At this year’s DEMO conference on emerging technology, Plastic Logic introduced what TGDaily.com called “Plastic Logic’s Kindle killer.” Called, by Plastic Logic employees, “The Plastic Logic Reader,” the device, on its surface, does indeed seem to be a destroyer of Amazon.com-created, handheld, e-book readers.
First things, first. The device itself, is much bigger than the Kindle. The screen is the same size as a sheet of printer paper–8.5 inches wide by 11 inches tall. Said screen is also a touchscreen for easier use than the Kindle, as well. The Plastic Logic Reader’s official product page at PlasticLogic.com describes the device as being “thinner than a pad of paper.”
The page also describes it as supporting Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint formatted documents (one assumes this would include plain text and rich text files as well, since Word can handle them, too). The Reader can also display PDFs, which is really the answer to the first question you want to ask when considering an e-book reader. The second question is how you you get all of those documents onto it.
The answer to that question is quite basic and simple. Which are both generally good things when considering anything. Simple = Good.
There is a mini-USB port on the device for transferring files. However, users can also take advantage of Bluetooth or WiFi file transfers, as well. See that? Nice and simple. Unlike the Kindle model which requires users to get most of their content from Amazon.com. While it’s true that there are other ways to get content onto the device there is something so nice about just dragging and dropping. Also, the device can wirelessly transfer between other Readers. That’s pretty handy.
Plastic Logic is saying they’re aiming their device at mobile business professionals, which is why they claim it’s not a Kindle killer. The thing is, it seems to cover a lot of the same bases as the Kindle and it does it in a more elegant and simple fashion. Sure, you may not be able to download the top-ten best sellers from Amazon.com with ease from where ever you are, but how many people would actually want to do that? It’s obvious that not only could this reader obliterate the Kindle in almost all aspects, it would be the logical choice for anyone who really doesn’t want to carry more devices around than he or she needs to.
The Plastic Logic Reader will ship sometime in the first half of 2009 and one assumes it will be priced to match the Kindle, or perhaps run a bit more pricey since it’s aim at the business-suit crowd.
To see the Plastic Logic Reader demoed at, uh, DEMO ’08, watch the below video embedded from PlasticLogic.com:
