e-reader An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals. Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-read ...

, also known as an e-book reader, is a portable electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

s and

periodicals A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also exampl ...

. E-readers have a similar form factor to a tablet and usually refers to devices that use

electronic paper Electronic paper, also sometimes electronic ink, e-ink or electrophoretic display, are display devices that mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional flat panel displays that emit light, an electronic paper display ...

resulting in better screen readability, especially in bright sunlight, and longer battery life when compared to a tablet. An e-reader's battery will typically last for multiple weeks. In contrast to an e-reader, a tablet has a screen capable of higher refresh rates which make them more suitable for interaction such as playing a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

or watching a

video clip Video clips refer to mostly short videos, most of the time called memes, which are short videos of silly jokes and funny clips, most of the time coming from movies or any entertainment videos such as YouTube. The term is also used more loosely to ...

Types of electronic-paper displays

All electronic paper types offer lower power consumption and better sunlight contrast than LCDs. Some offer a

backlight A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays (LCDs). As LCDs do not produce light by themselves—unlike, for example, cathode ray tube (CRT), plasma (PDP) or OLED displays—they need illumination ( ambient light or a ...

to allow low-light reading. With the backlight turned off, all have a similar appearance to "ink on paper" and are readable in bright environments. *

E ink E Ink (electronic ink) is a brand of electronic paper (e-paper) display technology commercialized by the E Ink Corporation, which was co-founded in 1997 by MIT undergraduates JD Albert and Barrett Comiskey, MIT Media Lab professor Joseph Jacobson ...

E Ink Corporation E Ink (electronic ink) is a brand of electronic paper (e-paper) display technology commercialized by the E Ink Corporation, which was co-founded in 1997 by MIT undergraduates JD Albert and Barrett Comiskey, MIT Media Lab professor Joseph Jacob ...

's 1st-generation technology, also known as E Ink Vizplex. Although "eInk" may be used to talk about all electronic paper displays, "eInk" and "E Ink" are

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

ed by E Ink, which provides the majority of the electronic paper displays used in devices. * E Ink Pearl: E Ink's 2nd-generation technology, which has higher contrast and a greater number of different levels of gray than their earlier technology. A further revision of Pearl is Mobius, which uses flexible plastic in the display. * E Ink Triton: E Ink's 3rd-generation technology that featured the ability to show color in the display. * E Ink Carta: E Ink's 4th-generation technology, which has higher contrast and a greater number of different levels of gray than their earlier technology; the displays have a pixel density between 212 and 300 ppi. * SiPix: A former competitor to E Ink, which had displays with almost instantaneous page turns. It was acquired by E Ink in December 2012. * LG Flex: Electronic paper that allows a flexible screen; is still in development. With these displays, the user is able to bend the e-reader without damaging it and can fold it up to put in a pocket. Electronic-paper readers come in various sizes. Many small e-readers have display diagonal sizes around , while some of the large commercially available readers have display sizes around A5 () or A4 size (.

Commercially available devices sold by maker or designer

Notes: * Library DRM compatible – Can be used to borrow e-books from public libraries, e.g. the EPUB and/or PDF formats with digital-rights-management (DRM) are supported. * "microSDHC" is the most popular format for external memory cards. Devices which support a different card have that format listed. * Listed are only products for which either the product itself or its company is notable, as shown by having a Wikipedia article (without notability notice).

Electronic-paper displays

Private label hardware

Some common hardware is resold in different national markets under various brand names. Below is the list of identical hardware: * manufacturer device name→ screen model, compatible screen models (first is better) → rebranded devices
Boeye C60
→ ED060SCE(LF), ED060SC7(LF) �
Gmini MagicBook Z6
Digma E605, DigmaE625
Boeye G6
→ ? → Amazon Kindle 2
Boeye G10
→ ED097OC4(LF) �
Amazon Kindle DX
* Hanlin V3 → ED060SC8, ED060SC9, ED060SC4(LF), LB060S02-RD01, LB060S01-RD02 → BeBook : BeBook, Koobe, Astak EZ Reader, Lbook V3, Papyre 6.1 (E1/E2) * Hanlin V60 → ED060SC8, ED060SC9, ED060SC4(LF), LB060S02-RD01, LB060S01-RD02 or ED060SC7(LF), ED060SCE(LF) → LBook V60 (white or black)
Papyre 613 (v1 or v2)
E-Reader Onda Biblet TB600KT con WiFi e 3G, Koobe Be Free * ? → 6" → Netronix EB001, Astak Mentor EZ Reader,

Cybook Gen3 Cybook Gen3 is a 6-inch (15.2 cm) e-reader for reading e-books and periodicals, and it can be used to listen to MP3 and audiobook files. It was produced by the French company Bookeen. Description The Cybook Gen3 is a reading device based on ...

(200 MHz version) * ? → 6" → Netronix EB600, Cool-er, eClicto, Elonex eBook, eSlick, Astaka Mentor EZ Reader,

(400 MHz version) * ? → 6" → Condor eGriver touch,

Medion Medion AG is a German consumer electronics company, and a subsidiary of Chinese multinational technology company Lenovo. The company operates in Europe, Turkey, Asia-Pacific, United States and Australia regions. The company's main products are ...

OYO, Prestigio PER5062B, Icarus Sense, Pandigital Novel 6" Personal eReader, Qisda QD060B00 * ? → 6" → TrekStor eBook Reader 3.0, Prestigio Nobile PER3172B * ? → ED060SC7(LF) → Papyre 601, Wexler E6003, Prology Latitude I-601, Ritmix RBK-600, Assistant AE-601, DNS Airbook EYT601, Texet TB-146 * ? → ED060SCE(LF) → Qumo Libro Basic, Woxter Paperlight 300 * ? → 6" SiPix Touchscreen display, 800x600px, 167ppi, 16 levels of grayscale → bq Movistar, bq Avant, egriver Touch (India), postitivo Alfa (Brazil), e-vrit (Israel), Papyre 6.2 (Spain).

Discontinued models

File format support

''See Comparison of e-book formats for details on the file formats.'' The most notable formats are: *

.epub EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones ...

is a free and open e-book standard used by most e-readers. *

.azw Kindle File Format is a proprietary e-book file format created by Amazon.com that can be downloaded and read on devices like smartphones, tablets, computers, or e-readers that have Amazon's Kindle app. E-book files in the Kindle File Forma ...

is Amazon's first proprietary e-book file format used in Kindles. This list is missing many of the 1st and 2nd generation e-reader devices from the 1990s to 2005. This list could be expanded by adding Unicode support information for e-readers.

Other mobile text viewers

* All modern (

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

, Android,

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

) smartphones, tablets and other generic computing devices have e-book reading software. * Some portable multimedia players and older phones include a text viewer, e.g. several

Cowon Cowon Systems, Inc. (simply known as Cowon) is a South Korean consumer electronics and software corporation. The company’s initial focus was software development and microelectronics, specializing in speech synthesis and speech recognition tec ...

players, including the

Cowon D2 The Cowon D2 is a portable media player designed and marketed by Cowon Systems, Inc. The D2, released on December 5, 2006, was Cowon's first portable media player using a touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an ...

and the

iAUDIO U3 iAUDIO is the brand name for a range of portable media players produced by Korean consumer electronics and software corporation Cowon Systems, Inc. Products The iAUDIO range consists of players based on both flash memory and hard disk ...

and Mobipocket Reader for Symbian OS.

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) was a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is pro ...

based devices and smartphones are also usable for reading books. Palm OS supports PalmDoc, iSilo, Mobipocket reader, PDF, HTML conversion, text format, Handstory, TealDoc among many other software titles, and word processing.

References

External links

E-Reader Matrix
on MobileRead Wiki * {{Ebooks Electronic paper technology Computing comparisons *

e-readers An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals. Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-read ...