Japan has been a hotspot for new ereaders lately with the recent releases of Sony’s new ereaders and Sharp’s Galapagos tablets.
And now Japan is getting another new ereader on December 25th, the Toshiba Biblio Leaf SP02, the first solar-powered ereader to reach the market.
The Toshiba Biblio Leaf has a 6″ E Ink touchscreen and comes with a stylus, WiFi, 3G wireless that requires a contract, 2GB internal memory, microSD card slot, and a front-mounted solar panel.
The Biblio Leaf measures 198 x 129 x 9.8 mm and weighs about 296 grams. It connects to the LISMO Book Store for downloading ebooks, which launches on December 25th as well. Apparently the Toshiba Book Place doesn’t extend to Japan.
Unfortunately there isn’t any information available just yet to show how much power the solar panel provides. The device also charges via micro USB, of course.
Considering the efficient nature of E Ink, a solar panel wouldn’t have to generate a great deal of power to be effective. A typical battery charge for an E Ink Reader can last about 2 weeks with daily reading. Add periodic solar charging to those 14 days and things start to get interesting.