Best Buy, Verizon Team on New E-Book Reader

By  |  Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 11:00 am

Move over, Amazon Kindle. Best Buy and Verizon have unveiled a new e-book reader Wednesday that will sell for $399 and is built by iRex Technologies. The reader like the Kindle would be able to purchase content over the 3G network, and will be sold in about 100 of Best Buy’s locations by October.

Barnes and Noble’s e-bookstore would be used to supply the device with content, the companies said.

Verizon stands to benefit from this new device as it would receive a portion of the revenue to pay for the use of bandwidth by these devices over the network. Best Buy benefits from a device that is a direct revenue stream for them: the company is so serious about e-readers that it is specifically training its associates on how to sell the devices.

The two companies may be getting on the bandwagon at the right time. After only selling around a million of these devices in 2008, over five million are expected to be sold this year according to research firm iSuppli. Much of this increase has to do with the success of the Kindle, which has continued to sell very well by all accounts.

Regardless, the issue of price still looms large. As we reported here on Technologizer at the beginning of this month, e-readers are still too expensive for most consumers. At $400, iRex’s new reader seems to be more than twice what consumers would consider paying for a device.

These companies still need to address this issue if they plan to continue growing sales of these devices well into the future.

 
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5 Comments For This Post

  1. tom b Says:
    September 23rd, 2009 at 11:28 am

    Let’s copy the Kindle even though we have only Jeff Bezos’ word the device isn’t a complete flop and there are ALREADY devices (the iPhone) that do way more things tha E-book readers while costing LESS.

    Yup, sounds like Verizon. I bet there’ll be an ad between each “page”, too.

  2. Mark Sigal Says:
    September 23rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    This stuff is interesting, but my thesis is that whereas Kindle and iRex seem to be predicated on the construct of the book as less than the current experience (i.e., mostly text), the industry is headed for a full-blown re-boot that takes advantage of interactivity, touch/tilt, social engagement, movies, pictures, animation and sound, a topic that I expound upon in:

    Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time)
    http://bit.ly/zOoEu

    Check it out, if interested.

    Mark

  3. Katheryn Says:
    September 29th, 2009 at 11:58 am

    I can’t wait to use the Irex. But I am a loyal Kindle fan. And I always will be. I got my kindle 2 from here: http://www.computersncs.com/rd_p?p=191614&t=9544&a=27619-skindle&gift=27619

    Its awesome and functional.

  4. Amazon Kindle 3G Says:
    January 20th, 2011 at 7:23 am

    It seems that the new Irex ebook reader got beaten by the Amazon Kindle 3G. This has become the bestselling product on the entire Amazon store and is still the one to beat……

  5. person_nice Says:
    November 30th, 2011 at 1:08 am

    I am fairly sure that Apple develops the actual App with input from Google but they don't have the control to add features like that. gas grills reviews

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