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Hands On With the iReader Plus 6.8″ eReader (video)

ireader-1iReader is chiefly known outside of China for its apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad, but  it claims a considerably larger presence in China.

Lesen.net caught up iReader at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and they report that iReader has sold over a million ereaders in China, and that they have over over 500 million people using the iReader iOS and Android apps.

iReader was showing off one of their ereaders at the FBF. It is called the Ireader 2 in the video, but from what I can tell on the IReader website the correct name is the iReader Plus.

This is the only ereader which iReader is promoting on its site right now, and it sports a 6.8″ screen with frontlight and touchscreen. Under the hood the Plus has a 1GHz Freescale CPU, 8GB storage, and Wifi & BT – but no audio.

It weight 208 grams, and the price, according to the video, is about $150.

Again, iReader claims to have sold a million ereaders, but that is rather hard to believe given that I had never heard of their hardware. I obsess over obscure ebook readers, and I hang out at MobileRead Forums with others who share my obsession, and I can’t find any references to iReader devices.

That makes me doubt that iReader has actually sold a million units.

What do you think of the device?

Lesen.net

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Comments


Shirley Dulcey October 29, 2016 um 5:06 pm

It’s possible that they have sold a million devices if they’re nearly all in China. We don’t hear much about companies that only operate there, except for a few really big ones, and even then mostly when they start to think about expanding out of China.

I’m more dubious about the 500 million app users. They might have that many copies of the app installed if they have persuaded Chinese phone makers to pre-load the app on their phones, but that doesn’t mean that they all actually use it.

The device itself looks nice. Same resolution as the Kindle Paperwhite and other recent 6″ readers, but bigger. I think that’s a faster CPU as well, though it’s not that big a deal on an e-ink device because the speed of the display is typically the limiting factor. It will be a hard sell in the US where the only significant e-reader player is Amazon, but it may do well elsewhere.

poiboy October 29, 2016 um 8:28 pm

i also love searching out rare and unique ereaders and my friends in hong kong (who love ereaders) also have heard very little of the ireader. i doubt the 1M units sale quote is accurate. retail hyperbole more likely.

Nate Hoffelder October 30, 2016 um 12:09 am

Or, it might simply be the result of a miscommunication. The original source was German, and the company rep was Chinese. They were conversing in a third language, English, and the info might simply have gotten gabled in translation.

poiboy October 30, 2016 um 12:47 am

that is also much more likely as well. lol


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