I came across an unusual ebook reader listed at Amazon called the AirBook City Base.
It’s a basic ebook reader with a 6-inch E Ink Pearl screen. It doesn’t have Wi-Fi and it doesn’t have a touchscreen but it is quite cheap at $80 with free shipping.
The AirBook City Base is sold by a Ukrainian company called Airon.
It’s interesting that they chose to sell this particular model on Amazon and not any of their other models, which appear to be rebranded Boyue ereaders.
The AirBook City Base is their most basic model. But it does have some good things going for it. It supports audio and it comes with a memory card slot, and it works with a long list of formats.
I’m not sure if it supports English, however. It probably does but it’s not specified anywhere. If they’re going to sell this product internationally you’d think they would at least specify which languages it supports…
AirBook City Base Specs
- Screen: 6-inch E Ink Pearl.
- Screen resolution: 1024 × 758.
- 128 MB RAM.
- 4GB built-in memory.
- Battery: 1500mAh Li-Polymer.
- MicroSD card slot for cards up to 32 GB.
- MicroUSB 2.0 port.
- Supported Formats: TXT, EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOC, RTF, CHM, DJVU, ZIP, HTM, HTML, MOBI, PDB, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3, WAV.
- Dimensions: 164 x 116 x 8.6 mm.
- Weight: 160g.
A lot of re-branded Boyue out there e.g. inkBook, Icarus, Energy Sistem etc.
I don’t understand why these alternative companies don’t go try to differentiate themselves from each other and from Amazon and Kobo. I think there are a lot of potentials to innovate in the e-reader sector, considering the current stagnation.
My question is why put a big red circle on the navigation thingy? I think it would be very distracting….
Otherwise it looks pretty basic and functional… it’d be nice to see if it indeed supported English…
Funny, I didn’t even notice until you mentioned it but that is a pretty bizarre design choice.