Kobo Jumps on eReader Bandwagon

So this is roughly like buying one of those small paperback books? It would be nice if they would respect the customer enough to add a color screen.

This thing will probably be great for schools. If they brought down the price to where mothers could buy this in place of the equal amount of school supplies. Then maybe student would have less to carry around. Then again in a few years that is probably exactly what all those tablets will do.

While color e-ink displays are going to be coming, they aren't ready yet.

They could have used an LCD screen, but backlit LCDs generally are harder on the eyes than the e-ink display that these eReaders use. For someone like me who reads a lot of books (and sometimes for hours at a time), minimal eyestrain is extremely important. That's why I bought my Sony reader.

Not everyone notices the eyestrain from viewing an LCD for extended periods of time, and if you happen to fall in that camp then a tablet/slate would be fine.

I'm not so sure how well this will do, when it's sitting right next to the Sony Readers (also sold at Borders). The price is $20 less than the Sony pocket reader, and the screen's an inch bigger... but I don't know that this makes it so much more attractive that people are going to risk going with a company whose long-term future is an unknown.

I, for one, would never buy it unless it uses a non-DRM'd format so that I can backup and move any purchases to another e-reader in the event this company goes out of business and my unit breaks.