

aReader: Supports pdb (palmdoc); Requires Android 1.1 or higher; Cost Free

ZXReader: Supports docx, fb2, ePub, txt; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

EBookDroid: Supports PDF, djvu, xps, cbz/cbr, fb2; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

GO Book: Supports ePub, txt, umd, PDF, fb2; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

epubReader: Supports ePub, txt, mobi; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Bookfm: Supports doc, docx, pdf, txt, ppt by converting to ePub when you upload to bookfm.com; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Book Troupe: Supports ePub read from your DropBox or Box account; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

General reading apps for non-Latin/Asain text (many supporting both horizontal & vertical modes) [some apps above also support non-Latin text]

KingReader: Supports ePub, txt, html; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

SnowLamp Reader (Korean): Supports ePub; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

cBook (Chinese only): Supports pdb and updb files from www.haodoo.net; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Tulip Reader: Supports pdb (Haodoo, PalmDoc, zTXT Mode 1), txt, umd; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

CuckooReader: Supports ePub, chm, txt, umd; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

AlmorBook: Supports unsure, but does support haodoo.net; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

SmartBooks: Supports ePub; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

qqReader: Supports txt, umd, pdf, chm; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

BestReader: Supports txt, umd, html, chm; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

TxtReader: Supports txt; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

GobyReader: Supports pdb/updb; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Vertxt Reader: Supports txt (UTF-8, UTF16, Big5, EUC_JP, EUC_KR, GBK, and SJIS); Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Apabi Reader: Supports cebx, txt; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Now we come to dedicated PDF readers. I find that I no longer use a dedicated PDF reader as Mantano does a good job with them, but in the past I’ve been quite happy with ezPDF and Adobe Reader.

ezPDF Reader Formats: PDF Requires Android: 2.1 and up Price: $0.99/$2.99

RepliGo Reader Formats: PDF Requires Android: 2.0 or higher Price: $4.99

Adobe Reader Formats: PDF Requires Android: 2.2 or higher Price: Free

Other dedicated PDF viewers

Foxit Mobile PDF: Supports PDF; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost $2.99

BeamReader PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.1 or higher; Cost 10 day trial/$4.99

qPDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

MobilePDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

ODGPdf Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 2.2 or higher; Cost Free

APV PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Android PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

PDF GView: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Ebooka PDF Viewer: Supports PDF; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Last up are apps designed primarily for viewing Comics and Manga. I’ll admit my experience here isn’t as in depth as with other reading apps, but I’ve been happy with Droid Comic Viewer, Comics by ComiXology and the Marvel app in the past with very limited use.

Droid Comic Viewer Formats: cbz/zip, crb/rar, jpeg, png, bmp Requires Android: 1.5 and up Price: Free

Comics Formats: Comics purchased from comiXology Requires Android: 2.1 or higher Price: Free

Perfect Viewer Formats: cbz/zip, cbr/rar, 7Z/cb7, lzh, PDF (with plugin) Requires Android: 1.6 or higher Price: Free

Other Comic/Manga viewing apps

Comic Reader Mobi: Supports rar, zip, cbr, cbz; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost $14.99

ComicRack: Supports cbr, cbz, (CB7, CBT, PDF, DJVU and WebComics via conversion with Windows app); Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free/$6.89

Marvel Comics: Supports comics purchased from Marvel; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

DC Comics: Supports comics purchased from DC; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Dark Horse Comics: Supports comics purchased from Dark Horse; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Graphicly Comics: Supports buy and read comics from publishers such as Image, IDW, and Archie; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

AveComics: Supports comics purchased from AveComics; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

e-book/Manga reader: Supports manga (& eBooks) from eBookJapan; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

jjComics Viewer: Supports cbr, cbz, rar,zip, jpg, gif, png, bmp; Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

Komik Reader: Supports cbr, cbz; Requires Android 3.0 or higher; Cost Free

Comic Reader: Supports, read 347 of the most famous comics including Dilbert, Xkcd, Abstruse Goose, Geek and Poke, Calvin and Hobbes, PhD Comics, Pickles, Garfield, Spiked Math and many more; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Manga Watcher: Supports manga from a bunch of manga websites; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost $2.99

MangaWhat: Supports manga from a bunch of manga websites; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

TIViewer (comic & text viewer): Supports zip (jpg, bmp, gif, png), txt; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Simple Comic Viewer: Supports zip, rar, cbr, cbz, jpg, png, gif, bmp; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Comic Strips: Supports over 300,000 comic strips from over 120 comics; Requires Android 2.0 or higher; Cost Free

Comic Viewer: Supports images and compressed files (zip); Requires Android 2.0.1 or higher; Cost Free

AyaComicViewer: Supports zip, rar, jpg, png, bmp; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free

Manga Reader: Supports manga from MangaStream, MangaReader; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free

Our Comic Viewer: Supports jpeg, png, gif, bmp, zip/cbz, rar/cbr; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Esay Comic Viewer: Supports image & zip files; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

Comics by ArcaMax: Supports more than 65 of the funniest comic strips ever known to mankind — including famous strips such as Wizard of Id, Dennis the Menace, Blondie, Mutts, and Mother Goose & Grimm; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free

xkcdViewer: Supports access to the xkcd archives; Requires Android 1.5 or higher; Cost Free


 

Calibre Library: Connect wirelessly to your Calibre e-book library; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost $2.99

Aldiko Sync free/pro: Sync your books and bookmarks from Aldiko across your devices using your Dropbox account; Requires Android 2.1 or higher; Cost Free/$0.99

FBSync: Sync your position (by paragraph and word) in every e-book you’ve opened with FBReader to the web, Dropbox interface that will allow you to sync your actual book files from one devices to another, REQUIRES ROOT ACCESS; Requires Android 1.6 or higher; Cost Free
 

I hope this catalog will be a useful one stop place for folks to be able to find out what’s available to them for the various formats that are out there. I’ve no doubt missed some (especially when it comes to non English stores and apps) so if you see your favorites missing be sure to leave a comment so that I can add them to the list.

Next month I’ll share some of my favorite non-reading apps with you.

Related posts:

1. How to install apps on an Android device with no access to the Android Market
2. Reading with Android – Mantano Reader
3. Best Mobile Reading Apps

When Amazon first announced the Kindle Touch line of readers I was pretty indifferent about it.  I mean they looked nice, but I was perfectly happy with my Kindle 3 (now the Kindle Keyboard) and my older eInk devices (Kindle 2, Cybook Opus & Sony PRS-505) and saw no real need for anything else.  So I didn’t need a Kindle Touch by any stretch of the imagination, but need seldom comes into play when it comes to gadgets for me.

I opted for the $99 Kindle Touch WiFi with Special Offers.  Since you can now pay the difference ($40) and get the ads removed I figured there was little to lose by getting the special offer version and some of the previous offers folks have received seemed to be pretty good.  For what it’s worth I’ll be keeping the ads as I don’t care what my “screen saver” looks like (I don’t really look at the device when not reading) and the banner on the home screen is quite unobtrusive.

What You Get:

The Kindle Touch comes packaged in a very minimalist cardboard box that contains the device itself, a very short getting started card and a USB cable.  Amazon went cheap and eliminated the power adapter that came with previous versions (in the US anyway) of the Kindle from the package.  You can charge via USB or order Amazon’s power adapter for $10 (this is the same adapter the K2 and K3 came with).  I also tried charging with my iGo charger and had no problems.

Hardware:

The Kindle Touch itself is fairly minimalist in design, gone are the days of a hardware keyboard, 5-way controllers and page turn buttons.  There are no buttons on the device at all except for the Home button (looks like a speaker grill) on the front and a power button on the bottom edge.  Other than that you have a micro USB port and headphone jack next to the power button and a pair of speakers on the back.  The device housing, like all other Kindles, is plastic and has a nice feel in-hand.  The back is smooth and slightly rubberized and I find the device to be quite comfortable to hold.

The display is the same Pearl eInk screen used by the majority of eInk based readers now.  The screen on my Kindle 3 has a very slightly lighter background to it, but I think it’s manufacturing variances as two other K3′s I compared the Touch too looked to be exactly the same as the Touch’s screen.  Either way the Touch has the contrast folks have come to expect from Pearl screens.

The big difference between the Touch and previous Kindles is of course the touch screen.  Like readers from Sony, B&N and Kobo the Kindle Touch uses an infrared touchscreen which allows the screen to appear the same as non-touch devices (no extra touch layer causing glare).  The bezel edge around the screen is slightly raised to accommodate the touch sensors (like other IR touch devices).  I found the touch screen to be nicely responsive (not quite as responsive as a capacitive LCD as found on modern smart phones) and had no problems using it to turn pages or access menus on the device.

Of course one thing missing from this edition of the Kindle is the physical keyboard, which I found I don’t miss at all.  Now I don’t type much on the Kindle by any means, so I might not be the best judge, but while the hardware keyboards always worked fine for me I found I was able to type faster and with more accuracy on the Touch’s onscreen keyboard.

Technical Details:

Screen:
6” E Ink Pearl screen with infrared multi-touch interface, optimized with proprietary waveform and font technology. 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi and 16 levels of grayscale.

Size/Weight:
6.8” x 4.7” x 0.40” (172mm x 120mm x 10.1mm)
7.5 ounces (213 grams) for WiFi, 7.8 ounces (220 grams) for WiFi + 3G

Storage:
4GB internal storage (approx 3GB available for user content), no storage card slot.  Free cloud storage for all Amazon content.

Battery Life:
Battery lasts up to two months with wireless turned off, up to 6 weeks with wireless always on depending on usage.

Wireless:
Supports public and private 802.11b/g/n WiFi networks and hotspots with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication.  Does not support WPA or WPA2 using 802.xx authentication methods or connection to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) WiFi networks.

WiFi+3G models also have an HSDPA modem (3G) with EDGE/GPRS fallback; wireless coverage provided by AT&T in the US and through partner networks outside the US.

Ports:
USB micro connector (USB cable included, power adapter sold separately), 3.5mm stereo audio jack, rear mounted speakers.

Content Formats:
Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, Audible, Audible Enhanced, MP3, unprotected MOBI/PRC; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP through conversion.

Software:

The overall look of the Kindle Touch’s interface will be very familiar to users of previous generations of Kindle’s.  The Home Screen lists your books and/or collections in the same way as other Kindles with one change, collections are now sorted alphabetically instead of by last read as they are on the Kindle 2, 3 and DX.  I still wish Amazon would let users have options in how their collections are sorted, but they didn’t ask me.  The Home Screen also has a back arrow, store button, search box and menu icon across the top of the page.  Changing pages on the home screen is accomplished by swiping back and forth on the screen.

One place the touch screen shines is when interfacing with the Home Screen and with menus.  It’s no longer necessary to use the 5-way controller earlier Kindles had to make selections and navigate in general.  Now all one has to do is tap a collection or book to open it or tap and hold to bring up a menu giving you various options.  It’s much more intuitive and navigation feels much faster.

Reading a book looks much the same as it does on earlier Kindle’s with a few exceptions.  The progress bar is gone and all we are left with is the current location number in the lower left corner and the percentage read in the lower right.  Right now I’m unsure how I feel about the progress bars demise.  While the screen has a nice clean look I had gotten accustomed to seeing the bar and more importantly the little marks that indicated each chapter in a properly formatted Kindle book.  I’d often find myself planning my stopping point for the night by seeing how much was left of the chapter.  That said, in actual use I haven’t overly missed the chapter marks at this point and even though they’re unseen you can still use them to skip forward and back by swiping up and down on the screen.

Amazon has designed the touch screen with zones.  Tapping at the top of any page will bring up the same menu bar as the Home Screen at the top of the page and options to change font size/face/spacing, Go To and X-Ray or Sync (if the book doesn’t have x-ray) at the bottom.  Tapping on the left maybe 1/5th of the screen will go to the previous page and tapping on the other 4/5th’s of the screen will page forward.  Amazon’s reasoning is people will be going forward more than back and at least for me the design works great.  The forward zone extends over enough that I can tap to turn pages while holding the device in either hand with ease.  You can also swipe forward and back to turn pages if that is your preference.  I was glad to see that tapping as well as swiping works for page turns and I’ve tried different Sony devices and found I don’t really care for swiping to turn when reading for long periods, tapping however isn’t all that different than using a physical button.

Since this is a multi-touch interface you can also change font sizes by pinching or expanding you fingers on the screen (much like zooming in/out on smart phones/tablets) if you don’t want to delve into the menu’s to do it when reading.

While reading you can look-up a words definition by simply tapping and holding on the word, this is much less cumbersome than using the older Kindle’s 5-way controller.  Tapping and then dragging right after a word is highlighted will allow you to select passages which you can then highlight, add notes or share via social networks Facebook and Twitter.

X-Ray is a new development for the Touch which allows users to see the “bones of the book”.  When you use x-ray, if available for your book, you can see a time-line illustration that shows where fictional characters, ideas, historical figures, places and topics are mentioned on the current page, current chapter or the entire book.  Tapping on one of these entries will bring up a details page with a description/detail and also a list of excerpts from each page containing the selected character/item/etc., more detailed info can be had through links to Wikipedia or Shelfari.  At this stage I find x-ray interesting, but I’m unsure if it’s something I’d ever really use.

The Kindle Touch will also read PDFs, kind of.  Similar to the Sony’s you can pinch to zoom your document although it’s kind of cumbersome with the pages taking multiple seconds and flashes to actually appear zoomed.  Once the page is zoomed in swiping allows you to pan across the page and swiping far enough will change the page.  The next page will appear at it’s normal size and you can then zoom in again if desired.  I’ve yet to find a 6” eInk device that’s actually pleasant to read PDF’s on unless they’re formatted to the size of the screen and while I know some folks appear to like the way the Touch handles PDFs I find I preferred reading them on the Kindle 3 for one simple reason.

The Touch has done away with landscape mode as an option for reading and I found this the best way to read PDFs on the few occasions I tried.  Landscape viewing is also out for regular AZW/Mobi books as well which is something a few folks I’ve talked to that use really large fonts were disappointed to hear.  I don’t know if the problem has to do with the touch zones needing to reconfigure for landscape mode or what, but it’s too bad Amazon didn’t include the option for folks who like to use it.  I very seldom used it so it’s not a huge loss for me.

The Store:

I found going through the Kindle store on the device a much more pleasant experience than using the 5-way on the older devices.  Touch is a welcome feature here, although if I had to guess I’d say I’ll still to most of my purchasing of Kindle books by using Amazon.com and not by using the on device store.

Experimental:

The experimental features like the web browser, MP3 player and Text-to-Speech are all still there in this version of the Kindle.

I found the browser much nicer to use, although it’s still not a great experience and I doubt it ever will be with eInk’s refresh rates.  I was easily able to connect to my DropBox and download a few Mobi files to the device (PDF’s can’t be downloaded via the browser) and it was much quicker than doing it on my K3.  One note for folks used to using the Kindle’s free 3G to access their email, surf the web or download from DropBox.  That can’t be done with the 3G version of the Touch (which is why I went WiFi only this go around), the only thing you can use the 3G for is to access the Kindle store to buy and download books (and download from your archives).

The MP3 player is very basic.  It shows the current track and has skip forward and back arrows, volume, play/pause and an off button.  Once playing music will continue to play while you do other things, like reading, until you turn it off.  While the speakers aren’t the worst I’ve heard on a small device, headphones will give a much better experience.

Text-to-Speech is most easily accessed from the menu while in your book of choice.  Of course it only works on DRM-free books and on DRM’d books where publishers allow it to be used.  It acts/sound much the same as in previous Kindles to the best of my recollection.  It’s not a replacement for audio books by any means, but I know it’s quite useful for certain users, such as those with vision problems.  You can control the gender of the voice used and also control the voices speed, but it will always lack inflection and sound somewhat robotic.

Conclusions:

So is the Touch a game changer in the world of dedicated readers?  Nope, not really.  If I already had a touchscreen device from Sony, B&N or Kobo I probably wouldn’t drop them for the Kindle Touch unless there’s a specific feature you want and I wouldn’t dump a Kindle 3 for it unless you want the touch functionality.  That said the Kindle Touch is a solid new entry and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, I know I’m quite happy with mine.

The Kindle Touch can be had (in the US only for now) in four versions.  $99 gets you the WiFi only version with special offers or you can get the same device without ads for $139.  For $149 you get WiFi + 3G with special offers or get the 3G version without ads for $189. Also remember you can remove the ads on the special offers models by paying the subsidy discount of $40.  You can also opt-in to the ads if you want to on a non-special offer Touch, K3 or K4 (and opt-out whenever you want).

Related posts:

1. New Kindles: Basic Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle Fire
2. REVIEW: Sony Reader Touch Edition
3. Supersized Kindle Leaks Online

A few weeks ago Kobo launched their $199 Android tablet for readers, the Vox.  The launch has gotten off to a shaky start with shipping delays and folks experiencing some glitches with charging and waking it from sleep mode.  Despite that Kobo has put out a nice device that many readers are sure to enjoy.

A quick note: Kobo issued a firmware update which installs as a part of the initial setup routine to fix the power issues, but occasionally it apparently doesn’t apply properly.  Some folks have had success getting the device working again by doing a hard reset (different from a factory reset). To do a hard reset hold the power button down for 10 seconds then release, then power up as you normally would.

The Vox weighs in at 14.2 oz which compares nicely to 7 inch devices from other eBook retailers; Nook Color (15.8 oz), Nook Tablet (14.1 oz) and Kindle Fire (14.6 oz) and has Kobo’s usual “quilted” rubberized back.  All in all the device feels quite nice in hand and I find it more comfortable to hold than the Nook Color.  At release the Vox runs Android version 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) and will allow you to sideload apps without the need to root the device.

Hardware Specs:
7” FFS+ multi-touch display, 1024×600 resolution (+/- 89 viewing angle)
800 Mhz processor; 512 MB RAM
8GB internal storage; microSD slot for additional memory up to 32GB
7 hour battery life (with WiFi turned off)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Mono speaker and 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack
Available in four colors (black, blue, green and pink)

Out of the box Formats:
Books: Kobo ePub, DRM-Free ePub, fixed layout and enhanced ePub
Images: JPG, PNG, GIF and BMP
Audio: MP3, AAC, 3gp, mp4, m4a, flacc, ogg, wav and midi
Video: avi, H.263 (3gp, mp4), VP8 (webm)

Unlike other Kobo devices the Vox is NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ADOBE DRM’D BOOKS (INCLUDING LIBRARY BOOKS) which I think will disappoint many, although this can be solved fairly easily with apps you can add yourself [Nook books are uncompatible as well, without the nook app].

The first time you start up the Vox you’ll be asked to setup WiFi.  There appears to be no way around it, you must set up WiFi before you can get any further.  Once WiFi is set up you’ll do a mandatory firmware update that will take about 15 minutes.  The device will check for updates again and then you’ll setup time and date. You’ll then enter your Kobo user information (or setup an account if you don’t have one).  You’ll also be given the option of linking your Facebook account to the device, which you can skip if you want.

Once you get through all the start up stuff the Vox will start downloading the books in your Kobo Library.  I found this highly annoying as I have about 235 books in my Kobo Library and had no desire to download all of them to the device.  There is an option to pause all downloads, but it appears buggy as the device didn’t stop downloading until it had added 127 books to my device.

The device has a fairly stock Android look except that Kobo has added their own menu bar across the bottom with options to ‘Read Now’ which opens your current book, ‘Library’ which takes you to your bookshelf, ‘All Apps’ which opens the app drawer where all your apps are shown, ‘Shop Kobo’ which takes you to the Kobo Books store and lastly ‘Reading Life’ which is one of Kobo’s social reading deals where you can earn badges for various things and share them on Facebook and also see things like time spent reading and number of pages turned.  Those icons will appear on all five of the devices home screens.

On the main home screen the biggest thing you’ll notice will be the ‘Kobo Mosaic’ widget which shows your last five books read (this widget just like any other widget can be deleted/re-added if the user desires it).  Lastly the main home screen has shortcuts to the web browser (stock Android browser), Gmail (not the Google Gmail app, but a web shortcut that launches the web browser) and Facebook (which again is a web link, not the Facebook app).  Just like with other Android devices these shortcuts can be removed (the “app” can always be found in your App Drawer if you decide to re-create a shortcut) or you can drag the shortcut(s) to one of the other home screens.

The library is presented as a book shelf (you can also display books in ‘list’ mode) which shows you the book cover.  At the top are also tabs for ‘Reading Life’ and the Kobo Store.  Selecting ‘Import’ from the menus in the Library you can have the device search itself for ePub’s you’ve added and you can then select books to add to the library list. The are no folders or collections to allow you to organize your books in the library.

So lets get down to reading.  Folks familiar with the Kobo Android and iThing apps will find using the stock reader on the Vox to be pretty familiar.  Pages can be turned by either swiping or tapping the edges of the screen. Page turns are generally smooth, but I found them to become sluggish from time to time (there is a slight delay when going from one chapter to another).  At the bottom of the page when reading you’ll see a page count (page X of XX) which is the page count for the current chapter. There are also small icons at the bottom for Kobo Pulse (more on Pulse later).

While reading tapping the center of the screen will bring up a header menu with icons for Library, Read, Contents, Overview and Annotations (notes & highlights).  At the bottom will be a footer with a progress bar and a pop-up showing chapter, page X of XX and % into book.  By rotating the device you can switch to landscape mode with your choice of single or two page view.  While the device bookmarks your last page read there appears to be no way to manually bookmark pages.  There appears to be no way of searching a book or doing a direct dictionary lookup (there is a dictionary app and of course there’s the web when hooked to WiFi).

Pressing the devices menu key while reading will bring up a menu with some options.  ‘Share to Facebook’, ‘Select Text’, ‘Notifications’, ‘Fonts’, ‘Close Book’ and ‘More’.  The first item is self explanatory, ‘Select Text’ (also accessed by tapping and holding on the page) will reopen the page in a new mode where you can select text and then highlight, add a note or share on Facebook.  I found this to be awkward when compared to other reading devices/apps where these things are done without the delay of reopening the page.  ‘Notifications’ brings up a list of notifications for ‘Reading Life’.  The ‘Fonts’ option is really kind of mislabeled.  You can use it to change the font face (there are 9 font options) and size (there are 42 sizes via a slider), but it’s also how you access things like Brightness, Night Mode, how the device displays in landscape (one or two pages) and whether notifications show while reading or not.  ‘Close this Book’ is book
will close the book and remove the bookmark, and ‘More’ give you options for ‘Help’ and for ‘Social Reading’ which allows you to turn ‘Pulse’ on and off.

I also tried one of the three free fixed layout color books that were included (a cookbook, a travel guide and a kids book) and this worked nicely for the most part.  Page turns were slower (due to the graphics involved I guess), but not horrible.  As these books have fixed layouts you can zoom and pan pages, but can’t change things like the font (size or face).

The last thing I tried was a comic book and again page turns were slower than a regular book, but not too bad.  I found reading a comic on the Vox to be a pretty good experience.

What are Reading Life and Pulse?  Reading life is Kobo’s social reading experience, that works with Kobo purchased books, where you can discuss books and share with Facebook friends.  With Pulse you can find out how many others are reading/have read the same book, see comments they’ve left and if it was liked or disliked.  The Pulse indicator at the bottom center of each book page will get bigger and brighter if a page has more activity.  The other part of Reading Life is the badges you can earn (for things like reading 10,000 pages or reading at the same time each day for a period of time) which you can then share on Facebook if you choose to.  Finally, Reading Life also provides you with stats various things like pages read and time spent reading.  While I’m not a big Facebook person I can see how some of these things would be quite popular with some folks.  I did notice that while some of the badges I had from the Kobo for Android app transferred to the Vox, other have to be re-earned on the new device.

All in all the reading experience is quite pleasant on the Vox although personally I prefer eInk for most situations.

What’s the deal with apps? The stock apps on the Vox (what some would call bloatware) besides the usuals like the Browser, Calculator, Email, etc. are as follows. Calendar (which appears to be for those with an Exchange account only), Facebook (web link), Get Apps (link to GetJar), Globe2Go ePaper, Gmail (web link), Merriam-Webster Dictionary, People, Press Reader, Rdio, Scrabble Free, Twitter (web link), YouTube (web link) and Zinio.

I found the GetJar appstore to be OK, but not great.  It appears that even though GetJar for other device has a bunch of reading apps that Kobo has gotten them to block them when it comes to the Vox (although the Nook app has now appeared).  While I kind of “get it” it’s pretty easy to add the apps you want from other sources.

There is no access to the official Android Market for this device (although folks are working on it) as the Vox doesn’t meet Google’s compatibility requirements. One of the first things I did was add the Kindle and Nook apps and also Aldiko, Overdrive and BlueFire Reader all of which work just fine on the Vox. I also added the Amazon Appstore to get access to more apps.  For more on adding apps see this post from last week.

What about non-reading things like video? Initially it was reported that NetFlix (version 1.5.0) was working on the Vox, but folks are now reporting problems, I tried NetFlix yesterday and could not get it working properly.  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before someone gets it figured out, but don’t count on it as a sure thing.  I also tried streaming through the CrunchyRoll app which worked pretty good and through Amazon (after installing Flash via sideload) which didn’t work very well.  YouTube was hit or miss for how well things played, but video loaded on device played quite nicely.

The devices screen is nice and clear, but the screen on my unit does have some light leakage around the edges that some might find annoying under certain circumstances.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to test it on a bright sunny day, so I can’t say for sure if it will live up to claims of perfect readability in sunlight or not (AFF+ is the same tech used in aircraft cockpits).  I also found the touchscreen to lag at times, but usually it was pretty responsive.

A few times the device just stopped responding and only rebooting got it working properly again.  I also had to reboot a couple times because tapping an app to launch it gave an error that the app wasn’t installed, rebooting fixed this, but it was a pain nonetheless.

Overall if someone’s looking at the Vox primarily for reading I think they would be quite pleased.  Looked at next to the Nook Color it’s quite comparable in performance and doesn’t require rooting to be able to install other reading apps and at least for me it feels better ‘in hand’.  If, on the other hand, you’re looking at the Vox as a kind of mini tablet I think you could still be pleased with it as long as you understand it lacks the horsepower to do some things as well as some competitors.  A person looking for a full tablet might be more pleased with the better spec’d, and similarily priced, Kindle Fire ($199) or Nook Tablet ($249) [at least in the US] depending on how reviews of them go.

One last note.  While it’s not necessary to root the Vox in order to sideload apps you might want to do it for some other reason.  It’s quite easy to do using GingerBreak and there are step by step instructions in this post at MobileRead.

Related posts:

1. Kobo Vox, Android Tablet Designed for Reading
2. How to install apps on an Android device with no access to the Android Market
3. Bookchat Reminder + Kobo Reader Giveaway

Many of the devices that don’t have the Android Market come with some type of third party market loaded on them, so a user has access to at least some apps, but what if you want something that’s not available through that third party?  I’ll try to answer that below.

The first thing you must do is enable the loading of apps from unknown sources.  An unknown source is basically anything that’s not Google’s official marketplace.  To do this open your devices settings which is usually accessed by pressing the ‘menu’ button when on your home screen.  Once settings is open go to ‘Applications’ and you should see a check box followed by “Unknown Sources; Allow installation of Non-Market applications” or something to that effect.  Make sure that box is checked before going any further (you may get a warning message you have to OK).  Note that a regular unrooted/uncustom ROM’d NookColor will not allow you to do this and neither will some phones from AT&T.

Now that ‘Unknown Sources’ is enabled were all set to look at the various options for getting apps onto your devices, but before we get to those options it’s a good idea to understand some terminology.  Something you’ll hear mentioned time and again is an .apk file, which is the file type for Android apps.  An .apk can be thought of similarly to an .exe on a Windows computer or maybe a .dmg on a Mac.  It’s the file used to install the app to your device and operates in a similar fashion once you click/tap it to open it will launch the apps installer.

The first way to get apps would be to install one/all of the various third party markets out there.  There are quite a few of them and some do have a nice selection available.  Note some stores don’t work on all devices (ex: AppsLib would install on my phone [Galaxy S Epic 4G] and on my Transformer Tablet, but not run on either device).  These markets/appstores are in themselves installed to your device from an .apk and each website has instructions for installing (or see how to install an .apk further down in this post). Once an app store is installed you can browse and search that store and install apps by simply clicking ‘install’ from withing the appstore. Below is a list of links to some of the various third party appstores (followed by a list of some of the reading apps they have)…

• Amazon (Kindle, Aldiko, Bluefire, Kobo, Mantano)
• GetJar (Nook, Aldiko, Cool Reader, Kindle, FBReader, Kobo, Overdrive)
• SlideMe (Mantano, FBReader, Aldiko, Kindle)
• AppsLib (not sure, only runs on certain devices)
• Soc.io Mall (Aldiko, Kindle)

The other way to install apps would be to ‘sideload’ them either via USB or downloading with your devices browser (you could also email yourself an .apk).  Many, many apps can be found posted to blogs and Android user forums by simply Googling the app name along with .apk, for example “Kindle .apk”.  I always check to see if the app developer has a website where the .apk can be downloaded first as I’m usually sure to get the most current version that way and don’t have to worry if it’s from a dubious source.  I also recommend you install Lookout Security & Antivirus to your device if possible before sideloading apps.

Once you’ve found the .apk you’re looking for you can download it to your computer and transfer it via USB or in many cases download it using your devices browser.  If loading via USB you’ll need a file manager (such as Astro) on your device so that you can browse to the .apk file and tap it and the apps installer will launch.  When downloading via browser you’ll be asked where to save it and when the download is done you’ll have the opportunity to ‘open’ it, this will launch the apps installer.  Tap install and the app will install to your device (see below).  Once the app is installed you can delete the .apk file you downloaded if you’d like, it’s no longer needed.

As you can see getting apps on your non-Marketplace enabled device is generally pretty straight forward.  In a perfect world everyone would have Marketplace access, until then at least we have these other methods.

Related posts:

1. How to Install Python and Pycrypto on Snow Leopard and PC
2. Reading with Android: Sony
3. Amazon’s new Android Appstore and Cloud Drive

While Mantano if fairly new to Android devices the folks behind it have been developing reading software for ePaper devices for a number of years and you can tell that by the refined feel of the Android app.  Mantano requires Android 2.1 or greater and supports both regular Adobe Adept DRM as well as the password based variation used by Barnes & Noble.  The full version is available from the Android Market, Amazon Appstore, AppsLib and SlideMe for $4.99.  The Android Market, AppsLib and SlideMe also have a full featured 7 day trial version so you can give it a workout before spending any money.

Upon launching the app you’re presented with your library.  Library view can be customized for viewing with options for a simple list, a detail list or cover thumbnails only in three different sizes (list and detail also show small cover icons), cover thumbnails in all views have a graphic in the corner telling you if it’s an ePub or PDF.  Books can be tagged from detail view or also by tapping and holding on a book to bring up its detailed information.  The library can be sorted by Title, Author, Rating, Date Added and Date of Last Access. At the bottom of the screen are menu options for ‘Syncronize’, ‘Explorer’, ‘Filter’, ‘Views’, ‘Search’ and ‘Settings’.

‘Syncronize’ will search your device for compatible ebook formats (ePub & PDF).  You’re presented with a list and you can select all or put a checkmark next to each book you want to add to your library screen. ‘Explorer’ offers you a file browser as another way to import books.  ‘Filter’ lets you filter the books seen by all books, authors, tags, publishers and formats. ‘Views’ lets you switch between the library viewing options described above. ‘Search’ can be used to look for a book in your library when you have a long list to look through. ‘Settings’ is where you enter your Adobe ID and also has options for the Library, Reader and Lexicon (under the Lexicon option you can download various dictionaries).  You can also turn on expert mode which hides button titles and get access to tips, help, a way to submit requests and download a user manual.

Across the top of the library screen are tabs for ‘Library’, ‘Lexicon’, ‘Notes’ and ‘Bookfinder’.

‘Lexicon’ can be used a couple of different ways and it seems to me it would be most useful for a student or perhaps someone learning a new language.  The way it works is if you highlight a word and look it up either via one of the three default web based options (Google, Wikipedia and Wiktionary) or via one of the ten downloadable embedded dictionaries you can also add that word, along with it definition if using an embedded dictionary, to your personal lexicon for later reference. The dictionaries that can be downloaded are English, English-German, English-Spanish, French, English-French, French-English, Spanish-French, French-Spanish, English-Polish and Polish-English.

‘Notes’ give you quick access to all your notes.  Notes can be sorted by creation date or title, filtered by type and location and also searched.  Another useful feature is that you can also use the notes area as a notebook to create either written or drawn notes that are unassociated to a specific book.

‘Bookfinder’ connects you to a way to look for books (both free and pay).  It’s associated with the Bookari website  where you can create an account to customize things such as preferred language (although when going to preferences I kept getting an error).  When you search your results supposedly come from a pool of more than 50 ebook catalogs including Barnes & Noble, but I found results to be incomplete at best.  Every author I searched for was missing books and sometimes specific titles returned no results, yet checking B&N shows that they are available there.  Also I found that after browsing for a while tapping a book started giving a blank page instead of the books details. When you do find a book you get a link that takes you to its source site for purchase or for free books from places like Feedbooks you’re given a download link.  All in all I found Bookfinder to be of little use, just like I’ve found similar things in other non-store released reading apps like Aldiko.  It’s just not a feature I’m likely to use.

Now on to reading.  ePub reading is pleasant and much like other reading apps.  Page turns are done by tapping or swiping and can also be set to volume button control.  You can create both written and drawn annotations, highlight in various selectable colors and change font size via a + or – style control or by swiping up or down on the page.

There are built in themes for default (black on white), night and sepia, but you can also create custom themes.  Custom themes include font (via a free downloadable font pack or you can add your own), line height, text alignment and margins (although sometimes margins fail to work, I’m assuming due to something in the CSS or Page Template of some ePubs overriding things).  Text and background colors can be set to anything you want via a color picker and there are also options to force bold and italic text.

The menu also has search and dictionary option and one thing a lot of readers don’t offer Text To Speech.  TTS appears to work pretty well, but as I’m not generally a fan of it I’m not likely to catch any big problems other might have (one nice thing is it works with the screen off so you can save on battery use).  Brightness can be changed by simply sliding your finger along the left border of the screen. You can also at any time access the books info including, if available, it’s description/blurb, bookmark pages and access the table of contents.  There is no two page mode in landscape like the Nook app has, but the developers have mentioned adding that feature in the future.

I found PDF reading to be great, and I can’t say that about most readers that handle them. Like with ePub you can annotate (both written and drawn), highlight, bookmark, use TTS, do dictionary lookups and search.  There are also options to fit screen, fit horizontally and fit vertically and can also custom fit the PDF with the crop tool. You can also zoom and pan the PDF or switch it to reflowable mode and read it more like an ePub. In a PDF with columns a double-tap on that column will cause it to fit to the screen. I generally find PDF reading painful in anything that’s not a dedicated PDF app like EZ PDF or RepliGo, but for me this app can replace the need for a separate PDF reader.

Overall Mantano is one of the best reading apps I’ve ever used and has replaced Aldiko for me.  It’s my go to reader when I’m not using something like Kindle for Android.  While it’s not perfect I find the willingness of the developers to not only listen to, but implement requested features a sign that it will get nothing but better in fact they fixed one problem I found before I even got this review finished and posted.  At $5 some will consider it expensive in the world of free apps, but I’ve found it to be well worth the money.

Below is a Youtube video of Mantano running on and Archos 7 (from the developers)…

Related posts:

1. Reading with Android 101, a reading app guide
2. Reading with Android: Aldiko 2
3. Reading with Android: Sony

Since its release on April 26^th of this year the Asus Transformer has been one of the most popular Android tablets on the market.  It’s price ($399 for the 16GB version) combined with a very nice IPS screen and a fairly unique keyboard dock have ensured that this tablet sells out almost as soon as retailers get them in stock.  Thankfully Asus has ramped up production this month and some of the component shortages have been lessened so folks who want one should have an easier time of it soon.

The hardware of the Transformer is similar to other 10.1” Honeycomb tablets such as the Motorola Xoom and the Acer Iconia.  Its got a 1GHz dual core Tegra 2 processor, b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, 1GB of RAM, front (1.2MP)  and rear (5MP, no flash) cameras for pictures, 720p video recording and video chat, and can be had with either 16 or 32 gigabytes of memory.  It also has a microSD card slot for additional memory.

It has a built in mic, a 2-in-1 audio jack (headphone/mic input), a mini HDMI 1.3a port and dual speakers.  There is also a G-Sensor (accelerometer), light sensor, gyroscope, e-compass and GPS.  Battery life is quoted as 9.5 hours for the tablet itself, extending to 16 hours when adding the optional dock (more on the dock below).

The device measures 271mm x 171mm x 12.98mm (about the thickness of the iPad 1) and weighs in at 680g.  The back is a curved textured plastic and makes the Transformer quite pleasant to hold.

The 1280×800 10.1” IPS screen is quite nice with a 178 degree viewing angle, nice colors and dark blacks.  While the mirror like gloss of the screen makes it near impossible to read from outside in bright sunlight it’s pretty good when reading out of direct sun.  The screen also uses Gorilla Glass which makes it very durable.  Two complaints I’ve seen associated with the screen are its responsiveness and light bleed. There is a bit of light bleed on my unit, but as it’s only really noticeable when in a dark room with a dark background and the brightness cranked up so I’m not too bothered by it.  I’ve noticed no responsiveness problem at all in fact the screen response is quite snappy.  Some of the responsiveness complaints may have been a Honeycomb 3.0 issue that was fixed with the 3.1 update.  As my unit updated over the air when I first set it up I never tried it with 3.0 at all.

One thing that makes the Transformer different than other tablets currently on the market is its optional $149 keyboard dock.  While there have been tablet PC’s over the years with similar concepts they’ve never really lived up to their potential in my opinion so I was eager to try it on the Transformer.  Due to demand (or just a shortage from Asus) the cheapest I could find a dock when I ordered my Transformer was $200 which I was unwilling to pay, but thankfully shortly after my tablet arrived they started showing up for MSRP at Amazon and other retailers so I was able to grab one.

This dock essentially turns your tablet into a mini laptop or netbook.  It gives you a full QWERTY keyboard, a touchpad for navigation, and audio jack, two USB ports (I tried a thumb drive and a mouse and both worked fine) and an SD card reader.  It also has a battery built in which extends the Transformer’s 9.5 hour battery life to 16 hours.  Docking the tablet is simply a matter of sliding the bottom edge of the Transformer into the docks hinge.  To separate the two you simply slide a small latch and pull them easily apart.

While not quite full size I found typing on the keyboard dock pleasant enough and certainly the way to go when typing longer documents.  In fact I’m typing this post on the Transformer with dock right now.

As long as we’re talking about keyboards I’ll also take a moment to mention the on screen keyboards, there are two.  There is the stock Honeycomb keyboard which works fine and also Asus has added their own keyboard which adds a number row and a few more customizable settings than the stock keyboard.

Now that we’ve talked about the hardware side of things let’s take a look at some of the apps that come pre-installed on the Transformer.

My Transformer came with two reading apps installed, Kindle which we’ve covered before and MyLibrary which is unique to Asus.  Since we’ve covered the Kindle app before I’ll just quickly comment that it works quite well on the Transformer and move on the MyLibrary app.

I found the MyLibrary app to be pretty decent surprisingly.  It’s pretty bare on features, but works well for the most part.  MyLibrary works with ePub, PDF and txt files which you can add via USB, download online or buy from the Asus @vibe store.  I found the @vibe store a pain to navigate and very slow, any books you buy are stored in you @vibe cloud library & I saw nothing that mentioned you actually being able to download a file. I doubt I’ll be heading there for books anytime soon.

The reading experience for ePub’s is pretty decent.  In landscape mode you get two pages side by side with animated page flips and stuff.  It kinda made me think of a not as good imitation of iBooks actually.  The app also adds any Kindle books you have on your device you your library shelf and tapping those books automatically launches the Kindle app.  This might be kind of handy as a one stop shelf for all your various books except while it also shows your B&N books it tries to read them itself, instead of launching the nook app, and all it displays are blank pages. It doesn’t display books loaded to the Kobo app at all. While it works with standard Adobe ID based DRM it appears it doesn’t support the Adobe Password based DRM that B&N uses.

MyLibrary supports bookmarks, notes, highlights, a built in dictionary, text-to-speech and search.  You can also have it translate a highlight into eight different languages.  It does not support hyperlinks or tables of contents and has no night reading mode.

MyLibrary frankly sucked with the PDF’s I tried, the text was completely blurry and unreadable. I recommend ezPDF, my preferred PDF reader on Android, or RepliGo as the top ways to do PDF. Polaris Office which comes with the Transformer does a pretty good job with PDF’s as well.

Are you a newspaper reader?  The PressReader app that comes pre-installed on the Transformer might just be the killer app for folks who do. PressReader provides access to more than 1,800 newspapers from 94 countries.  Newspapers are displayed just like their printed counterparts with the same layouts and pages as the print edition.  You can pan and zoom to navigate a page or tap an articles headline and the article will be reformatted into an easy to read layout for your screen with text-to-speech, sharing options and adjustable font sizes.  I found this apps text to speech to be one of the better implementations I’ve listened to.  The app can also be setup to automatically retrieve your newspaper subscriptions.

If I had to fault this app it would be cost. It’s $29.99 a month which is great if you read a bunch of different papers (you get access to all of them), but as someone who hardly ever reads a paper it seems pricey.  You can also buy single issues for $.099 which is what I did to try it out.  Still even though I’m obviously not their target audience I found myself impressed with this app (they also have an iThing version).

My Transformer also had the Zinio app installed.  For those unfamiliar with Zinio they sell magazines in digital format.  The Zinio app works nicely although after playing with PressReader I can think of a few ways they could make it better.  I found navigating a magazine to be simple and work well.  My biggest complaint would be that all of the magazines on the Zinio website aren’t yet available for viewing with the app.  Prices for subscriptions appear to be about the same as print or higher.

The Transformer also comes equipped with Polaris Office 3.0 and this is where the optional keyboard dock can really come in handy.

With this app you can create, open and edit documents in familiar formats like .doc/.docx (Word), .xls (Excel) and .ppt (Power Point), it also makes for an OK PDF viewer as well.  This thing gives you a pretty full featured word processor as well as allowing you to do spreadsheets and presentations.

The Transformer also comes with the Asus MyCloud and MyNet apps.  MyCloud has a couple of functions, the first of which is to access Asus Webstorage which is a cloud storage service like DropBox or SugarSync.  The other thing MyCoud lets you do it remotely access and control your home computer (PC or Mac) kind of like the Windows remote desktop.

MyNet allows you to stream music, movies or photos from any DLNA compatible device to your tablet, although I couldn’t get it working on my network.

I used a DVD resolution video I created and Youtube to test video playback. Video from both was smooth and looked great.  Although the built in speakers aren’t anything to write home about, and I wish they’d positioned them up higher on the sides so I don’t sometimes cover them while holding the tablet, they get the job done OK.

Streaming music via Google Music (beta), Amazon Cloud Player and Pandora worked great.

Asus has put out a solid device in the 10” tablet arena at a better than average price and while I look forward to Google polishing Honeycomb a bit more and the marketplace needs more tablet centric apps I think the Transformer is a winner.  The optional keyboard dock gives it a real boost for someone looking to do basic tasks and leave their laptop behind.  As a reader it works quite well although I’ll stick with eInk for long reading sessions.  Overall I’m quite pleased with it and find it a well rounded device.

Related posts:

1. How Do I Add Books to the iPad, iPhone, and iTouch

Below are some of the questions I’m commonly asked by users about the Nook Color along with their answers.

How do I take a screenshot?
Hold down the n (Home) button and then hold the volume down button for a very short time.  A little camera icon will appear in the bottom status bar telling you a screenshot was taken. The screenshot will be saved in the Screenshots folder and can be saved to your computer via USB.  They can also be viewed on the Nook by using the Gallery.

My computer isn’t recognizing the Nook Color, help!
Be sure the device is out of sleep mode and is unlocked as these can cause the Nook Color to not be recognized on some systems.

How do I add different wallpapers to my device?
Connect the Nook Color to your computer with the USB cable and place the wallpaper image(s) in the My FilesWallpaper directory.

One source for wallpapers is http://www.nookcolorwallpapers.com/

Can I change my books margins?
Most people I know like little to no margin on their readers screen, thankfully the NC’s margins are adjustable.

Touch anywhere on the page and a menu bar will pop up on the bottom. Select the text option and another window will appear. On the right are three rectangle icons with various sized rectangle inside. These specify the amount of the screen covered by the text. From this same menu you can adjust line spacing and allow you to enable night mode.

How do I bookmark a page (and remove a bookmark)?
Pages can be bookmarked by tapping the upper right corner of a page, a little bookmark ‘ribbon’ will appear.  The bookmark can be removed by tapping the upper right corner again or all bookmarks in a book may be cleared by tapping the center of a page and selecting ‘content’ and then the bookmarks tab and using the ‘clear all’ button.

How do I look up words in the dictionary?
Simply tap and hold on a word and a menu will pop up where you can do a look up, you can also make notes and highlights from the same menu.

Is there a quick way to navigate backwards without going ‘Home’?
You can swipe to the left in the small black status bar at the bottom of a page and it will act like a back button would.  Be careful not to hit any of the status indicators on that bar or it won’t work and you’ll have other things popping up on your screen.  I’ve found it best to get a kind of “running start” at it and just barely brush the screen as my finger goes by.

Is there a shortcut to common settings like brightness instead of using the settings menu?
Simply tap the battery icon in the lower right corner and a quick settings menu will appear.

How do I create playlists for my music?
The create a playlist tap and hold on a song in the music app instead of just tapping to play it.  A menu will pop up where you can choose ‘add to playlist’ which will then bring up a menu to either add the song to an existing playlist or create a new one.  You can change the song order in the playlist by dragging the up/down icon next to the name of each song.  You can remove songs from a playlist by tapping and holding on the song and selecting remove from playlist (be careful you don’t select delete instead).

How do I do a factory reset?
Hold down Home (n button) + Power + Vol up at the same time or go to ‘settings’ then tap ‘Device Info’ then tap ‘Erase & Deregister Device’.  Note: Both methods will reset the NC to factory defaults, erase the content from your device and deregister it.

A factory reset didn’t fix things, what else can I do?
You can try a complete wipe which will cause the Nook Color to “reflash” it’s system partition to whatever version it was when you first bought it.  Note: you shouldn’t need to do this unless you’ve been messing around with rooting or a custom ROM.  If your NC is stock you’ll likely have contacted B&N support before you ever get this far and if you haven’t I’d recommend you do that first.

To do a wipe…

1.      Turn off your Nook Color if it is currently on.

2.      Turn it on by pressing the Power button.

3.      When you see the welcome message appear on screen, hold the power button down to interrupt the boot process.

4.      If the boot animation (nook color by Barnes & Noble animation) does not appear and the device turns off you’ve successfully interrupted boot, go to step 6.

5.      If the boot animation appears you’ve failed to interrupt boot, go back to step 3 and try again.

6.      Repeat from step 3 until your interrupted boot count reaches 8. At this point, the nook will re-flash its system partition.

What is rooting anyway?
This isn’t an official techies explanation, but basically rooting is similar to giving yourself full access rights to parts of the Android operating system (which is based on Linux) that are usually not allowed for general users.  Specific to the NC, folks root because it gives them access to the Android Market and the thousands of apps there (you can also load the Amazon Appstore), including other reading apps like Kindle, Kobo and Aldiko. Basically you’re still using the basic stock B&N interface with a few “extras”.

How do I root?
Instead of providing instructions here I’ll simply give you links to the original XDA thread and also a YouTube video so you can see the process.  Note: rooting does void your warranty and while it’s hard to completely brick/ruin a nook color do it at your own risk.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1054027

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvyW6PFqBhQ

What about a custom ROM, what is that?
A custom ROM is a customized, third party, version of Android which replaces the stock B&N interface.  This basically makes the NC into a full Android tablet.  One interesting thing is that since the NC looks to the microSD card first when booting you can use a custom ROM without altering the stock NC at all.  To stop using the custom ROM you simply remove the SD card and the NC will boot up as a stock reader.  Custom ROMs can also be flashed to the NC’s main memory replacing the Nook’s stock OS and interface all together, but most readers I know have found the SD card version runs great without risking altering the actual device.

One of the more popular ROM’s in use is CyanogenMod 7 which is a customized copy of Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

If this is something of interest more info (with videos) can be found on Ana Mardoll’s website…

http://www.anamardoll.com/2011/04/ereader-running-cm7-firmware-on-nook.html

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1000957

Related posts:

1. Nook Color: The 1.2 Update
2. Winner of the Nook Color
3. REVIEW: Nook Color, If you like color this is the device for you

On Monday Barnes & Noble released a much anticipated update for the Nook Color.  This adds some more tablet like features to the “Readers Tablet” and I’m sure will be well received by many.

So what does this update add?

The NOOK Color Ver1.2.0 update contains new features and enhancements, including:

• Access to shop a broad collection of popular NOOK Apps™ to enjoy great games, stay up to date on news and weather, and more
• Full-featured free email to check and send web-based email (i.e., Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL) all from one in-box
• NOOK Color’s update to Android OS 2.2/Froyo offers system improvements, browser performance and a more complete Web experience giving customers access to enjoy even more video, interactive and animated content. NOOK Color now includes support for Adobe® Flash® Player
• NOOK Kids™ exciting new Read and Play titles that bring animation, activities and stories together
• NOOK Books Enhanced offer in-page video and audio in a growing number of titles
• Enhancements to magazine navigation making it easier to enjoy even more of the growing selection of magazines in NOOK Newsstand
• NOOK Friends™ (beta) to see your friends’ reading activities, swap books with LendMe™, share recommendations and discover new titles

The Apps…

The selection of apps available at this point is pretty thin (140 when I just checked) and many of the paid apps appear to be more expensive than their counterparts in the Android Market, which unfortunately we don’t get access to.  Buying and installing an app is similar to other Android markets and is pretty self explanatory and once purchased can be shared by any Nook Colors sharing the same account.

A couple of  apps that might be of special interest to Dear Author readers are a GoodReads app (free) and the new Nook Friends app (comes pre installed).  The GoodReads app is fairly basic, but works well and with the popularity of the site is likely to be a hit (an Android app for everyone else is coming soon). Nook Friends is a combo social reading network (like GoodReads, Shelfari, etc.) and a shot at mimicking the Nook Lending sites out there.  You can both discuss books with your friends and see what books they have that are lendable, you can manage your lends and request lends through the app too.  Also available are popular apps like Angry Birds ($2.99), Pulse (free), Quick Office Pro ($7.99) and Epicurious ($4.99).

The email app, while very basic, works pretty well it does the job of letting you send and receive email and also allows multiple email accounts.  One thing I don’t like is it doesn’t remember what email was already sitting in the inbox and keeps alerting me as if all of them were just received.

I would have preferred they include the stock Google/Android apps like Gmail, Calendar and a Calculator (or at least make them available), but at least there is a free Calendar App and a $.99 Calculator app in the app store.

One quick note since I know a lot of people like Angry Birds.  Apparently folks are getting an error when trying to install Angry Birds.  The workaround per B&N is to remove your SD Card and try installing again (you can reinsert the card when you’re done installing).

Improved Web Browsing…

Web browsing has improved in performance and the addition of Flash opens things up even more.  The browser has desktop and mobile mode settings which is nice as you won’t automatically be sent to a sites mobile version. YouTube works pretty well , I tried some other video sites such as Hulu, Amazon, Crunchy Roll and HBO Go too with little success.  Amazon and Crunchyroll will play, but you’ll get a message about the video not being formatted for mobile viewing and things were pixilated and stuttered at times.  Hulu doesn’t work at all (just like on all mobile devices I can think of) and HBO Go’s login overlay popup wouldn’t display to let me login.  Overall I was quite pleased with the browser although there were lag problems sometimes.

Now the important stuff, reading…

All of these above mentioned updates are fine and good, but this is a “Readers Tablet”, what has been done to upgrade the reading experience?  Not much unfortunately.  B&N has added support for ‘page turn animations’ and support for enhanced content (embedded audio/video/animations).  It also appears they’ve added a couple of new fonts.  No landscape mode for reading, no new colors (for those who wanted a true black background night mode) and still no last page read or bookmarking when viewing PDFs.  There is a PDF viewer ($0.99) you can buy in the app store that will give you these features, but only for content on an SD card.  Not that the reading software doesn’t work as is, but in my opinion B&N’s own Nook for Android is better overall and I’m not really sure why they don’t just use that for the Nook Color.

The biggest update to the reading software, which B&N hasn’t mentioned from what I can find, is the update to Adobe RMSDK 9.2 (from 9.1) which is said to improve typography and includes, among other things, a hyphenation engine.  I didn’t notice much/any change, but also didn’t spend the time to read an entire book or anything either.

One very nice addition related to reading that should make lots of people happy is that your sideloaded books are now integrated into your library and can also be placed on the devices home screens.

As far as Enhanced books go, there is a sample Good Housekeeping cookbook installed with this update (which can’t be removed) that does a good job of showing what the Enhanced Nook Books can be like.  I can see this being an interesting feature for things like cookbooks and history books and the like.

All in all this is a pretty good update for those wanting some tablet functionality without rooting or loading a custom ROM like Cyanogen Mod 7.  For folks that are used to running rooted you’ll likely be disappointed in the app store selection and inability to sideload app .apk’s.

This update will be automatically downloaded and applied over the coming weeks, but Nook Color owners who want it now can download it and install it manually by following these instructions from B&N.

Related posts:

1. Winner of the Nook Color
2. REVIEW: Nook Color, If you like color this is the device for you
3. Dear Jane: Can I Read Books Bought at the Sony Store on the Nook and Vice Versa

There are three basic choices for the dedicated reading market:

• Amazon Kindle:   Kindle 2 and Kindle Dx
• Sony Reader: Pocket, Touch, Daily Edition
• Barnes & Noble: nook & iRex

KINDLE

Pros of the Kindle:

There are two flavors of the Kindle:

• Kindle 2, available internationally, 6″ screen for $259.00.
• Kindle DX, available in US only, 9.7″ screen for $489.00.

The Kindle allows for continuous access to your ebook purchase and the Amazon digital bookstore via 3G network from AT&T.   You are allowed to hook up to 6 devices to your account.   I have my iPhone and my husband’s iPhone devices registered to my account. If you are particularly trusting, you can share an account with up to   5 other readers. Anyone with a device registered to the account, however, may charge to that account.

Kindle’s refresh rate is fast (how fast the pages “turn” electronically)   and your annotations, notes, and last place read will be synched across the registered reading devices.   I.e., if you had an iPhone and a Kindle, the notes that you took on each would be synced, as well as the last place that you read the same book.

Amazon will be releasing a desktop application for both the PC and the Mac allowing synching with those devices as well.

Cons of the Kindle:

The only place you can buy secure ebooks for the Kindle is through the Amazon digital bookstore.   (Books that are DRM free like His Lordship’s Mistress by Joan Wolf can be purchased at Fictionwise in Mobipocket format and then emailed to the Kindle).

The Amazon is a closed device and only the Kindle and thus the Kindle App can view the Kindle book.   The keyboard on the Kindle is difficult to use and not conducive to long note taking.   There is no file organization on the Kindle so if you have a huge ebook collection, there is no easy way to navigate through it.

No library connection.   Covers are extra.   There is no ability to expand the Kindle memory.

SONY

There are three versions of the Sony:

• Pocket, 5″ screen at $199. No note taking ability. Must side load the books via a USB connection.
• Touch, 6″ screen at $299.   Touchscreen.   Must side load books via a USB connection.
• Daily Edition, 7″ screen at $399.   Touchscreen and 3G capability.   Ability to purchase direct from the device.

Pros of the Sony

The Sony devices accept epub which is fast becoming the standard in the industry.   Because of this, the reader can engage in Internet price comparison, shopping for the book at the cheapest prices.   The epub The touchscreen is responsive and it is easy to take notes using the stylus by writing on the screen itself.   Sony boasts a great organization system for the devices allowing books to be sorted into “collections” (like folders).

The Sony Touch and Daily Edition come with faux leather covers along with SD and Memory Card slots for expansion.

One of the best features of the Sony devices is the ability to interface with libraries.   Most libraries that lend digital books use Adobe DRM encryption (epub and pdf).   Sony reads those formats and therefore the Sony allows you to take your library reads with you.   The Daily Edition allows you to access libraries directly from the device itself.

Cons of the Sony.

Only the expensive Daily Edition allows for over the air purchases. The Sony ebookstore, however, often has higher ebook prices than other ebook retailers.    Sony does not ship with a wall charger. Instead you either charge via USB or buy a wall charger separately.   There is no synching between annotations you take on the computer or other device and your Sony.

BARNES AND NOBLE

Barnes and Noble has two devices currently available:

• nook, 6″ eink screen for reading and 3.5″ LCD screen for browsing, buying, and note taking.   $259.   3G and in store wireless
• IRex DR 800SG, 8.1″ eink touchscreen (stylus enabled only) for $399.   3G capability powered by Verizon.

Pros of the nook

The nook has 3G and in store wireless capabilities built on an Android platform.   Android signaled to me that the hackers will be all over this. The wireless capability is likely to be the first things hacked.   As commenter Dana noted, wireless capabilities are not crippled.   Moving on, The 3.5″ LCD screen allows fast browsing and note taking.   Like the Kindle, the nook allows for synchronization of notes across platforms.   The notetaking on the LCD screen will be light years faster than it is on the Kindle.

The nook will be able to read encrypted epub as well as eReader.   (Can read more about the Adobe/eReader integration here).   Supposedly this should mean that you would be able to use these devices with digital library books.

BN has a much heralded Lend Me feature but it only allows you to lend a book once AND it will not be enabled for all books.   Publishers don’t like the feature (and neither do authors).   PublishersMarketplace has this to report (paywall):

But the company’s web site clearly states that a given ebook can only be lent “one time.” One publisher told us that BN was initially trying to secure broader lending rights but pulled back based on broad publisher resistance.

For many big publishers, that’s still one time too many. [William] Lynch would not specify a number of lendable titles, only saying it would “a good bit,” noting that available titles will carry a LendMe burst symbol. But executives at most of the biggest trade houses indicated to us that they have not agreed to participate in LendMe.

Cons of the nook

There is no file organization on the nook.   You can browse by title and author.   You cannot create your own collections.   As with the Kindle, this provides problems for readers with large digital libraries.   The nook does not read RTF or Word docs.

Because of the LCD, the battery for the nook does not last as long as the Kindle.

CONCLUSION

Of the current slate of devices, the nook at $259 seems to be the best device for the money.   It has a more open platform than the Kindle but still has the over the air purchasing capability.   Having said that, if you could wait, I wouldn’t buy a new device this Christmas.

New multi function devices are due to hit the market in 2010 including the likely Apple Tablet.      It is easy for me to play the waiting game. I have an ebook reader; three of them, in fact: the laptop, the iPhone, and the Sony 700.   Having said that, I just know from years of reading on dedicated and multi function devices that I gravitate toward using the multifunction devices.   These new tablet devices will allow you to browse the web, play music, watch video and read.   If you can, wait.

Related posts:

1. Dear Authors 2007 Christmas Buying Guide for Ebook Readers: The Dedicated Reader
2. $200 E Ink Ebook Reader at IDPF Conference
3. Multifunction v. Dedicated Ebook Reader & Samhain Giveaway

On the market today, there are a number of alternatives for ebook reading:

• Dedicated eInk Devices (Kindle, Sony, BeBook, COOL-er)
• Netbooks (various brands with screen size from 7″ to 11.5″)
• Handhelds (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm Pre)

I’ve made up a little comparison chart for major features.   If you are in the market for an ebook reader, wait to see what Apple announces and take a trip to one of your local retailers to check out the new Sony Readers.    I think the Sony 300 could put the eBookwise out of the market unless the backlit LCD is a deal breaker.   The clarity of the eink device, though, trumps the eBookwise LCD in my opinion.

Edited: I put the table on a different page. Also, I did not include devices that cannot read a DRM format.

Related posts:

1. Missing the Market
2. The late 2008 E Ink Readers
3. 2008 Holiday EBook Reading Buying Guide, Part I

Sundays have always been about ebooks but I think that it’s increasingly wrong of us to separate digital publishing from regular publishing and possibly marginalizing digital publishing.   In a world where the two business models of publishing are converging, it is harder than ever to have a discussion of one without the other.   

Therefore, Sunday’s will no longer be when we talk solely about the business model of ebook publishing.   Tuesday is our regular opinion day and any discussions we have about digital publishing will be folded into our Tuesday opinion day.   The first of those articles will be in two weeks and will be on the topic of How Bezos Pwned Publishing.   (I was intending to publish the article this Tuesday but want to address the issue of Erotic Romance and the RITAs in a timely fashion).

On Sunday we intend to focus on two things.   

• First, we want to go back to highlighting digital press books (rather than the business model). Having a specific day set aside to post reviews of digital press books will encourage us to read/review those books that might otherwise not get read/reviewed.   From now on every Sunday will feature a book review of a digital press release.
• Second, we will post a weekly round up of tech related links such as hardware, software, lawsuits, and the like.    We encourage readers to send us links at dearauthor @ dearauthor.com with the subject matter “Sunday Tech Items”.

Finally, from time to time we will post instructional posts related to technology and reading and those will continue to be posted on Sundays.   

If there are changes you would like to see in content, please let us know.   It will help Dear Author to remain relevant in the years to come.

Related posts:

1. Sunday Night Open Thread for Authors
2. May Sunday Open Thread for Authors
3. Sunday Evening Open Thread (Author Promo Night)

I was a little intimidated by the Sony PRS-505 at first, I will have to admit. I think of myself as sort of in the middle, technology-wise – not a Luddite but not a tech geek. I can usually figure out how to do what I need to, but there is a lot I don’t know. I was unsure about all of the various formats that ebooks apparently come in, and what would be needed to convert files for uploading to the reader. Jane was very good about giving clear instructions, and the only slight problem I had at the start was caused by my not reading her instructions carefully enough.

But within a few days of receiving my beautiful Sony PRS-505, I had 27 books loaded onto it. Now, 27 books might not sound like a lot to those of you who have many more loaded onto your ebook readers. But I’m starting out small. As it is, to me, it is an embarrassment of riches. I mean, think about 27 books – how much space they take up. I have all of them on something that is just the right size (small but not so small that it is in danger of slipping out of my hands or getting easily lost), sleek and lightweight. I can take it everywhere with me (except in the bath; that’s a bit of a bummer). It fits in my purse. I can carry 27 books around in my purse! It’s so exciting!

In terms of the user interface, the Sony PRS-505 is quite simple – really pretty intuitive. I don’t mind reading on the screen; the only issue I’ve had so far is with weird line breaks and page breaks, but that seems to occur only when I change the font to a larger size. There may be a fix for that, but for now I’ve just switched back to medium font (which is sufficient and really better for me because even without the formatting issues, the larger font required turning the pages rather more often than I really want to have to).

I don’t have much to compare the e-ink technology to since I haven’t used other ebook readers, but I will say that the type is quite clear and crisp and that reading on the screen doesn’t seem to cause any undue eyestrain.

I do think there is a slight psychic adjustment that is inevitable with the switch to ebooks, but it really hasn’t been too bad. It’s a little less obvious where I’m at in a story (I mean, I can subtract the page number I’m on from the number of pages, but it’s not so instantaneous as just measuring how much of the book is left). It’s a little harder to go back and find a passage if you want to – you can’t flip through looking for something. Instead you have to guess a page number and enter it in and then scroll backwards or forwards to try to find what you’re looking for. On the plus side, I think in this format I’ll be less likely to peek ahead. Peeking is only an occasional problem for me (I used to do it much more), but I really find that it can affect my enjoyment of a book, so anything that discourages the habit is a step in the right direction.

By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with Jan that the "roadmap" format of the instructions was annoying. Maps strike fear in my heart, and it was just plain irritating to have to keep spreading it out and refolding it differently to get to the step I was on. Luckily, there aren’t actually that many steps involved in setting the PRS-505 up.

I ended up installing both the Sony elibrary software and the Calibre program. I installed the former because I could not figure out how to remove the DRM from the books I already had in Adobe Digital Editions. I think in the future I’ll stick to using the Calibre program, since it does appear to have greater functionality.

One thing I’ve been impressed with is how long the reader holds a charge. Compared to cell phones, my other major point of reference, the Sony PRS-505 holds a charge forever (especially compared to my recently purchased iPhone, but part of the blame there goes to me for playing with the damn thing so much!). I appreciate the long charge because it’s just one less thing to worry about. I’ve been taking the ebook reader with me wherever I go, and it’s nice to know I don’t have to worry constantly about a low battery.

I can’t emphasize how exciting it is to have so many books at my fingertips. I have not been much of a book saver for the past five years or so, but I still have about four boxes of keepers from previous years, which have been culled down a few times (sometimes to my regret!). I’d like to get the collection even smaller; since I rarely reread, I am mostly holding onto these "just in case". So I’m going to look into buying ebook versions of some, and perhaps undertake the task of scanning some. I will probably have to buy more memory cards at some point, but it’ll be worth it. Getting rid of clutter excites me almost as much as reading does!

I wasn’t sure how I would take to ebook reading, but I have discovered that the Sony PRS-505 is easy to use, very attractively designed and a great boon to me as a booklover. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Best regards,

Jennie

Related posts:

1. The Sony Reader: NOT the Ebook version of the IPOD
2. Sony’s Debuts Updated EBook Reader
3. Ode to the Sony Reader

A couple months after I joined Dear Author, Jane asked me when I would get an ebook reader.   I don’t remember my exact response but I’m pretty sure it included the following:

• I love the tactile feel of paper.
• I don’t read a lot of ebooks.
• I can read on my laptop.
• E-readers are expensive and I can’t justify the cost.

But Jane is a determined proselytizer, and every few months she’d ask me when I was planning to get an ebook reader.   And just as consistently, I’d spout off one of the aforementioned reasons and continue on my merry dead-tree-reading way.

Eventually, though, she wore me down, or the ebook discussions here on Dear Author did, or I simply grew frustrated with digging through the disorganized ebook folder on my computer and reading long swaths of text on my glossy widescreen laptop screen.   Maybe it was a combination of many factors.   At any rate, I was weighing the pros and cons of a dedicated reading device versus a multifunction device when the partnership with Sony came about.

Because I’m all about preparation, once I knew we were getting Sony Readers, I started researching the PRS-505, looking at user reviews and impressions.   Based on several recommendations, I downloaded both Calibre and ConvertLit and played around with the programs to familiarize myself with them.   I checked different ebookstores, comparing prices, title availability, and formats sold.

I won’t lie.   When it comes to technology, I like knowing what to expect in terms of function, performance, and user experience.   Obsessive?   I never said I wasn’t.   Since I’ve never used — let alone owned — an e-reader before, I wanted to set a baseline from which to gauge my experience.

My Sony Reader arrived the first week of January.   I have one of the red ones.   I didn’t even stop to think when Jane asked us our color preference.   I love bright colors, and I adore the color red.   It was a no-brainer for me.

As for the reader itself, it’s no surprise that Sony makes a stylish product.   I’ve owned a number of Sony electronics.   They’re a company who understands that style is just as important as function.   I see no reason why I have to choose one over the other; I want both.   But even with that expectation, I was struck by how thin and compact the reader was.   I love the fact that I can slide the reader into my purse and tote it around with me.   It’s so convenient and makes reading when I have a moment of downtime easy.   In fact, with the leather cover, it doesn’t even look like an e-reader!   My co-worker saw it and said it looked more like an appointment book than a piece of electronics.

Despite my fondness for overpreparation, however, I’m not one for reading instructions from cover to cover.   I’m comfortable with most electronics and can usually figure out how to use one just by playing around with it for a few minutes.   Yes, I’m one of those people.   My personal philosophy is that you shouldn’t have to read the instruction manual to learn basic functions.   So after I opened the box, I scanned the quick start guide for the three pieces of information I considered crucial: how to turn on the reader, how to turn it off, and how to charge it.   Once I located those things, I tossed the guide aside and hooked the reader up to my laptop.

It took about an hour and a half to fully charge, which wasn’t bad at all. I also want to confirm what everyone says about the battery life.   I usually dismiss what people say about battery life because it’s never accurate and heavily dependent on individual use and settings, but the charge does indeed last as long as they say it does.   Come on, I can’t be the only one who was skeptical, right?

As you might have noticed, I’ve made no mention of the software that came bundled with the reader.   That’s because I didn’t install it.   So for anyone wondering about that, no, you don’t need the included software to use the reader.   I manage my ebook library through Calibre, which sports a tagging functionality that saves me from my hopelessly disorganized self.   I’m not very good at setting up organizational systems and if somehow by some miracle I manage to create one, I’m even worse at following them because I usually forget what parameters I set.   Sad, I know.   The Sony Reader itself sorts loaded ebooks by title, author and date added.   When I add in the tags Calibre lets me notate, I can sort my ebooks into collections by genre and month published (useful to keep me on track for reviewing!)

Everything is just so astoundingly easy.   The button layout is intuitive and they do exactly what you’d expect.   The only thing missing as far as I’m concerned is some sort of feature that lets me mark what’s been read and what hasn’t.   It’s true you can use tags/collections for that but it’s such a basic thing I really did expect something of the sort to be present already.

Since I’m one of those readers who keeps her books as pristine as possible — no spine cracking, no folding papers to mark my spot (that’s what bookmarks are for!), no writing in the book — it turns out I didn’t miss the tactile experience as much as I thought I would.   One of the reasons I was so reluctant to convert was that, having never seen an ebook reader in person, I just couldn’t imagine the difference between a computer screen and an e-reader screen.   But the truth is there’s no comparison.   The e-ink screen really does look like a printed page.   It’s a very difficult thing to wrap your brain around but it’s absolutely true.

Looking back, I can’t help but laugh at myself.   I dragged my feet for so long, refusing to convert, but when I finally got my hands on one and had the chance to use it, I switched without looking back.   Talk about flimsy excuses!   The morning after I received the reader, when Jane asked me what I thought, I replied back with the following email:

OMG, YOU WERE RIGHT.   I WAS WRONG.   I AM SO SORRY.

In the end, I guess I wasn’t that reluctant after all.   So Sony, thanks for showing this book-loving technophile that an e-reader is not only logical, but ideal and perfectly suited for me.

My regards,
Jia

PS – This constant urge to hug and pet my reader is never going away, is it?

Related posts:

1. Andrew Marr for the Guardian Is a Reluctant Admirer of the Ebook Reader
2. REVIEW: Convert Ms Reader Files into eBookwise Compatible Formats
3. Ode to the Sony Reader

And speaking of my husband, when he saw I had gotten my reader, the first words out of his mouth were “I guess you won’t be needing all these paper books, then?”

His second sentence was: “I’m jealous. You’ll love that thing more than you love me!”

I don’t quite love the reader more than I love him, but it’s a near thing. I think of a section from one of my favorite books, A.S. Byatt’s Possession, a little segment in a letter describing cucumber sandwiches:

oh, the perfect green circles — oh the delicate hint of salt — oh the fresh pale butter — oh, above all, the soft white crumbs and golden crust of the new bread

And just as Henry Randolph Ash sighs in writing to the woman he is falling in love with about the food that “the poetic imagination…pictures to itself as a form of English manna,” so I can sigh in writing about my Sony:

oh, the gleaming silver case — oh the cool, smooth feel of it in my hands — oh the e-ink display — oh, above all, those crisp black letters and the spaces that separate them into words

The letter-writers in Possession assert that “poems are worth all the cucumber sandwiches in the world.” But my new little gadget is more than a mere physical object. If the body is the temple of the soul, this Sony seems to me at this moment to be a shrine for the written word. It’s a veritable wellspring of poetry. For lo, by the morning of January 16th, I have loaded Shakespeare’s sonnets and the poems of T.S. Eliot onto my Sony.

I should make it clear that this is no small thing. I am a Luddite, a technophobe, a plank in the mud when it comes to anything electronic. When occasionally I learn something (such as the difference between a modem and a router) it often doesn’t stick with me…. and when it does stick, like my rudimentary html, it’s because, despite the fact that I find almost all things computer-related cumbersome, repetitive and demanding, those few little bits of technology give me a secret thrill.

So the fact that it took me no more than a few hours to charge my Sony, install eBook Library on my desktop computer, register my new reader, purchase eBooks from the Sony eBook Store, download them to eBook Library and from there transfer those to my reader shows that’s using the Sony is as easy as coconut cream pie.

Almost. I do have to agree with Jan about the Reader’s Quick Start Guide. Folding and unfolding the thing is annoying, and I too would have rather had a booklet with pages that you actually turn.

A bigger irritant for me is that whenever I have the reader hooked to my desktop computer via USB cable, the reader tells me not to disconnect it. So far, the only way I have found to safely disconnect the reader from the USB cable is to turn off the desktop computer first. Closing the Sony eBook Library software doesn’t seem to be enough.

My husband, who is the technogeek in the house (whereas I am, to quote him the “word nerd”), tells me that we should get a power adapter so that I don’t have to hook the Sony up to the desktop to charge it.

He also says that there should be a safe way to disconnect the reader from the USB cable without turning the desktop computer off. But what that way is, I still haven’t figured out, and hubby, who has been called upon umpteen times to troubleshoot my desktop and my PDA for me, at this particular moment is not in the mood to act as my tech support (“It’s your device; you have to learn how to operate it.”) Oh, the joys of being a Luddite.

If the USB thing is a pain in the butt, spending $$ at the Sony eBook Store is a summer breeze. Once the Sony was hooked by USB to the desktop, and my credit card information entered at the Sony eBook Store, it was simply a matter of clicking on the item I wanted, then going to my shopping cart and confirming that I wanted to purchase it. The book downloaded to my eBook Library and from there, it was nothing to drag it over to the Sony Reader icon and load it on my reader. Since I’m a sucker for instant gratification, I can tell I’m going to have to be careful not to read myself into penury.

Reading on an e-ink display after squinting at computer screens large and small (I consider my Dell Axim PDA a computer, just a very small and limited one) is a joy. The letters are curved in all the right places.

I know that sounds pervy, but I have a thing for letters. Some people want to make love in a bank vault amidst millions of dollars. Me, I’d rather do it amidst thousands of magnetic poetry kit words (“I is still in love by you” my husband once spelled out with magnetic poetry on our fridge, when he couldn’t find an “am” or a “with.” Ingenuity is only one of the reasons I’m still with him). Language is the way to seduce me.

And so, though I am daunted by the idea of trying to figure out the difference between Calibre and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” I am determined to do so. Eventually. After I’ve had a chance to curl up with my Sony reader and enjoy the beauty of the written word.

“I am moved by fancies that are curled / Around these images, and cling” writes T.S. Eliot in his poem “Preludes.” So am I, Thomas Stearns. And they are that much more moving in e-ink.

Note: Sony is having a special Valentine’s Day Reader bundle in conjunction with Harlequin’s 60th Anniversary starting Jan 28th. We will have more details for you next week.

Related posts:

1. Sony Reader eBook Sales Outpace Sony Music Sales
2. Sony’s Debuts Updated EBook Reader
3. Sony Reader Update Reads Encrypted PDFs

Calibre As an eBook Management Tool

In it’s most simplistic use, Calibre is intended to be an ebook organization tool. You can organize your books by author, title, series, publisher, personal tags, and personal ratings.

It doesn’t matter if you never plan to convert your books into any other format. This program can serve a library tracking system. You can make notes about each read, rate the book, and add identifying tags that can be searched later. It’s beyond easy to use this program for simply managing your ebook reading. Simply drag and drop all your files onto the Calibre window. Calibre will import the files and fill in the information in the “metadata” fields as best as it can.   Your files can even be zipped or rar’ed and Calibre will read the files inside.

Editing Metadata

Metadata is the information that tells programs what the file is. For example, it can tell the ebook software what the title of the book is, who the author is, the publisher and so forth. Metadata is important for the reader because it helps with organization.  .

Editing the metadata in Calibre is very easy. You can double click in any of the fields (i.e., the title, author, rating, publisher, tag, series) and navigate using the tab key.

You cannot edit the size or the date. I think that there should be two date fields. One should be the date added and another should be the publication date. Some readers (like me) enjoy sorting by publication dates, particularly for year end lists!

  You can obtain information painlessly by signing up for an account (free) at  ISBNdb.com  and at  LibraryThing.com.   At ISBNdb.com, you’ll need to obtain an access key.   To obtain the access key click on the following links:

1. Developer Area, Remote Access API
2. Manage Access Keys
3. Generate a New Key    (I left the comment and usage fields blank)

ISBNdb.com access allows you to obtain summary data (like a blurb), the ISBN No, the publisher, title and author.   You simply need to enter the right title or author.   Sometimes, you might need to enter the ISBN to get the right record to pull up.   

Once you’ve pulled the information in from ISBNdb.com, you then click on the “Fetch Cover Image from Server.”   For most print books, you’ll get the right cover based on the ISBN.   On ebook files, you might need to add the cover image manually.   Once the metadata is entered for each book, you can then use the sorting features.

Sorting the Data

You can click on the field names for instant sorting, either in descending or ascending order.  For more advanced sorting, there is the word search function. Even better, though, are the two buttons at the bottom of the program screen: Browse by Covers,  Browse by Tags

Browse by Covers mimics the iTunes Coverflow. It’s like a virtual bookshelf. Click on space to the left or right of a cover to advance backward or forward. Click directly on a cover to open another window to reveal the back blurb and other information. (Wouldn’t it be great it online bookstores implemented something like this as an alternate way to browse?)

Browse by Tags allows you to further refine your viewing search by author, series, publisher, format, ratings, and tags. I.e., you can search for every book you’ve tagged historical and hero in pursuit. The better you are at tagging, the more powerful your search results.

Calibre is the closest thing I’ve seen to being the iTunes for eBooks in its organizational abilities. I highly recommend it for everyone who downloads ebooks to their desktop. For the price (Free), I don’t think you’d regret it. And, if you find that you use the program quite a bit, you might find your way to donate a sum to the developer.

Next week: The big Sony Reader giveaway!!!! and then the week after that, we’ll revisit Calibre to see it’s awesome, powerful conversion abilities.

Related posts:

1. eBook Odds and Ends
2. The Library in an E World
3. REVIEW: Ebook Weekly: Desktop Ereading Programs

Related posts:

1. The Mini PC As an Ebook Reader
2. Dell Mini Inspiron Priced at $399
3. A Better Ereader from Bookeen

Related posts:

1. 1 in 4 Teens Will Buy an Iphone: Will Publishers Meet this New Market?
2. Apple IPhone Activation and Rate Plans Revealed
3. Japanese Cell Phone Novels

Dorchester eBooks

There are three major romance publishers who either do not release their books in ebook format or do it irregularly.   Those are Dorchester, Tor, and St. Martin’s Press.   Keishon noticed that Shomi books were appearing in the Kindle and Sony stores.   Upon further searching, many Dorchester books are available for the Kindle. There are C. L. Wilson‘s books in Kindle format and more. I have heard that Tor will be coming out with eBooks, first in Kindle and then other formats.

I asked one print publisher why Kindle is getting so many books first and was told that Amazon will convert the book to ebook format for the publisher. I don’t know if this is true for all publishers. For example, Grand Central provides the ebooks in ePub to vendors and then the vendors must wrap the ePub container with the requisite DRM (i.e., MS Lit, eReader, Mobi, etc). I guess Kindle and Mobi (both owned by Amazon) are just more on top of the game.

eBook Sales Are Booming

According to IDPF, eBook sales are growing. This quarter sales were $13 million compared to the same quarter last year sales of $8 million. The numbers are derived from the sales reports 12-15 trade publishers who report their numbers to IDPF. While the numbers are small compared to the overall size of the publishing industry (over $1 Billion in sales), each positive quarter is promising for this segment of publishing.

The Classics iPhone App

Recently a new ebook reader app was added to the iPhone Application Store. Classics runs $2.99 and contains a library of thirteen books. While the books are lovingly coded into an iPhone friendly format, I found the application to be highly irritating. The animation for page turning cannot be turned off (you can see the animation at the previous link) and there is no adjustment for font size. There are actually no preferences which the user can set. This application is unusable for anyone who wants to read anything other than the selection provided by the developers. Further, if you want to control your own reading experience, you are better off downloading the “classic” titles off Project Gutenburg for free.

Stanza

Each iPhone ebook application has its strengths and weaknesses. Stanza’s strength is the neat coverflow feature; the ability to edit the title and author of a book straight from the iPhone; and the ability to organize the books into collections on the iPhone. It’s weakness are that each book has to be converted individually; getting ebooks from the computer onto the iPhone requires the book to be “opened” on the desktop and for the iPhone and the computer to be on the same network; and no notes feature.

iPhone Bookshelf

iPhone Bookshelf has the best “bookshelf” feature. iPhone Bookshelf allows you to setup a bookshelf on your home computer that can be accessed anywhere you have cell signal. Further, it reads a ton of different formats without manual conversion, meaning I can drop an html file for a book I downloaded from Samhain without converting it manually. This sets iPhone Bookshelf apart, in my opinion, and makes it worth the $9.99 price. With the update, there are few crashes (although it does hang from time to time at the end of a section); the ability to “go to” any part of the book; and “live” html links. The weakness is the hanging; no notes feature; no ability to edit title and author; no collection, tagging, etc.

Fictionwise’s eReader

Of the three, the eReader program is probably the best reading application. With the update, there is a great bookmark/highlight/notes feature. The way to take a note is to press your finger on a word and wait a second and then drag to highlight the text you want in the note. Sometimes the keyboard does not appear for notetaking, rendering that portion of the application unuseable from time to time. The weaknesses of the eReader program is that the notes portion doesn’t always work; no ability to edit title and author; limiting font sizes (small, medium, large, etc); no ability to form collections, tagging, etc.

For the iPhone Bookshelf, I would like the ability to edit the title and author straight from the iPhone as well as tag books with paranormal, favorites, etc. It would be great to be able to create a “playlist” of books that I want to read. It would also be great to be able to share that “playlist” with others. For example, we have a Recommended Reads monthly feature and I would love to be able to share that list with other users of the iPhone in a short and pithy way.

***

Those are my thoughts for today. Later on, I’ll be posting an update from Liquid Silver on the changes to their eBookstore. I’d love to hear from readers of eBooks as to what they wished they could change about their existing eBook reading software and what they absolutely love.

Related posts:

1. Various Odds and Ends
2. Books.app Becomes Bookshelf on the iPhone
3. Dear Author’s iPhone Bookshelf Is Available

Related posts:

1. Comcast to Explicity Limit Broadband Use
2. Japanese Cell Phone Novels
3. Borders Allows Customers to Use Digital Coupons at the Brick and Mortar Store

Love it? You’ll have to pay nearly 66%* more for it. The Vivienne Tan notebook is part of the HP Mini 100 family. It is less than 1″ thick and weighs 2.25 pounds. There is a LED backlight, an Ethernet jack, 2 USB ports, microphone and integrated webcam. Accessories include an embroidered sleeve, Accidental Damage Protection Service, and “an HP SmartFriend Calling Card good for 6 months of unlimited consultative service.” The Vivienne Tam Edition is $699.99 as compared to the plain black version at $450.00. Is the designer version worth it? Oh, to not be in a depressed economic state right now. Decisions, decisions.

*I think that figure is right but my math could be off.

Related posts:

1. The Vivienne Tan / HP Digital Clutch Set for a December Release
2. REVIEW: Witch Hunt by Leanne Karella and Vivienne King
3. Fashion Meets Tech in Stunning Collaboration