Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

There has been speculation that Txtr might just be vaporware – However, the prototype displayed at CeBit and the accompanying video pretty much proves its an actual product.

Wizpac (the company behind Txtr and Txtr.com) has released some more details -

1. They say its based on Open Standards.  They’re going to throw it open to developers and hope no one breaks the essential functionality.
2. It has a 6 inch screen.
3. That you can connect to the Internet over WLAN, GPRS or UMTS. Also supports Bluetooth.
4. Internet usage and data transfer is NOT free.
5. Like how they say that the Txtr’s frame just has a clickpad on the left and is free of the plethora of buttons of the Sony PRS-505 and the keyboard of the Kindle from Amazon. 
6. Measures 146 x 128.2 x 8 mm and weighs 260 grams.
7. Its orientation changes according to how you hold it – obviously a function of the accelerometer.  
8. Connects to PCs via MicroUSB and has a MicroSD slot.
9. Battery is not interchangeable.
10. Txtr to Txtr communication and texting.
11. First releasing in Europe, and contracts in the US still being negotiated (Verizon Wireless’ offer probably).
12. Say they will price it based on competitors and also see a sharp fall in costs in the medium term, or as Google Translate so succinctly interprets it -
    

    “One day the car dealership the car manual as an e-book reader settle.”

Here’s the Txtr Video -

You know what – I’ve never been able to figure out why all the people who take videos of eBook Readers only seem to devote 25% of the actual video screen real estate to the reader and the rest to irrelevant things like their arms, and the conference hall floor and other people’s legs.

The image gallery is available at golem.de.

My favorite part of the translation -

Andreas Steinhauser, who has co-founded Wizpac, sporty: “Given the large tankers, we are the speedboat,” he says.

And finally technical specifications -

Technical Specifications for the Txtr eReader 

1. Freescale CPU 532MHz – that’s a faster processor. 
2. Capacitive slider interface – basically one of those sliding touch interfaces – think like an iPod’s scroll wheel, except not circular.
3. Next generation Epson display controller.
4. Linux kernel
5. Integrated 3D accelerometer for automatic orientation detection – Now this is really interesting.
6. Full integration with txtr online community platform
7. eInk-optimized power management system, and Li-Ion battery
8. 64MB SDRAM onboard
9. MicroSD memory card slot with 4GB MicroSD card included.
10. Internal 3G/GPRS modem
11. USB 2.0 cable connection
12. Bluetooth 2.1 for audio, external keyboard and future enhancements
13. WiFi
14. Low power 2.4GHz near range communication

Filed under: eBook Reader Devices Tagged: | kindle killer, txtr