MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - When will a wireless e-book device come to Australia?

wallcraft · 08-31-2009, 04:49 PM

Last I heard, the BeBook 2 will have WiFi. If you look on the E-book Reader Matrix, the Azbooka 518 and Pocketbook 302 are standard Hanvon and Netronix hardware with custom firmware and both will include WiFi. There has also been talk of a 6" Hanlin with WiFi.

The single-country devices with 3G tend not to have WiFi, and this seems to be a requirement (or preference) of the 3G providers. It also greatly simplifies customer support for the device vendor.

The reason I mention WiFi that it potentially allows worldwide access. This may be a disadvantage to some service providers, but it is a boon to readers. The iLiad demonstrated that WiFi alone was not enough, you also need a WiFi-enabled service. This could just be a web browser, although so far web browsers on EInk have not been all that sucessful.

08-31-2009, 04:49 PM	#4
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,977 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	Last I heard, the BeBook 2 will have WiFi. If you look on the E-book Reader Matrix, the Azbooka 518 and Pocketbook 302 are standard Hanvon and Netronix hardware with custom firmware and both will include WiFi. There has also been talk of a 6" Hanlin with WiFi. The single-country devices with 3G tend not to have WiFi, and this seems to be a requirement (or preference) of the 3G providers. It also greatly simplifies customer support for the device vendor. The reason I mention WiFi that it potentially allows worldwide access. This may be a disadvantage to some service providers, but it is a boon to readers. The iLiad demonstrated that WiFi alone was not enough, you also need a WiFi-enabled service. This could just be a web browser, although so far web browsers on EInk have not been all that sucessful.