eSlick May Be The eBook Reader To Beat
It only supports two formats – PDF and plain text. It offers no wireless connectivity. It doesn’t seem to support DRM, which is how most new commercial books are sold. The screen is black and white. Aside from displaying books, the only thing it can do is play MP3s. It’s a little homely. And I want one.
Here’s why: The planned price for the Foxit eSlick is $259, with early adopters getting a $30 discount on that price. That’s cheaper than popular competing devices from Sony and Amazon.
Designed for printing, Adobe’s PDF isn’t a great format for online reading, but Foxit software should make things bearable. For example, text re-flow is supported, which theoretically makes font resizing painless. The biggest barrier to this device’s success may be a lack of commercial books — most publishers demand digital rights management (DRM). Savvier users can grab scanned or cracked books off of Bit Torrent for free, or can buy books in an easily cracked format like Microsoft’s LIT, but cracking DRM (even on media you’ve purchased) may violate the DMCA, and it’s something publishers will try to combat aggressively.
The device itself uses e-ink, just like the Sony readers and Amazon’s Kindle. That means amazing battery life – good for an estimated 8,000 page turns (refreshes). Just displaying a page uses no juice at all. The eSlick weighs in at 6.5 ounces, and it’s 0.4” thick. The grayscale screen measures 6-inchs and is made by the same company as the Kindle’s screen. The reader has 128MB of internal memory and an SD card slot.
The included Foxit software will convert any printable document to PDF format. A 2GB SD card and stereo headphones are also included.
Foxit is now taking pre-orders for the eSlick.
