The market is flooded with all kinds of e-book readers, and Wink E-Reader is a new challenger coming from India…

More and more Amazon Kindle the recently renewed digital ebook reader is getting new competition. Newcomer is coming from India and is called Wink E-Reader. It supports 15 different languages so that it can be used practically everywhere. EReader has an eink screen with diagonal of six inches (resolution 800 x 600).

Internal capacity of the device is 2 GB, but allows expansion to 16 GB via SD card slot. It has inbuild Wi-Fi and 3G (although it is still unknown whether they will offer worldwide 3G coverage).

Device is based on 400 MHz ARM9 processor, has a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, and supports variety of formats, including audio MP3 and AAC, and many ebook formats, including but not limited to: PDF, ePub, WOLF, HTML, RTF and some others. Price is still unconfirmed, but rumors are it will be below $99. Device should be available globally before the end of year.

Arrival of the Tablet PCs has strong theoretical impact on major sellers of e-books and ebook readers. Popular Amazon Kindlom is no doubt at the forefront of this clash.

But the world's largest online retailer continues to believe in the direction outlined with the original Kindle. The new model that will be presented in late summer will therefore be only the evolution of existing ideas.

The new Kindle will be the even thinner and lighter, while the display will provide even greater sharpness and faster response time in particular.

Amazon' CEO Jeff Bezos, argues that the Kindle is only for reading ebooks, thereby denying the possibility that Amazon could enter an area for display devices and interactive content, where the Tablet PCs are at home. This indicates, that at least in the near future, we should not expect Amazons products with color touch screen.

Acer's CEO introduced company's first e-book reader, known as LumiRead. This e-book Reder, like most devices in this market, has an 6-inch EInk screen, miniSD slot, and 2 GB internal memory. Communication options will includesupport for WiFi and 3G. What is really refreshing will be the availiabilty of many different sources of content. Device will have support for Barnes & Noble online bookstore, Noblekom and Libri.de, and also an unamed chinese ebook service. So it looks like LumiRead's users will have largest number of titles at their disposal from very first day.

Also an technological first will be inclusion of ISBN code scanner, with which users will be able to scan ISBN tags on phisical paper books, and buy ebook version of edition online.

Release date of LumiRead is also scheduled for fall or later this year. Price is still unknown at this moment, but given the fact that Sony already lowered price of its ebook readers, and that Amazon is thinking about lowering the price for Kindle to $150, and given the fact that Acer is known within notebook maker arena as price cutter - we expect the $99 price tag or similar…

Acer also announced another similar device - a tablet with seven inch screen that will run on Google's Android! Acer's unnamed tablet will have 7 inch screen and a hardware keyboard on the bottom (something like Kindle). From the technical documentation we could also dig support for 3G, but much more is not known… Device should come to market before the end of the year (november time frame).

Miniaturization of electronic components has reached a level where the screen becomes a key element determining dimensions of the device. Sony recently showcased a OLED screen, which can be rolled into a tube (like paper around a pencil), and thus the possibility of further miniaturization is greatly increased.

The new display consists of a thin transistors, seeded on film foil only 20 micrometers thick. It includes properly adapted electronic circuits that are in charge of power transmission and sending the data about the image. Display has diagonal of 10.4 cm (4,1 inch) and can be rolled into cylinders with a diameter of around 4 millimeters. Screen resolution is 432 x 240 pixels, contrast 1000: 1, brightness is 100 cd/m2.

At this time, Sony is not announcing any prices of products based on this breakethrough OLED display! See this display in action below:

From sources within Amazon we heard that company is thinking seriously about reducing the price of Kindle ebook reader to just $150, while about a possible price reduction of Kindle DX still does not say anything…

Also other sources on the Net confirm our information, and it looks like Kindle e-Book reader will soon be available at reduced price of only $ 150. This means a reduction of more than one hundred dollars. With this move, Amazon will try to compete with Apple and its ipad, which recently appeared on the market, and which many users see as a better replacement for conventional eink e-book readers like Kindle. Currently one can not yet say precisely what impact will the ipad and the other tablets bring to the market of eink e-book readers.

More will be known in few months, when quarterly business reports from Amazon and other ebook reader makers will show real impact of ipad. We can just speculate for now about the fall of the sales of eink e-book reader. It is still unknown whether more interest in tablets means less interes in ebook readers, as in essence they are two very much different devices… The first move in the market was already done by Sony, as the company recently dropped the price of its smallest e-Book Reader. Next move will bo done by Amazon.

The newest addition to ebook reader market is the Alex eReader. Alex eReader is produced by US company Spring Design. Device features large 6 inch eInk display (16 shades of gray) on the top and 3.5 inch color touchscreen display on the bottomof the unit.

Device runs Google Android 1.5 OS as first of ereaders. Therefore it offers best of both worlds - and is feature wise similar to iPad. eBook eink screen offers long (weeks) autonomy, but color display in the bottom offers web browsing and usage of android applications… Alex eReader supports WiFi and 3G, and has removable SD card reader.

First reivews are popping in, and the word is that device might soon be sold in rebranded model from big retailer (maybe Barnes & Noble's next ereader?):

First information about the upcoming Microsoft e-Reader began circulating last September and since then the vast Internet Community was very much interested in what lies behind the name Courier. Steve Ballmer did not want to disclose anything about the new device, but lately bunch of useful information and pictures came forth from unnamed but presumably reliable source. At a time convenient to slightly turn the story of Apple iPad.

Microsoft’s e-reader device, Courier will be extremely portable. This means that everything weighs just a pound (0,5 kg), and that device will be less than an inch (3 cm) thick. While closed (it will have a shape of book when open), its outer dimensions will be compared with photographs 4×6” (13×18 cm) format. It is interesting which OS will power the device -  contrary to popular belief this will not be Windows 7, but rather Windows CE 6, with the Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processor inside…

The touch screens of the device can be used with hands, fingers and included pen. With pen you can draw a and write. There will be an in-build camera and headset output support. Price is still unknown, but as device closes to its release in second half of the year, more details should appear…

More on Microsoft Courier – New generation of e-book / i-pad kind of touch tablet device…

People who bought brand new e-book reader during recent holidays, were a bit worried that what might get shown at Consumer Electronics Show 2010 might ruin their day.. But despite CES had more e-book readers on show as any year before, there was nothing revolutionary that would cast shadow over your brand new Nook or even Kindle (especially if you bought the international version)…

Among top dogs on the show were QUE proReader, Entouraged eDge, Samsung e6, Spring Design Alex, Skiff, iRiver Story, Aluratek Libre Pro, Booken Cybook Orizon, DMC Worldwide… What is really showing that ebook readers are taking off, is the amount of noname chinese ebook reader device, which could be seen everywhere.

While new devices bring a lot of the new features on the table, none tops best reading experience and best content support, which two existing rivals (Kindle and Nook) already offer. But still – competition works in favor of the customers, so we welcome all new devices. We will try to review them first hand, when they are available on market…

Also – can’t wait to see what new devices will be shown early march at Hannover’s CeBit… Still awaiting big news on ASUS’s ebook reader, which should bring down the price tag considerably…

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Last October company Plastic Logic announced its e-reader device Que. And in this year's CES the product was finally presented. Que e-book reader device has an integrated WiFi for wireless data acquisition, and also integrated 3G module. The A4 sized screen 10,7 inch in diameter (8.5 x 11 inch) is touch-sensitive, based on mixture of new plastic display technology the QUE has been working on for last 10 years already known E-Ink tech from Viziplex. The device has 4 or 8 GB of integrated memory, and supports all kind of document types: office files, PDF, eBooks, ePub… It comes with a software that allows synchronization of calendar with many applications (Outlook, Blackberry, MAC), and you can also convert all sorts of files to QUE. Device if just 1/3 inch thick (0,8 cm), and weight about a pound (0,5 kg).

QUE allows reading e-mails, PDFs, ePublicitations, e-books, viewing entire schedule, markup on documents, editing documents (office), writing emails… and obviously aims to be more than just another e-book reader. Looks like QUE declared war on paper, as it supports digital tasks thru the whole business day…  All in all beautifully designed, in a high quality device, with crisp clear touchscreen, with long battery life. It comes with intuitive user interface, and access to one million titles to choose from (Barns & Noble), and also offers digital subscriptions to e-magazines/e-newspapers.

QUE's e-ProReader will be available in april 2010. Price will start at $649.

After the phenomenon of netbooks and nettops in last few years, everybody is waiting for the next boom. The coming years could be dedicated to simpler devices, particularly electronic book readers. Big players in the industry of computer equipment that moment does not want to miss it, and is therefore already preparing the relevant product. We are talking of ASUS, father of netbook with their EEEpc. ASUS announced, that they will offer its own e-book reader by the end of this year. Reader will primarily be well equipped in the area of connectivity, it should also include a wireless technology, 3G and WiMAX. Well-informed in the industry say that the device is equipped with 9-inch screen, which will give it a unprecedented advantage on current mainstream series of ebook readers with 6-inch screens (Amazon Kindle, Sony DX, others)…  What we know of ASUS, we are sure that the pricing will be aggressive as well! The only big mystery which remains is – regarding provider of content for it. Will it rely solely on local import function to load PDFs, .doc. txt. rtf… or will it be able to buy from online book stores?