For all Aussies, here is an  interesting offer.  For $49 you can buy a very basic ereader between 13th April and 20th April.   Aldi are offering this Chinese ereader as one of their Special Buys.

This is the same ereader that has appeared all over the world with a number of different makers’ logos on its front.  It is in fact a very standard ereader that is produced now by quite a number of makers in China, and one that I have looked at a number of times before.

Basically it is a LCD screened ereader with the minimum of extra functions, no WiFi, 3G or touch screens, simply a device on which you can read ebooks, listen to music and watch videos – All of which you will need to transfer from a computer to this gadget via an USB cable.

Being an LCD screened gadget, it’s battery life is measured in hours not weeks as is the case with real ereaders, but if you keep this as an ereader for the lavatory or around the house that isn’t really a problem – most people manage to keep their smart phones going after all, and they have the same sort of battery endurance.

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With the announcement of the launch of the Tolino Shine a couple of days ago, Germany has entered the ereader wars with a vengeance.   It isn’t so much the device itself which is interesting, it is more the fact that a number of Germany’s biggest companies felt it was worth the effort to take on Amazon, Kobo, Sony et. al. in an attempt to gain control of the slowly growing market for ebooks in Germany.

For some reason the whole ereader/ebook phenomena has not really taken off yet in Germany, but what sales there are in that market currently seem to be almost entirely in the hands of Amazon, to the cost of German publishers, and it is this imbalance which the launch of this new ereader is intended to deal with I believe.

So what we have here is a consortium of  Germany’s main publishing and book selling companies (Hugendubel, Thalia, Bertelsmann Club) working with Deutsche Telekom who have produced this ereader and set up a full scale ebook selling system and ereader distribution network in order to achieve this aim.

They have set up a whole network of selling points for both the ereader itself and for German language ebooks as well, so happy Germans will be able to buy this ereader from some 12,500 shops around Germany – which is a pretty amazing number of outlets to start with.  Also there will be no end of German language ebooks available via their own ebook stores, but as this ereader works happily with standard e-Pub and Adobe Editions DRM protection, customers can buy their ebooks from hundreds of other online ebook sellers as well.

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Small is beautiful we are told, well this Trekstor has taken that to heart and have produced the smallest dedicated ereader in the world, the Pyrus Mini, which with its 4.3 inch screen has to be the smallest device for ebook reading there is.

With the proportions of a Smart Phone, this little baby is actually a fully functional ereader in every way except it has no wifi or 3G connectivity, but you cant have everything, and to balance that lack  it is a remarkably cheap gadget as well, costing as little as 49 Euros (depending on where you buy it).

Available in three colours (Black, blue and what they call pink) this ereader has every function one could wish for, 6 different font sizes, easy navigation around your ebook collection, a large enough internal memory for a huge number of ebooks, and of course it supports all the normal ebook formats, including those with Adobe DRM protection.

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For all you Aussies I noticed today that Dick Smith are selling an ereader for $45 called The Glee.  Do not buy it if you want a real ereader.

It claims to be a complete ereader, and on the face of it, that is true enough, it supports no end of ebook formats, can play videos and music, has a colour screen (TFT) and all manner of good sounding things.  But in fact it is the bog standard Chinese gadget that dozens of small factories in China are producing for peanuts and is not really much use for ereading unless you are OK to only read out-of-copyright ebooks as it offers no support for any form of DRM (copyright protection) so you will not be able to buy any ebooks that have copyright protection which is all best sellers and almost all ebooks you can buy at B & N, Kobo, Sony or any other online ebook store…  Or your local library too.

The Dick Smith Glee Ereader

If you follow this link, ( DH Gate) you will see what I mean about this device being produced and sold by endless Chinese companies, and note the prices as well.. Perhaps if you really want one of these, buy yourself a handful from one or other of those Chinese companies and sell the extra ones on via eBay.

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Bebook, a European ereader maker has just added another ereader to their range.   This time it is the BeBook Touch, which subtle name tells you it has a touch screen and is a Bebook ereader…  what could be simpler?

This latest in the Bebook series sports a 6 inch touch screen with a screen resolution of 800 x 600 (not the highest resolution out there, but perfectly acceptable really for reading).

For the rest,  it is a pretty normal and average modern dedicated ereader with no special touches or functions to make it stand out in the crowd.    However, BeBook are known for making reliable devices, so you will probably get good use out of this one, and at the price that will be asking for it, it is a good bargain I feel – Oh, the price?  About 100 Euros.

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Whilst in many ways the newest Kindle, the Paper White with its beautiful front light and amazingly clear screen is to date probably the best ereader there is, it has one lack which I feel is a very serious misser – It does not have a voice.

Apparently the guys who designed the Paper White were told to produce an ereader as cheaply as possible, so they cut costs by leaving out the capacity to speak.  By which I mean this ereader is not capable of playing back any sounds.

Most ereaders can play music if desired, which is a relatively unimportant ability to be honest, but what having built in speakers or earphone sockets is really useful for the famous Text to Speech function.  This is the ability to “read” your ebook to you if for whatever reason you do not feel like reading the ebook, or can’t, and this is the rub.   In the USA it has been declared illegal for Libraries to lend ereaders that do not support Text to Speech to their customers as this is seen as discriminatory towards blind readers.

Obviously you can’t have braille ereaders, but the Text to Speech function makes ebooks accessible to blind readers, and as such is seen as a requirement by law for libraries.

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