HMV offers 80-quid colour e-book reader
'Rubber style finish'
HMV has followed John Lewis to pitch what is essentially a 5in media tablet as a colour e-book reader.
His Master's Voice is now offering the View Quest BookBox for £80 online, or £99 in store.
Said tablet's colour screen has a resolution of 480 x 800, but no touch capability, it seems. There's 2Gb of on-board storage, but you can add more using SD cards.
It'll present ePub and PDF files, plus text, HTML, PDB and FB2 format documents. It'll play MP3s and unspecified video too.
Don't expect it to do so all day, mind - HMV quotes six hours' of e-book reading out of the BookBox's 2000mAh battery.
Still, "from the moment you pick it up, you will notice how comfortably it sits in your hand, thanks to the weight distribution and rubber style finish," adds HMV, and you can't argue with that.
You can buy the BookBox here. ®
COMMENTS
Uh?
Since when did minimum wage imply that you could live life to the full and buy anything you wanted?
<rant>
A Kindle is hardly an essential purchase. It's a luxury. Anyone thinking of buying one /ought/ to be earning enough to make it 'less than a days pay'.
</rant>
I'm not trying to knock the poor sods stuck on that paltry pay. Just trying to bring a little realism back into the discussion. If you're paid a shit wage you ought to accept that some goods and services will be out of your reach. That's life. Very few people can buy anything and everything their heart desires.
Minimum Wage
I don't think people on minimum wage would think, "that Kindle is only one whole days pay more, I'll buy that."
Not an e-book
If it does not have an e-ink screen then it is not an e-book
Surely these retailers are missing the point.
They're trying to sell what is effectively a cheap, no-name PMP as an eBook reader, when it only lasts 6 hours? Compared to a kindle which is built from the ground up and whose battery life can be measured in days or even weeks rather than hours, exactly what you need from a reader.
Next they'll be strapping a battery to an iMac and calling it portable.
