14 DAY TRIAL // The Datawind Aakash tablet was lambasted for being weaker than weak, but it was so cheap that it won over the Indian educational system anyway, and got a stronger successor to boot. German company txtr is trying to do the same thing as Datawind, only on the e-reader front.
Even objectively speaking, the price of 9.90 Euro, or $13, that txtr slapped on its beagle e-reader is going to shock people.
The German company cooked up a sly scheme to get the price so low. Rather than a standalone device, it intends to sell the beagle as a subsidized smartphone accessory.
Design-wise, the gadget measures 5 inches in diagonal and has a white rectangular body, with the lower part thicker than the rest. The area holds the batteries (two AA) and all the other large circuitry while permitting an easy grip.
Up to 12 or 15 books should be possible to read on a single charge of the batteries. When they become depleted, they can be recharged or just changed as needed.
For extra appeal, the back cover can be colored in one out of four hues: Jade Green, Grapefruit, Violet and Turquoise.
As for the hardware, the 5-inch E Ink screen (8-level grayscale panel with a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels) is accompanied by a Bluetooth module and 4 GB of storage space.
The Bluetooth is there to allow smartphones, via a special Android app, to transfer downloaded books.
All in all, the device weighs 128 grams (4.5 oz), almost half compared to Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite (213 grams / 7.5 oz).
We can definitely see some people choosing the txtr beagle over the $119 / 119 Euro Paperwhite, and its rivals for that matter, even despite the latter's possession of Wi-Fi support, backlighting, 3G and 8-week batteries.
Granted, the lack of screen light could be a problem, but desk and counter lamps should offset it easily enough, and traveling by train, bus or plane is never actually done in the dark, so it should be possible to get by even without a backlight. More info here.
