Samsung Papyrus E-Book Reader, Coming Soon

kanewm writes with a snippet from Portable-Ebook-Reader.NET: "Samsung's new, highly portable e-book reader, dubbed 'Papyrus,' will be available in Korea in June 2009 and in the UK and North America sometime later (likely within several months)." As the site notes, though, this lacks some features of the Kindle, the obvious choice for comparison in the American market.

If the DRM is th eonly thing you do not like ...

[stasike]

Well, there are quite a few readers http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_devices [mobileread.com] with much less draconian DRM or even completely without DRM:

Sony Reader PRS-700, Sony Reader PRS-505, Bokeen Cybook Gen3, IRex Digital Reader, IRex iLiad, The Jinke/Hanlin, Ganaxa GeR2, Soribook, Readius, Hanvon N510 , Hanvon N516, astak EZ Reader, Astak Mentor, the new 5" models from several manufacturers and quite a few clones and rebranded OEM versions of above mentioned devices.

Re:Lack of features

[JohnBailey]

well, if DRM is one of those "features" it lacks, I'll consider it. Kindle 2 is nice, but its draconian DRM it is a big no no for me.

Most if not all support multiple formats. Usually only one DRM encumbered format.

Re:All-important specs missing

[AliasMarlowe]

Four words for you: Resolution, Resolution, Resolution, Resolution [you can visualize a monkey-dance here if you like]
The lousy 800x600 greyscale that most ebook readers have makes a mockery of any attempt to render equations or scientific illustrations. For equations, you need higher resolution, unless you are happy with a single equation with a few sub/super scripts filling the screen by itself. For informative diagrams, you need color and resolution. I'll skip ebook readers for a while longer.

Re:Thank God

[larry bagina]

every time there's a review of a css book (such as Friday?), there's a comment to the effect: "my house made of css books is almost complete"

Re:Why in the world

[TheRaven64]

I've tried reading eBooks on a Palm and there's really no comparison with an eInk screen. The eInk display is 166dpi and entirely reflective (no backlight), with contrast similar to newsprint. It's something you can read for hours without developing eye strain, and can read easily sitting in direct sunlight. It may be a one-trick pony, but it's a very valuable one trick. The iPod is a one-trick pony too (why not just use a laptop or mobile phone for playing music too?) but a lot of people are willing to pay for that one trick.

Re:If the DRM is th eonly thing you do not like ..

[Anonymous Coward]

For the Sony Reader, it's all about the .lit format. You can purchase books in that format from most stores, it's very easy to strip the DRM post-purchase, and the .lit converts to .lrf (via Calibre) perfectly. It's how I buy all my books these days.