Plastic Logic Reader Could Be Kindle Killer
February 9th, 2009 by Avram Piltch, LAPTOP Online Editorial Director 
On the same day that Amazon announced the Kindle 2, its unreleased competitor, Plastic Logic, made headlines by announcing its plan to launch a content store at the same time its eReader goes on sale. The store will feature content from major publications such as USA Today and the Financial Times and content aggregators like Zinio, Ingram Digital, and LibreDigital. The content store will be built in cooperation with Fictionwise, a leader in eBook technology.
So what’s all the fuss about the Plastic Logic Reader? We saw a hardware prototype on display at CES and were blown away by how thin, light, and legible it was. There’s no doubt that the hardware itself, which features an 8.5 x 11-inch plastic (as opposed to glass) display with a touchscreen instead of buttons and keys, is far superior to the first-generation Kindle and likely even to the Kindle 2.0.
But don’t just take our word for it. Check out the video below, which we shot at CES.
The problem for a company like Plastic Logic is its lack of experience in the publishing industry. While its encouraging to hear that they’ve signed up a slew of new content partners, the fact that they don’t expect to ship their product until 2010 and that they’re taking on a behemoth like Amazon makes them a huge underdog. Still, their product has more potential than any other eReader we’ve seen.
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February 11th, 2009 at 8:03 am
The best bet is following:
Make the reader feasible with
Team up with Avantgo for web content.
Team up with Mobipocket or similar for books
Pentetrate speciality markets.
Team up with hospitals for displaying journal data (locally set up Avantgo servers can pull that data).
Make simple ordering possible (clinical tests, for example, Avantgo can also pull that off)
July 27th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Apparently the previous responder doesn’t realize that Mobi was bought out by Amazon & is well on the way to being killed by them. The article states the manufacturer has already signed with Fictionwise which implies that the device will ship with FW’s EReader preloaded. I hope not as I have always found the EReader SW to be buggy & clumsy to use. Of course that may be entirely because I have tried it on WinCE based HP products.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
“It uses plastic rather than silicon…”
That is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about a piece of technology.
Not just because it’s directly wrong, but because even if it weren’t directly wrong, it would still be wrong.
The person promoting this product in this video does not actually know what he’s selling; he’s making things up.