Glorified newsagent WHSmith is to become the latest shop to stock a resident ebook reader. While Waterstones offers the Sony Reader and Amazon promote its Kindle, WHSmith will be trying to sell you the alliteratively named Samsung Slide eReader E60 alongside the pens and notepads.
The Samsung Slide eReader E60 is available online now and will take to UK high streets in WHSmith stores on Thursday for £200. A launch offer includes 10 free ebooks, including The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama, Medusa by Michael Dibdin and the heartrending Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? by Mick O'Hare. The 'Slide' in its name refers to the control pad that slides out from under the screen.
At first glance, the Samsung Slide seems unremarkable. A standard 2GB on-board storage for around 1,200 books and an SD expansion slot, Wi-Fi for downloading books and newspapers and a 6-inch eInk display. These specs more or less match the current bunch of Sony Readers. Both the Reader and Slide have touchscreens -- but there's a twist in the tale.
The Slide comes with a touch-sensitive screen, nothing new there, but rather than being a resistive job to be manipulated by fingers, this one is controlled by an electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus. This means you can only use touch features such as annotation and handwriting with the pen, but it's much more sensitive and accurate, as you won't smudge your carefully written notes if you graze the screen with your hands.
It also supports ePub formats and has a built-in dictionary, which may or may not have some of the inventive new additions. MP3 support is also included so, if you're able to mentally multi-task, you can take in some N-Dubz while absorbed in some Tolstoy.
As well as supporting audiobooks, the Slide can convert text to speech and read your books aloud for when you're driving or just too lazy to read -- assuming you don't mind your books sounding as though they're being read by Ke$ha.
As the kids fasten their satchels and polish their apples for the new school year, it seems wildly appropriate that the shop better known for stationery than books is selling an ebook reader that is itself more stationery than book. The abundant features beyond that of a simple reader, such as handwriting, calendar and organiser, gives the impression that it'd make just as good a notepad as ebook reader, if not better.
We'll see when we get on in for a full review.
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Comments 4
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Anonymous 1 March, 2011 17:59
After 3 weeks of having mine the screen faultered. I rang the warranty department and they accused me of dropping it or placing something heavy on it. For this reason it was not covered by the warranty. This was of course nonsense. I rang a repair centre who quoted a minimum of £60 for the repair. I wrote to SAMSUNG who wrote back offering me a free service. I rang them and they organised a repair centre. The repair centre wrote 4 e-mails to get the part needed from Samsung and were ignored. Several hours of telephone calls later. I was told I had taken it to the wrong place (despite being told to by Samsung). Quite frankly their customer care is shocking!!! I would like to review the product but I haven't had it long enough before it malfunctioned. Now back to square one having just been told I may have to pay for the repair!! My advice DONT BUY ONE!!
Anonymous 7 March, 2011 12:24
I have had exactly the same fault with mine, and they have accused me of dropping it too, there is not a scratch on it.
It is so frustrating, because you know you have not damaged it but you can not get any help from anyone. Nobody is interested. Well there goes £200 down the pan for a product I have only had for 8 weeks. I will never buy from Samsung ever again.
My partner purchased a tablet from Maplins, he had a problem with the battery charging, he took in into the local store and they changed it straight away for a brand new one, now that is what I call customer services.
Anonymous 18 March, 2011 11:28
I have had the same problem the screen went wrong took it back to WHS smiths was told i had to send it back to samsung which i have. after several phone calls they have accused me me of dropping the e-reader and said it will cost me over 150 pounds to be repaired.
they will not replace the ereader, so i am left will a piece of sumsung i cannot use what else can be done.
Anonymous 10 August, 2011 10:33
I have had exactly the same problem, finally persisted with Samsung and they took the e-reader away to a repair place, but then got it sent back, unrepaired, and told that this problem wasn't covered under warranty. Really, really frustrating, as I got this as a Christmas present.