Today is a nice place to visit but you can't stay here for long
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Pandigital launches a 7-inch Android e-reader at IFA 2010
A 7-INCH ANDROID E-READER has been launched by German company Pandigital at IFA 2010 with plans for the product to go on sale in the fourth quarter in Europe.
Called Novel, the 540g e-reader has an 800x600 colour TFT LCD touchscreen with virtual keyboard and has software for the downloading and presentation of e-books. It comes in black or white and runs Android 2.1, with a Samsung ARM 11 mobile processor, 1GB of memory, WiFi, a 1,600mAhr battery, accelerometers for portrait or landscape orientation and an SD card slot for up to 32GB. It can also be used as an alarm clock.
The e-reader is also able to browse the web, show photos and play MP3, WAV and AAC files and MPEG4 video. However there is no third party music or video download or streaming service.
No prices were available at its European launch but in the US the Novel can be purchased for $150. Pandigital told The INQUIRER that an e-ink version was planned for launch in 2011. µ
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I purchased one soon after the factory recall and update. For the price, it is acceptable and useful. There are some good hacks available and I have Panda Home running on mine. For younger users general use, it is a better choice than a $500-$800 ipad.
http://www.pandigital.net/userfiles/file/press/2010/2010_08/Pandigital%20Novel%20Black%20eReader%20NR%20FINAL%208-18-10.pdf
...the specs suck for a tablet, but if it's called an eReader and it's cheap then people will buy it and apologetically say "it's slow on the net cuz it's an eReader, but I use it because it has a better browser than Kindle or Nook" when people are asked why their tablet sucks.
Android + touchscreen (I'm guessing resistive) + WiFi + browser + removable storage at $150 makes for a cheap-as-chips tablet, regardless of what it's called.
@ff: if you read as far as the second paragraph you'll find what screen technology it uses. If you read the whole article you'll even find when eInk will be (supposedly) available :)
The miserable size of the battery on this thing. iPad battery - 6700mAh, life 10 hours. Samsung tablet battery - 4000mAh, life 7 hours. Pandigital battery - 1600mAh, life is likely to be sub 3 hours. Not good for a reader.
Why is it an ereader? Does it have a colour e-ink screen or something that makes it easy to read books for long periods? Otherwise surely its just a tablet with ereading software like all computers can have?