Ectaco Jetbook Color e-book reader due in January for $500
updated 12:25 pm EST, Wed December 7, 2011
Ectaco Jetbook Color due with lots of software
Ectaco will ship its first color e-book reader in mid-January, and the device is now ready for pre-order. The Jetbook Color sports a 9.7-inch, 1600x1200 Triton Color E Ink touchscreen and a Wi-Fi connection. It's actually a re-brand of China's Hanvon reader that's available in Eastern Europe.
The US gets its own firmware and educational apps, along with a 50-state reading list and interactive SAT course. There is a text-to-speech feature that can read e-books to users, and the tablet supports Adobe DRM 9.1, ePub, Mobi, PRC, RTF, TXT, PDF, FB2, and djvu text along with JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP formats, with even more promised later. A microSD memory card slot promises to expand storage by up to 32GB. Reference materials for math and the sciences are preloaded, as are dictionaries, translators and speech recognition and analysis software. Graphic and scientific calculators are also built-in.
The device is priced at $500, which is high for an e-book reader considering the Kindle Fire, albeit smaller at seven inches, trades for just $200. A case is included, however. [via The Verge]
Ectaco tablet on left, Hanvon original on right
