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Originally Posted by elcreative
Interesting comment, care to share some of the many android absed e-ink readers as I've not come across much more than (i believe it's android based) the Nook...
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Yes, Nook is Android based, and as juxtapose mentioned, both enTourage models ran on Android (originally shipped with Android 1.6). In addition, Gigabit and ASUS use Android in their e-Ink readers, and a handful of OEMs have demoed Android on e-Ink devices at trade shows. Amazon is rumored to have ordered touch-screen Triton e-Ink Android devices from Quanta (Google "Quanta Amazon e-ink" for reports). It's worth noting that Sony is partnered with Quanta for the S1/S2 Android tablets.
Nearly all current e-Ink e-book readers (including Sony, Kindle, and Kobo) run on Linux with a lot of customization and tweakage. Android, which is based on Linux, is "pre-tweaked" for nearly every issue specific to low-power consumption, battery-operated, flash memory based, connected, portable devices. With built-in features like push messaging, structured data storage, WebKit browsing, media support, multiple connectivity options, multi-select, multi-touch, plus excellent power and memory management (I'll stop here, but the list goes on and on.), Android's specialized kernel makes it an attractive choice for touch-screen e-book readers.
We should be careful not to confuse Android, the operating system, with the Android app-enabled device experience. Whichever OS Sony chooses for the next generation of PRS-readers, it's unlikely to be apparent to the user. After all, my current Sony readers do nothing to alert me to the fact that they're running Linux and until I rooted it, my Nook Touch didn't do anything to evoke thoughts of Android.