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Nov 18 - Nov 25, 2001 |
Never judge an e-book by its cover
RCA's electronic books are interesting but not yet ready to replace the printed matter
By Alessandro Cancian
Originally Published: 2001-10-21
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The REB 1100
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How magical can a good book be? Answering such a question is not always easy, and yet books and magazines are seldom left behind when one leaves for a holiday, by plane, train, and why not? The same is true when going to work by subway. Occasionally this can be quite difficult; books such as The Name of the Rose are not exactly lightweight. A solution for those who do not wish to give up their reading habit but hate heavy or bulky loads, comes from RCA.
This company recently launched two e-books that allow people to store texts in digital format, ready to be browsed on any occasion.
The smaller of the two, the REB1100, is the size of a paper notebook and weighs 18 oz. Its small encumbrance means that it is handy and practical from every point of view.
Equipped with a backlit monochrome screen of about 5.5" diagonally (320-by-480-pixel resolution), the REB1100 can easily be read except when external light is too bright. The gadget can display text in four different reader-defined orientations, an almost useless option considering the difficulty in reading at the wider settings. While with a paper book the reader can use a fingertip as a positional reference, with an e-book leaving fingerprints on the screen is not recommended, and therefore following longer lines is more difficult.
One of the most pleasant features of the REB1100 is the possibility to choose between two different font sizes for the visualization on screen. The e-book is driven by a stylus pen, like a Palm handheld, which is used to modify the control panel settings, search for some text or bookmark a page.
The REB1100 comes with a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery that can power the gadget for 20 hours in normal conditions. The 8Mb on-board memory can carry up to 8,000 pages or about 20 novels. A smart media card expands storage space from 8 MB to 72 MB to give you the ability to store 72,000 pages or 150 books. The device also comes with a 33.6K and a USB port for downloading digital texts from one's computer and Internet connection.
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