eReaders

Here at eBookNewser we’ve been reading eBooks for years, but we realize that many people out there are still nervous about digital books. In fact, last month at the Digital Book World conference in New York, Kelly Gallagher, VP, publishing services at R.R. Bowker, revealed that 74% of book buyers have never bought an eBook. To help make the transition smoother, we’ve put together a list together to demystify eReaders.

1. eBooks don’t feel or smell as good as print books. Do you really read books for how they smell? eBooks have the same great stories as their print counterparts and you can carry around a lot more with you than you can print books.

2. eBooks are expensive. This is not true. eBooks are usually  cheaper than their hardcover counterparts. Plus there are millions of free eBooks out there in the public domain. And while eReaders used to be fairly pricey, these days you can get an eReader new for less than $100 and they are even cheaper if you get one second hand on eBay. Read more

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Daily Steals has a great deal today. They’re carrying the Nook Touch, Barnes & Noble 6″ eReader, for only $69.

It’s a refurbished model, but it comes with the same warranty and service of the new ones. This truly is  good deal, and it beats the best price of the Kindle by $10.

It’s surprising how prices continue to drop, isn’t it? We’re only  few months away from the Nook Touch hitting the $99 price point, and now it’s selling for $69. At this rate, we could well see the Nook or Kindle reach $50 by April.

Daily Steals

If you’re like me and you cannot stop at just a single tablet, I have some good news for you. Walmart has the Kindle Fire on sale for the next couple weeks. It’s selling for the regular price, but it comes with  $50 gift card.

The KF is just over 2 months old, and it is already on sale. That would seem to suggest that sales aren’t quite as good as Amazon might hope. And I think this sale suggests that just the Kindle Fire is doing poorly, because Walmart isn’t offering  similar deal on anything else.

While this isn’t strictly a sale, it still comes to a very nice deal. It’s easy to spend $50 at Walmart; just buy another gadget. But if you do, please be careful about how you buy it. If you buy  product online and decide to return it, you will have a lot of trouble should you take it to a store.

Walmart

It looks like the UK eReader price war is starting to heat up a little. Go check the Asda website today and you’ll see that they’ve dropped the price of the Kobo Touch.

When they first started carrying the Kobo Touch in early December, Asda priced it at £107. That price prompted WH Smith, Kobo’s new UK ebookstore partner, to drop their price to £99. And today we see Asda’s response.

This is happening rather slower than I expected, but it’s a good sign nonetheless. The UK eReader market is getting as competitive as the US market. In fact, it might actually be more competitve now.

Consider the prices. In the US you can get an ad-supported Kindle for $79 or an ad-supported Kobo Touch for $99 ( $20 difference). But in the UK you can get a Kindle for for £89 or the Kobo Touch for £87. Who knows, we might even see Amazon lower their price in response to Asda and WH Smith.
That would be good for everyone.

Barnes & Noble only puts the NookColor on sale on days ending in ‘y’, and that probably explains today’s offer.

B&N is selling refurbished NC on Ebay today for $20 off the regular price. That’s a decent price for this 7″ tablet, but it is also not the best price. B&N has put the NC on sale for as low as $99.

 

Ebay

It didn’t take long for the Nook Tablet to get hacked, and in short order the Nook Tablet had  full suite of Google apps, support tools, and more. But one thing that was lacking was  root technique that made it super easy, so almost anyone could do it. That changed today.

A hacker going by the name of Indirect has just posted instructions on how you can root a Nook Tablet with just a microSD card. His method hacks the Nook Tablet and installs Google apps (Android Market, Gmail, etc).

This technique requires at least a small amount of technical skills. You’ll need to be able to format a petition on the microSD card. That’s where you will copy the hack files before inserting the card in your Nook Tablet. After you have the card ready to go ll you hve to do is insert it into a powered down Nook Tablet

via XDA Forums

If you haven’t made plans to attend the Tools of Change Conference, which is coming up in another few weeks, be prepared to drool with envy. O’Reilly will be having an eReader petting zoo on the last day of the conference, and we already have a couple dozen devices waiting to go on display.

Over the past couple months I have been working with Joe Wikert to bring together various tablet and eReader manufacturers. I’ve also dipped into my collection to provide some eReader that you might not see elsewhere.

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The Ukrainian eReader maker PocketBook has just announced  major update to their eReaders. The Pro series is getting  number of improvements, including a better web browser, improved library, and more.

The new firmware promises to have an improved multitasking function. Readers will be able to open and switch between several eBooks, the web browser, or another app in a split second – all without closing your book.

The library menu has been completely overhauled. In addition to responding faster, they now offer new search and sorting options, including author, title, series and other parameters. The web browser has also been worked on, and PocketBook has promised that it is both faster and smoother.

Readers can also now have up to 10 eBooks open at once and easily switch between them. The update notes also mention that handwritten notes are now supported, in addition to highlighting and bookmarks.

You can download the update from the PocketBook support site,

via PocketBook

The Sony Reader Wifi, Nook, and Kindle aren’t the only eReaders being hacked. The Boox, a lesser known eReader developed by Onyx, also has  dedicated following who are devoted to expanding its abilities.

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I’ve written in the past about efforts to bundle a tablet with a newspaper subscription, and today B&N is going to see if that will work for an eReader.

Barnes & Noble has just announced that they now have no less than 3 bundling offers. From now until 9 March, all new NYTimes Nook subscriptions will comes with a free Nook Touch or a discounted NookColor for $99. And B&N is also offering a discounted NooK Tablet with any new subscription to People Magazine.

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