Pandigital’s Novel: An iPad-Like eReader
The market is being flooded with ereaders. It’s now like every electronic company has MP3 players in the market with a difference that supported ebook formats are not universal like MP3.
Patnered with B&N the company Pandigital has already announced their ereader Novel will be sold at $199. However, there are reports that the ereader is already available in JCPenny and Kohl online stores at $249 and $259 respectively. There is no word yet it will be available widely or when B&N will carry them in its stores.
Novel is quite interesting. It’s like a mini iPad with 7″ TFT color touchscreen. It runs on Android OS. It has wifi support, SD slots, and USB connectivity. Readers will be able to buy books from B&N ebook store from the device. It supports ePub, PDF, and HTML. You can browse website, send and recieve emails. Since it’s android-based there are some more apps available.
Yes, it’s not eInk. So battery life is only couple of hours. No way I can say it’s a dedicated erader. But if you’re a casual ebook reader, and don’t want to spend too much on iPad, then Novel is not a bad choice.
Here is a video report by Cnet on Novel:
Apple iPad Mini MD532LL/A (32GB, Wi-Fi, White)
by Apple 
(497) Buy new: $439.95 42 used & new from $360.00
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, Deep Grey)
by Samsung (790) Buy new: $499.99 Click to see price 57 used & new from $335.00
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, White)
by Samsung (790) Buy new: $499.99 Click to see price 39 used & new from $333.93
Battery life a “couple of hours”? Pandigital specs say 6 hours and that is confirmed by many of those who already have the device in hand, including a friend of mine. And no, B&N will NOT carry it in their stores but will offer it online. That is from a manager I spoke with recently. Get your facts straight before you write stuff.