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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

eReader Price Wars!

Someone at Borders must have read my "requirements doc outline." Per TechCrunch:

As competition in the e-books device market heats up, Borders is cutting the prices of its leading eReading devices, the Kobo and Aluratek to $129 and $99.99 respectively.

Not in my price range yet, but moving in the right direction.

Or is there one in my price range?

The Aluratek Libre looks a lot like the $50 eReader I'm craving.

It supports epub and PDF.

No wi-fi or 3G -- download the books to your computer and port them to the device via USB.

SD card for storage (I should have thought of that instead of thumb drives, of course -- not hitting on all cylinders that day!).

No backlight, but it uses something called "reflective light LCD technology," which I assume means I can read it in the dark.

Hell, it even doubles as an MP3 player.

If the price really is down to $99.99 (the Borders page still shows it at $119.99), and if it still comes with a 2Gb SD card loaded with 100 books, and if at least 50 of those 100 books are on the list of old books I said I'd be glad to pop a buck apiece for if I could get a cheap reader, then it's a $50 eReader, isn't it?

The only thing missing is "cheap ebooks" to read on it. The prices at Borders seem to vary quite a bit, with best-sellers still above my $7-10 threshold.

But I think we're getting there.

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