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This is the Txtr Beagle. It’s a new low-end ereader, that does away with fancy technological trappings: you’ll find no touchscreen, backlight, 3G or even Wi-Fi here. As a result, it’s set to cost less than £10—but will it be any good?
Lacking all the specs we’re used to by know, you may very well wonder what the Txtr Beagle does have. Not a lot, to put it bluntly. A five-inch screen, 4GB of storage, and a Bluetooth radio lurk within its svelte 5mm frame. It’s not even powered by a rechargeable cell: two AAA batteries are required, and Txtr claims one set will see you through a year of reading. All in it weighs 128 grams, so it’s certainly pocketable.
Given the lack of Wi-Fi, the idea is that Bluetooth can be used to a sync a phone with the reader, using Txtr’s free app—already on Android, an iOS version in the works—to transfer books to the device. As a result, Txtr sees the device as less of a standalone piece of tech and more of a phone accessory—so it hopes carriers will offer the device at point-of-sale with a small subisdy to keep the price around the £10 mark.
While initially it’s just being launched in Germany, according to Engagdet Txtr’s CEO Thomas Leliveld already has US networks AT&T and Sprint on board, so an international launch looks likely. There remains, of course, the question of whether the thing will be any good—but perhaps for £10 it’ll be worth trying out. [Txtr via Engadget]
Any word on if you can just plug it into a computer and transfer files over USB?
Looks like no. I am also not sure if you have to buy books from their own store to send to the device or if you can send any ebook over.
Love the idea. A few too many compromises by the looks of it though..
From what I can see it looks like you will have to buy txtr ebooks as their drm files
I’d have one for £10.
Everything about the specs sounds appalling.
I’ll take two.
I think it’s a great idea. I’d buy the kids one each, with no worries if they destroy it!
There’s already an iOS app from the looks of things too – http://itunes.apple.com/app/txtr-ebooks/id298464404
If they can do this, how long before you can get a “disposable newspaper subscription device” an electronic newspaper where your subscription covers the cost of the device and the when the subscription expires you either renew at a discount or recycle it.
Surely it would be easier to just have an app on your phone?
Get ready for either online subscriptions or very heavy advertising
For £10 I guess you can’t be too picky when it comes to screen quality.
I wonder if these will be available on Amazon.de.
Thats a pretty good idea. Buying an eReader is quite a barrier to entry for people looking to move away from paper books. You lay out over £60 for the reader (or up to £150) and then find the books are often more expensive than paper ones because you have to pay VAT on them. It doesnt make a hell of a lot of economic sense switching, aside from the space saving side of it, but perhaps super cheap ereaders will help with that
I’m less interested in buying an Ebook to read published books are more intrested in buying one to read books which only exist in Ebook form. Can you suggest an ebook which has none of that silly DRM on it?
Dont know, really. I go through a few books a month, but mostly read fairly mainstream fantasy and scifi
DRM hasnt really bothered me with ebooks. I am happy paying for them and can read them on all my devices so there’s never any reason for it to bother me.
The problem is the books I want to read on an ebook reader, haven’t been published as they are mainly fan fiction.
If a set of AA batteries are going to last one year then they should have gone with AAA batteries instead to reduce weight even if it lasts a a few months less.
the problem with e-readers are e-books. or more specifically, e-book prices. eg: £7.12 for Kindle version of “Operating System Demystified” vs £7.50 for the print version
what kind of sap would pay that??
(me, as it happens. but only this one time out of desperation)