There's the Que from Plastic Logic, which looks interesting except for the price. I never lost my Kindle (two broke, didn't lose one), I did lose an iPod Touch, I'm not eager to have a $650 or $800 gadget to lose. That being said, the device itself looks kind of nifty.
There was talk of the Microsoft Courier, but the big intro from them was the HP Slate, which has some book-reading capability. I've chased a few different web sites with coverage of this intro, and it isn't making me froth in anticipation.
Gawker says (link courtesy of PW) there are too many of these now, and they may be right. Gawker says E-ink is an interim technology and there's some back and forth on that in the comments. I do know for sure that I'm no E-ink fan unless it works as easily in a wide temperature range as printed sheets of paper do.
After that, who knows? Since there are so many different e-book stores and approaches it's not even like the VHS vs. Betamax war where you could have many choices but still using the same 2 underlying technologies. I wouldn't know what to buy right now if I decided I wanted another dedicated e-book reader. There's a good chance faced with so many choices and so much market confusion that I'd simply buy a Nook or a Kindle even if were much worse than something else because it was at least a name brand that involved less thought. It will be interesting to see what Apple has to offer, or if any of these other products emerges from the fog. I'd like to see something really really good emerge. The one thing I'd hate to see is a mediocre device from a major player become the default standard and sole survivor simply because the profusion of devices sends people toward the higher comfort level.
The NY Times has a 3 minute video about e-book readers and the CES, but since I can't find a way to link to a specific video, well... maybe if you go looking soon you can find it yourself.
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