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Bookeen’s new Odyssey eReader with Frontlight and HD E-ink Screen Leaked by Retailer!

A rumor has been going around these past couple weeks that Bookeeen was going to unveil a new ereader and it looks like it was true. One French retailer seems to have put the product page up a little early, and before they could take it down again Cnet France posted a story and a screen shot.

There is still no official news announcement on the new ereader and I don’t have the product page myself, so I don’t really know all that much at the moment. But I would think the details are obvious.

Bookeeen has clearly been working with the same HD E-ink screen as everyone else, and they are following the herd in adding a frontlight as well. It looks to me like they took their existing ereader, the 6″ Cybook Odyssey, and modified it so it could compete in the new ereader market. This device also has a microSD card slot, Wifi, and a capacitive touchscreen.

The new model is reportedly going to be out in November with a retail of 129 euros. That’s the same price in euros as the Kobo Glo, which is still suffering from a botched roll out. Unfortunately I cannot compare the price of the Kindle Paperwhite because Amazon has not announced a European release.

Now this does say interesting things about the ereader market, doesn’t it? In the past few years we’ve gone through cycles where the ereaders got cheap, then they got touchscreens, and now everyone is adoption frontlights with high resolution screens.

I kinda feel sorry for Sony and B&N. They both guessed wrong, to one degree or another. Neither is using the higher resolution screen, and that will hurt their sales in the coming quarters.

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Comments


Mike Cane October 9, 2012 um 8:36 am

"eInk is so much bettAR for the eyes. No light shining in my face!"

"OMFGZ!!! eInk FINALLY has LIGHTING!!!"

GMAFB.


Mike Cane October 9, 2012 um 8:41 am

>>>…and that will hurt their sales in the coming quarters.

What will hurt all of them is a frikkin $99 Nexus tablet. "If we’re going to buy something to read with, why pay more than $99 for black and white when we can have color too? And play movies! And Angry Birds!"

fjtorres October 9, 2012 um 9:21 am

Don’t overestimate the value of mediapads.
Or underestimate the value of light weight and extreme battery life.

Mike Cane October 9, 2012 um 12:22 pm

Original Barnes & Noble Nook: 7.7? x 4.9? x 0.5? – 12.1 oz
Nexus 7: 7.8″ x 4.7″ x 0.4″ – 11.9 oz

You were saying WHAT about weight?

And if you play a video on a rooted eInk device, you’ll get the same battery life.

Mike Cane October 9, 2012 um 12:23 pm

Damn "s got somehow converted to ?s back there.

fjtorres October 9, 2012 um 1:39 pm

The original Nook was reviewed as DOA in many circles. Precisely because of the weight. 🙂
Try comparing the Nexus to the *current* K4 basic or STR or even Sony T1/T2?
Or the PB360+, Kobo Mini, or TXTR Beagle.
Battery life?
Most readers give an *honest* 27-30 hours of reading, versus 9-10 of tablet reading hours.
Triple the reading time for a third of the weight? Half to a third of the price, too.
There’s room for *both* approaches; neither is going to wipe out the other.


fjtorres October 9, 2012 um 9:19 am

As you say: it’s a *typical* technology adoption cycle.
First generation tech toys establish the category at a premium price; eventually the product breaks through to the mainstream, at which point it becomes a race to get volume up and prices down until a significant portion of the product’s natural market adopts it and sales plateau. At that point, the breakthrough configuration effectively becomes the product’s entry-level and the new race is to add value for upgraders.
This new wave of readers are primarily targetted to *existing* ebook owners who will no longer be satisfied with just being able to read ebooks on a nice device, but want one that does it noticeably *better* than their existing toy.
With "better" being premium screens, more portable, more flexible, more features…
Welcome to Eink readers 3.0. 🙂


Cynthia October 10, 2012 um 11:49 am

Somehow, I doubt that a $99 Nexus tablet will have the kind of resolution that *I* need to read on comfortably, so far, NO 7″ tablet does. I need what I have in my Samsung Galaxy Note (around 289 ppi) for comfort reading on a backlit screen.

Have seen a Kindle Fire HD, better than the Kindle Fire, but the text still looks pixelated.

And I still vastly prefer reading on my e-ink Sony 350! There’s definitely still room for e-ink readers!


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