Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review

Samsung just entered the US eReader market with its E6 and E101 Readers - there won’t be a comprehensive samsung reader review until the release in ‘early 2010 - March/April’ so here’s a review of features and some thoughts.

Samsung Reader E6 – Review of Features, Price

The Samsung Reader E6 is much more polished than the SNE-50K which Samsung sells in Korea. Let’s start with its main advantages.

Samsung Reader Killer Features, and Writing in addition to Reading

By far the biggest push Samsung is making is that E6 is an eWriter as well as an eReader. There’s certainly some merit to it as this video demonstrates (jump to the 1:30 mark for the good part) –

By using a special electromagnetic resonance stylus pen Samsung avoid the problem of having hands and fingers interfere with writing. You can even flip the pen around and use it as an eraser.

The killer features of the Samsung E6, in addition to support for writing, are -

1. Free Books from Google. Samsung hasn’t specified whether Google Editions will also be supported.  
2. Support for wireless downloads via 802.11 b/g WiFi and BlueTooth 2.0. Samsung are a bit hazy on 3G support.
3. Text To Speech.
4. A slide out panel that has navigation controls and stereo speakers. The only buttons on the E6′s non slide-out main part are the page turn buttons.

Thanks to RegHardware for some good Samsung Reader details and Crunch Gear for the Samsung E6 video and some decent analysis.

Achilles Heel of the Samsung E6 – the $399 Price

The $399 price of the Samsung Reader E6 puts it in the same tier as the $399 Sony Reader Daily Edition (with a 7″ screen) and the $489 Kindle DX (with a 9.7″ screen).

1. Even the $259 price of the Kindle and Nook is a bit of a stumbling block.
2. The $399 price of the E6 is a non-starter.
3. Even people who can afford $399 will have a tough time picking the E6 due to the features of the Daily Edition (touch, larger screen, Sony Store, Library Finder) and the Kindle DX (larger screen, free Internet, international whispernet).

Samsung Reader E6 Features

Let’s quickly list all features (even the unglamorous ones) -

1. 6″ screen. eInk and reflects light – no backlight.  
2. Stylus support via a special stylus. 
3. Stylus can be used for writing and drawing.  
4. Page Turn buttons at the bottom of the front face.
5. Slide-out navigation pad with direction keys, centre button, home, and 3 more keys.
6. Free books from Google.
7. Download books and newspapers from a server wirelessly.
8. Interesting looking user interface with lots of options like images and music.
9. Up to 2 weeks of battery life and battery recharges in 4 hours.
10. Early 2010 release – March or April supposedly.
11. $399 Price point.
12. The stylus technology is from Wacom.

Quite an interesting list.

Samsung Reader E6 – Thoughts

1. The E6 manages to add writing and note taking without messing up the screen’s readability. That’s a huge step forward.
2. However, the good of the writing feature is washed out by the extremely high price – $399 is $140 more than the Kindle and the Nook. That’s 14 bestsellers.
3. The lack of a full book store is strange.
4. The design is quite good although eReader companies’ fascination with white eReaders is puzzling. Having a black eReader would make the contrast of the eInk seem better.

Version 1 of the Samsung E6 Reader is too expensive – there just won’t be enough people buying it and its cool writing feature will be wasted.

Samsung Reader E101 – Thoughts

Samsung revealed very few details on the E101 -

1. It’s $699 and has a 10″ screen.
2. The screen is an eInk screen.
3. In nearly every way (other than the screen size and price) the E101 is the same as the E6.
4. There’ll be videos later in the day.

At a $699 price point the E101 is closer to an Apple iSlate competitor than an eReader. Really makes you wonder who Samsung think they are going to sell the E101 to.