Review e-Book Readers

Have you been looking for a large, high quality premium e-book reader and not having any luck? Maybe the 5 to 9 inch screens of the more popular e-readers don't offer enough screen real estate for your taste. Whatever your reason for wanting a large e-reader, the iRex Digital Reader 1000S might be just what the doctor ordered. Larger than it's competitors made by Amazon and Sony, the iRex comes with a large 10.2 inch screen that closely resembles text written on regular paper. With a touchscreen made by touchscreen leader Waucom, the iRex is a great e-reader that deserves attention.

At first glance you would never have guessed that you were even looking at an e-reader, but rather you would think it was a tablet PC. While it may look like a tablet PC, it doesn't have the backlighting that laptops and tablet PC's have which make them difficult to look at for extended periods of time. The interface of the iRex 1000S looks much like Windows with dialogue boxes and pop-up menus so it's easy to use and just makes sense, even to first time users.

The iRex comes with plenty of space thanks to the 1GB SD card that it uses and can store and read files in TXT, HTML, PDF formats. Not only can you use it for reading eBooks, but because of it's large screen it can be used for presentations that use PDF files or taking to meetings.

Is the iRex 1000S the perfect device for reading ebooks compared to the competition?

If size was your only concern then certainly the iRex would win since none of the competitors have screen sizes of 10.2 inches, but that doesn't mean that they won't in the future. From a portability standpoint the larger screen size can sometimes be annoying. Another issue to deal with is that with the extra screen real estate comes a much higher price tag. While many of the e-readers on the market today can be purchased for less than $500, the iRex 1000S is going to set you back over $700 which might be a deterrent for those that have a tight budget. The other issue with the iRex is the need for a stylus. The touchscreen uses a stylus rather than your finger, so it's important that you always know where the stylus is or you might not be able to use the iRex 1000S.

Reading books on an e-reader is still quite a new phenomenon for many people and there are many avid readers who have never thought of trading in their old paperback novel for an eletronic device. If budget permits, the iRex 1000S is a great e-reader to make that transition to an electronic reader because it's nice and big, and relatively easy to use. For others, the size is more of a deterrent and in that case other e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader Digital Book are ready and waiting to pickup as many customers as they can.

Do you think that the Amazon Kindle is the only game in town? Think again! The ECTACO Jetbook e-book reader is a hot new e-reader that is set to change how you feel about e-readers. While other manufacturers make great e-readers, the Ectaco Jetbook is meant to really catch your attention. First of all you will notice that it's available in red. While the other popular e-readers are grey or white, the Ectaco Jetbook comes in a bright red finish and it's a palm sized device, unlike many of the other popular e-readers. If red isn't your style, don't worry; You can get a jetBook in grey, black and white as well. It comes with a 5 inch grayscale screen that does a great job at allowing you to read e-books without hurting your eyes.

While the Ectaco Jetbook doesn't give you a dedicated website to download e-books, the company has identified many locations that will allow you to download ebooks in FB2, TXT and PDF format to read on your Jetbook. The nice thing about the Jetbook is that it can play MP3 files which is great for listening to audio books and because it's a smaller device, you can easily carry it in your pocket.

There's enough storage space built into the Ectaco Jetbook to store over 1000 ebooks and once you pop in an SD card, you can store thousand of e-books, easily replacing a very large library of books and keeping them on one small device. Whether you want to read a book while you're at school, on the bus, at the office, at the cottage, at home or anywhere in between, the Ectaco Jetbook eBook reader is the perfect device to do it on. With its rechargeable battery you should have enough time to read a number of books before needing to charge it again and it comes with a handy carrying case and a USB cable to connect it to your home computer. A just 7 ounces it one of the smallest and lightest e-book readers on the market today and it's priced competitively compared to other similar models. The Ectaco Jetbook also supports a number of different languages and has the ability to adjust the font size and rotate the screen as needed.

Maybe you haven't made the switch to reading e-books and you're still carrying around your old paperback and hardcover books, why not consider making the switch? Not only can you fit an entire library of books on a device like the Ectaco jetBook ebook reader, but you can also store some music and even black and white photos. If you enjoy books, audio books and music having one device that can do it all seems like a good idea and the Ectaco jetBook will do the job at a competitive price. Even if you're notorious for having a number of books on the go at one time, with little pieces of paper stuck here and there for bookmarks, the jetBook is perfect for you since it has the ability to bookmark.

You're likely familiar with the name of this company because of the electronic translators and other digital products that they make, so when Franklink got into the e-book reader market, it made complete sense. The Franklin eBookMan EBM-911 is called an e-Book reader, but there's more to it than that. Not only does it do a great job of reading digital e-books, but it also has some of the functionality of a PDA, which makes this device a real winner. Instead of calling it an e-book reader, it might be more appropriate to call it an entertainment device.

When you first get your hands on a Franklin eBookman you might think that it's a PDA because it looks much like a Palm PDA. With a 200x240 pixel screen, it's easy to mistake it for a PDA and it goes have some functions that are common to a PDA. For example, if you want to sync your Outlook contacts and email with Intellisync, you can certainly do that with the eBookman. Even though it does have this functionality, it cannot connect to the internet, which is a disappointment.

For a low price the eBookman really gives you a lot for your hard earned dollars. With 16MB of internal storage, you can store books and newspapers, but with the SD slot in the back you can quickly add much more storage. The eBookman has the ability to play MP3's as well which makes it great for audio books and adequate for music if you choose. It's certainly not going to sound as good as your iPod, but if you don't want to carry two different devices, it will do.

The eBookMan EMB-911 was originally released all the way back in 1999 and when it was first released it was really a great product as there just wasn't much competition. As technology advanced and more and more companies started to develop e-book reading devices, the eBookMan became obsolete and is not longer in production. You may have the option of purchasing one of these devices used through websites like eBay. If you're a casual e-book reader and you don't need to store a large number of e-books, the Franklin eBookMan is still a decent value if you can find a deal. Since the Kindle and other similar products have flooded the market today, the eBookman-911 may not be worth as much as it once was, but this certainly doesn't mean it's useless. For example, if you like the small form factor rather than a larger 6 inch or 9 inch screen, this device is a good fit for you.

Ever since the eBookMan ceased production, a very talented and loyal following as kept the eBookMan alive by releasing various programs to run on this old gem. It certainly wasn't because this was an inferior product that this device is not longer in production, but it was due to poor marketing by Franklin. It appears now that they may have been a little too early to the game since other big companies are just now starting to get into e-readers and they're selling well.