A few days ago we commented that Bertelsmann had to be up to something "fat". That his name appeared in two important projects, one of them Spanish, that they plan to face Amazon is no coincidence and when the river sounds ...
Well, we already know more about why it sounds: from the hand of Bertelsmann and his German partners (Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel y Deutsche Telekom) born on Tolino Shine, a new electronic reader with quite interesting features and that arrives ready to unseat the Kindle (or so they say).
Its main features:
- Screen 6 ″ high definition electronic ink touch screen with a resolution of 1024 × 758, with front lighting and that shares technology with the Kobo Glo.
- Conference proceedings 4GB, expandable up to 32GB via MicroSD cards.
- Connections: USB 2.0, WiFi and MicroSD slot.
- Battery with a duration of 7 weeks.
- Use Android as an operating system.
- Processor 800 MHz and 256 MB of RAM.
- Supported formats: ePub, Mobi, txt.
- Price: €99
Technically the most remarkable novelty that it offers us is the use of Android, something quite demanded by the users of electronic readers due to the versatility that it supposes, in spite of requiring more resources for a correct operation (we will see if those 800 MHz are enough). However, the set is an interesting reader with features quite similar to the latest news from Kobo, Kindle or Onyx.
Edited: On the other hand, it is very interesting that from the union of these five companies, in addition to Tolino Shine, a online platform accessible from the reader that begins with more than 300.000 books, which is what can really be an important point of competition with Amazon (which only has 150.000 books in German). Apart from this, titles can be acquired in the individual stores of the five partners that make up the project.
The Kindle is a good device with an unbeatable price, but more than the reader it's the after-service that makes the difference. If you enter Amazon you have everything at hand and in one click: reader and titles, the convenience of sending titles to the reader by email, synchronization anywhere ...
If Tolino offers a full eBook store and reader integration, similar to that of Amazon, could mean the emergence of a strong competitor, backed by five major companies from the publishing and telecommunications world, that would offer a new option for users and that could "force" Amazon to improve even more. capabilities of its readers (I can think of software and firmware improvements, opening up to other e-book formats, etc.).
I had forgotten to put the most interesting data: the price. They are € 99 which, if we compare it with the Kindle Paperwhite, is more than attractive. If we think that it has a very adjusted price and that it supports various formats (so its owners can buy with the same comfort on Amazon as in Tolino's store), we only need to clarify the issue of convenience in the purchase.
If we already affirmed that we could not lose sight of the movements that Bertelsmann and his partners were making, now we have another element to follow closely: the Tolino Shine. Can it really stand up to Amazon?
Edited:
More information - Bertelsmann vs. Amazon
Source - TheDigitalReader, Tolino