14 DAY TRIAL // In the last few months I have come across all sort of eReader designs but few of them are actually more intriguing than the View Quest BookBox that British retailer HMV has listed on its website as this looks a lot more like a portable media player than a eReader especially considering it rather compact 5 inch display.
This doesn't mean however, that the BookBox is light on features when used as a eReader since this device is compatible with a wide range of file formats, including Adobe DRM eBooks as well as regular PDF files and Word documents, to name just a few.
Of course that going for a LCD backlit display means the battery life resembles a lot more that of a tablet than what we have come to expect from electronic paper displays, the BookBox being rated at about 6 hours of eBook reading, but this is also the case with other color LCD eReaders available, so I am going to cut View Quest's creation some slack in this regard.
On the other hand, battery life during music playback is rated at an adequate 20 hours, so this can successfully replace a dedicated media player, especially when you consider this device is capable of playing back 720p video content.
Moving over to the hardware specs of the BookBox, we will find this is powered by an ARM 9+ DSP 400MHz chip, the 5 inch anti-glare LED backlit TFT coming with a 800x480 resolution, while the internal storage space comes at 2GB, this being of course expandable via a SD card slot.
But the best thing about the BookBox is definitely its price, since the British retailer has it listed at a rather low £79.99 (about $128 US), shipping being free inside the UK, so if you wanna go for a color eBook reader the BookBox is definitely worthy of another look. (via pocket-lint)