Found on the Baen Bar e-books forum: NewEgg is offering the Aluratek “Libre” LCD e-book reader at a sale price of $129.99 (with free shipping), discounted from its “original price” of $199.99.
We previously mentioned a Gadgeteer review of this unit, which seems (according to comments to that review) to be a rebadged Ectaco Jetbook. It supports PDF, TXT, FB2, EPUB, MOBI, PRC, and RTF e-book formats, and Adobe Digital Editions DRM. While it is an LCD unit rather than e-ink, the review finds it to be quite readable and without the annoying “e-ink flash.”
To add to the fun, the Jetbook lite (which uses regular AA batteries) is at $99 at J&R via Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Ectaco-jetBook-Electronic-eBook-Reader/dp/B002Z6B4AC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1271972389&sr=8-1
Looks like $99 list price is coming sooner than expected.
Felix, that’s amusing. Amazon is selling an e-reader that can only buy DRMed e-books from Barnes & Noble!
Okay, it’s actually being sold by J&R, but still…
It’s even more complicated. The hardware is generic Chinese, using a Japanese designed display, the jetBook software is from New York & Russia, and the Aluratek software is from yet another party, whose location I forget.
Nonetheless, if you only want to read fairly simple fare, with no DRM to speak of, it’s a very good value. I use my non-lite jetBook for much of my reading. And I paid the ungodly price of =gasp= $180.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
Jack Tingle: Might I ask how stable is the JetBook firmware? One of my cousins is looking for a simple “bridge” reader to replace her now-dead Ebookwise 1150 until the Win7 Netpads ship in volume. The Jetbook lite looks like a viable option, *if* the software is stable enough.
Felix: I’ve had my Jetbook Lite for about 6 weeks and have not had any problems so far. It arrived with firmware version 0.15 installed; there’s an update to 0.15d but I haven’t installed yet so I have no personal experience as to its stability.
I love my JBL, especially at the $99 price point (Fictionwise had a special for a while of $149 with a $50 rebate in the form of store credit). It’s very very portable, actually fitting in a man’s shirt pccket. The LCD screen has excellent contrast and readability and no page-turn flicker like e-ink. Best of all, I can use rechargeable AA batteries and with a spare set always recharged, I can swap them on the go in a minute, no downtime to let the unit recharge an internal battery, no expensive battery replacement a year or two in the future.
It reads secure (DRM) Ereader format books, as well as almost any non-DRM format you can think of. The only thing missing right now, IMHO, is the ability to read Adobe Epub DRM but they say that should be coming soon in a firmware update.
Update: Apr28, 2010
Newegg has a one day deal on the Jetbook lite at US$99 with free shipping.
Walmart.com has the Sony PRS-300 at US$149.