BeBook have just launched the latest in their ereader series, the rather splendidly named BeBook Pure, a name which I imagine reflects the fact that this is a straight forward ereader, designed simply to read ebooks with and not as a device for watching videos, sending emails or anything else.

In producing such a device, the BAS Group (who bought up Endless Ideas, the original makers of the BeBook ereaders, when they went bust a while ago) are perhaps flying a bit in the face of the major trend in ereader production these days, which is more and more a matter of an all singing, all dancing device rather than a device for simply reading ebooks with.

But be that as it may, they have produced an ereader that whilst it is a relatively simple and somewhat limited gadget, will be a good basic ereader for people to try out and see if ereading is for them.

What we have here is possibly the thinnest and lightest ereader so far at only 188g, and 8mm thick, which if nothing else will ensure that our hands don’t get tired holding the thing up as we read in bed or other less comfortable positions.

What else?

For the rest, well it comes with what is now more or less the standard screen, a six inch e-Ink Vizplex display with a resolution of 800×600 with 16 shades of gray. The resolution is rather on the low side, as most ereaders now have screens with a rather higher resolution, but 800 x 600 is fine with a screen of this size, so no worries there.

For the techies among you, it comes with a 600 MHZ single core processor and 4 GB of internal memory, which is enough to store many thousands of ebooks…. I have never really understood why they need so much storage space inside them, as who on earth would want to carry thousands of ebooks around with them? But it is so. And to make this even weirder, you can use Micro SD cards as well, up to 32 GB capacity. So enough for the entire British Library Collection of books I think.

Almost every ebook format supported.

One of this ereader’s good points is that it can work with almost every ebook format out there, even including the Mobi ebook format that Amazon use (but only with non DRM protected ebooks I gather), which I believe may be a first for a non Kindle ereader. With ePub files it works happily with either non DRM ebooks or using Adobe it will work with DRM protected ebooks, so you can buy your ebooks from almost all online ebook sellers, which is good.

Here is a list of the supported ebook formats:-

• TXT,
• PDF,
• EPUB,
• PDF,
• FB2,
• HTML,
• RTF,
• MOBI.

Not just those, but also…….

In fact the makers claim that this ereader will work with any file that contains text, though I assume by this they do not include photoshop images in which text has been placed and similar files, but any sort of text document they claim will work fine on the ereader. We shall see if this is true as time goes by.

No WiFi:

One retrograde (but presumably cost saving) decision was to not give this ereader any form of WiFi or 3G connectivity, so you will need a computer to download and transfer your ebooks, which is a bit of a drag, and certainly flying in the face of what most modern ereaders consider almost a standard feature.

No Touch Screen.

It is also rather old fashioned in not having a touch screen either, thus all navigation has to be done by means of the various buttons on the face of the ereader. Personally I don’t find this a problem, never having really been a fan of touch screens, but most people want them these days, so that is perhaps a misser.. But once again, I suspect a matter of cost saving.

Battery endurance:

Here it is a winner, they claim about 12000 page turns between charges, or to put it another way, between 3 and 4 weeks hard reading on one full charge. In this respect it is up with the best ereaders.

Conclusion.

This ereader seems to me to be a good device to buy, as it is extremely flexible in the range of ebook files it can work with, it is light and elegant, simple to use (if you have a computer) has a very acceptable screen in all respects and last but not least, it is cheap, selling in Europe for around 90 Euros, In the UK for £69 about AUD129 in Australia and… well I am afraid I do not know the price in Angola or the Philippines, but it should be equally cheap in Kwanzas and Pesos I would expect.

Share with us:

Does the idea of a rather basic, but sound ereader such as this appeal to you? Or would you really rather go with the comparably priced Kindles and Sony ereaders, with their various extra possibilities, such as WiFi, touch screens and so on? Do let us know your views on this here please.