Dedicated e-readers, like Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes and Noble’s Nook and Sony’s Reader, have one thing in common: They all use black-and-white screen technology from a company called E Ink.
That’s one reason a company called MerchSource thinks it has a shot at grabbing some e-reader market share. The company announced last week its full-color e-reader, the Literati, which is expected to go on sale in October.
MerchSource develops and sells products under well-known brands, including Animal Planet, Emerson and Vivitar. For the Literati, the company struck a licensing deal with The Sharper Image. The Wi-Fi-only Literati costs about $159, including a case, $20 more than Amazon’s 6-inch Kindle Wi-Fi model. The device, powered by Kobo’s e-book engine, has 2 million titles available through Kobo’s library.
MerchSource wants to make this simple for consumers, so it preloads 25 public-domain books onto the device before purchase and provides a coupon code to download an additional 125 public-domain titles at no cost.
The 7-inch LCD screen is bright, with saturated colors. But the battery provides only about six hours of use.
