Review – the XO as a PDF e-book reader
By Paul Biba
Found this over at The Reader. It’s the first comprehensive review I’ve seen of the unit when used for this purpose. Go over and take a look.
I recently took a first look at the XO in the book-reading realm, viewing several WOWIO non-DRM’d PDFs to get a general sense of its display quality, performance and usability. Along the way, I also compared the little green guy against some of the other ebook-capable devices, including laptops, the Sony Reader and the iPhone. …
The XO uses a specially-designed twist on the standard LCD technology found in laptops. This variation combines high resolution, very low power consumption (the laptop is designed to run on alternative energy sources, including a human-powered hand crank), full color and low cost. The laptop seamlessly transitions between two display modes — standard backlit color (like a laptop LCD) and unlit monochrome for use in bright ambient light (similar to the E-Ink used in the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, but with an even higher pixel density).
April 9th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Thanks Paul, this is great! Now we have a taste of what Mary Lou Jepson ‘n’ company have in store for us later this year. I can’t wait for some inexpensive, color/bw ebook readers to come out with the new Pixel Qi screens.
Should be great for libraries and kids’ textbooks.