I was just over at Bill McCoy’s blog (Adobe) reading his latest post about the current number of dedicated eBook readers which support the Adobe DRM’d EPUB format. Of course there are a number of other reading devices, such as the iPhone that can read non-DRM EPUB eBooks, but it is still surprising how many there actually are.
The Adobe Digital Edition Devices page has a little more details on each but here’s a very quick run down;
- EZ Reader
- EZ Reader Pocket Pro
- Mentor
- BeBook One
- BeBook Mini
- Cybook Gen3
- Cybook Opus
- Cool-er
- Elonex eBook
- Hanlin V5
- Hanlin V3
- iRex Digital Reader 1000S
- NUUT2
- Sony Reader PRS-300
- Sony Reader PRS-505
- Sony Reader PRS-600
- Sony Reader PRS-700
Have you heard of all these?
Bill himself seems suprised, saying, “this is faster take-up than even this optimist had hoped for, given our launch less than six months ago of the enabling Adobe Reader Mobile 9 SDK that’s been integrated into all of these products.”
Whether you believe DRM is right or wrong, the positive side of this is that we are seeing more vendors supporting the one eBook format.
We are however still waiting to see if the Amazon Kindle’s will start supporting EPUB; will they use their own DRM – will they use any DRM at all. Let us also not forget Apple, what formats will they support on their upcoming tablet.
i’ve heard of the sonys and the irex. i even might like to buy the sony reader if amazon would dump azw and go with epub. until there’s a real standard, and i can feel confident that i’ll be able to read the ebooks i purchase now 20 years from now on some unknown future device, i can’t really get into the ebook world.
In addition to all the normal DRM problems, this seems to require using Adobe Digital Edition. I find this product to be ill thought out and badly implemented.
Maybe Adobe should stop requiring mandatory brain removal as a condition of employment.
You could put my knowledge of ebook readers into a thimble and have room left for more! It would be nice if all the manufacturers would honestly & simply tell us what their equipment does and doesn’t do; what’s included and what is not; what all can be accessed and where. I’m very interested
in purchasing an ebook reader but whose is the best bang for
buck? To be honest, I really like the Kindle but am not at all excited about the closed door policy of Amazon.Com. I’d like to download ebooks from my local district library as well as purchase from various websites. Nearly every site I have gone to requires ‘their’ version of software to read
‘their’ books and that just doesnt’ interest me at all. I may just sit on the sitlines a bit longer and patiently await a ‘Single Standard’ and an ebook reader that does it all.