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Cybook Ocean 8″ eReader Delayed

Bookeen’s newBookeen Cybook Ocean 8″ ereader won’t be coming out this year.

While French ereader maker Bookeen had originally planned to release the Cybook Ocean before Christmas, they recently announced that this device is going to be delayed by a few months, giving it a new launch date in the first quarter of 2014.

I must say, this is a lot of attention that no one has actually seen yet. No, seriously, all that Bookeen has released are a few clearly photoshopped images like the one below.

bookeen cybook ocean

According to Bookeen’s past announcements, the Cybook Ocean has an 8″ screen with a resolution of 1024 x 768 (close to the same as on the latest 6″ screens). It comes with Wifi, a touchscreen, a frontlight, and 4GB Flash storage and a microSD slot.  Battery life is expected to be around 10 weeks, though it’s not clear whether that is with the frontlight on or off.

Of course, none of these details have been confirmed by any blogger, but this is what bookeen has stated on their blog.

The Cybook Ocean was supposed to have shipped by now, with a retail price of 160 euros.

Assuming that price has not changed, the Cybook Ocean will cost about 10 euros less than the Kobo Aura HD. With a 6.8″ screen, Aura HD has a smaller but much higher resolution screen. It is also unfortunately crippled by being tied to Kobo’s servers (registration and account setup required), so I am torn between recommending the sharper screen and decrying the virtual chains.

The Cybook Ocean also costs about 20 euros more than competing 8″ ereaders like the Icarus8, most of which do not have a frontlight or touchscreen.

Bookeen

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Comments


Name November 30, 2013 um 8:35 am

So 2014 is going to be an exciting year for larger electronic paper devices. "zeng" informs coarsely about upcoming devices from Onyx, that sound pretty interesting: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227304

Will Amazon also join the party? Rumors about that "Paperwhite successor" might well be about a DX successor actually. Wouldn’t the rumored time of presentation fit past presentation dates of new Kindle DX devices?


Basem December 1, 2013 um 9:18 pm

I think they state it will be released in a few weeks but it appears they’re significantly behind schedule and this could take a few months, as you say (may be February – March 2014).

This screen size is similar to the iPad Mini and the Kobo Aura HD is one inch smaller, which is significant (compare, e.g., the Kobo Aura HD with the Kobo Glo). 8.9 inches would be ideal for PDFs but this one should be OK, especially as Bookeen’s firmware, as far as I know, allows for trimming of empty space.

The DX won’t be revived and there is little evidence that the big producers will go that way, any time soon. What we have is smaller companies, often producing either highly priced or sub-par large e-readers (Icarus, Onyx etc.). This Bookeen one is interesting, as the firmware for their 6 inch readers offers some good options for PDFs (assuming they use the same firmware for the 8 inch one). There is also a front light and touch screen, for a good price (if it sells for that price).


MN December 9, 2013 um 4:32 am

"…Bookeen had originally planned to release the Cybook Ocean before Christmas…"

The first announcement was that Ocean would be released in the beginning of November. That’s not acctually "before Christmans"…

Nate Hoffelder May 13, 2014 um 3:44 pm

A month and a half before Christmas? That certainly sounds like before Christmas to me.


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