[Nate the great]

I only had about 5 minutes to play with it, so my remarks will be rather light. I will try to add more detail when the show opens tomorrow.

Samsung announced a pair of ebook readers for the US market at CES. I couldn't get in to the press conference, but when I saw Engadget's live blog I grabbed my notebook and snuck in. Only the 6” model (the E6) was on hand, but I was told that the 9.7” model (E101) would be on display tomorrow in Samsung's booth.

It's a white with silver trim slider design, and I have to say I'm impressed. The under panel had 2 speakers, a d-pad, and 4 menu buttons.On the lower edge was the headphone port, USB mini-B (client, I assume), and the power switch. The back is a smooth and slightly curved. On the upper edge is a slot for the Wacom Stylus. The only buttons below the screen are the page turn buttons. It has a Vizplex screen, and I confirmed that the 9.7” model also has a screen made by PVI.

I do not know what it is using for reader software, but it doesn't appear to be Adobe DE. I've seen 3 ebook readers with touchscreens and Adobe DE; all handled sketches the same. The E6 was different. You can search, highlight, bookmark, and scribble a note. There is also a drawing mode.

The UI is very similar to the pictures I've seen of the ebook readers Samsung is selling in Korea, so I would guess that it was probably developed by the same dev team. That would make the E6 Samsung's 3rd or 4th ebook reader, which explains why the response rate was so fast. I only have my Boox to compare it with at the moment, but the E6 was much faster.

Some of the other features include TTS (it sounded okay in a noisy room), Wifi, and integration with the pd Google Books. The projected retail is $399 for the 6” and $699 for the 9.7”. Currently the projected release date is March or April.