• India's own Kindle Arrives: Infibeam Pi

    India's own Kindle Arrives: Infibeam Pi

    Techtree News Staff, Feb 01, 2010 1542 hrs IST

    Also happens to be a music player!

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It's raining tablets and e-book readers - not only in U.S.- but also in India where a homegrown company has introduced its own e-book reader that, at least by the looks of it, has what it needs to take on the biggies in the business.

Say hello to the Infibeam "Pi". This is by far India's first attempt at making an e-book reader of our own that has actually materialized and the product is ready for "consumption". The Pi is made by shopping portal Infibeam which currently offers over one lakh books for Indian readers via its portal http://infibeam.com.

There are plans to add more books and unlike the Kindle, the Pi gives its users a cool option to upload their own content via a USB. In future, you can also expect a lot of newspaper and publications to the list of reading materials. The Pi, apart from being just an e-book reader, also happens to be a music player. It has 512MB of ROM and supports upto 4GB of memory with SD cards.

Specifications:
  • Screen: 6-inch E Ink Vizplex. No backlight / glare.
  • Weight: 180gm, Less than 10mm
  • Formats supported: includes PDF, EPUB, HTML, TXT, MOBI, DOC
  • Images: (will show in grayscale - screen is 600 800 pixels) in JPG, BMP and PNG.
  • Internal Memory: 512 MB, 4GB via SD Slot





The Pi will be launched later this month and is likely to be priced at Rs. 9,999.

That said, you might be surprised by the similarity of Infibeam's website (and the logo) and that of Amazon's website. Although the Pi in itself looks like a good product, its similarity with Kindle and even the Amazon website on the whole was totally unnecessary. It could have been much more original. Sigh.

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Discussion Board
(10) Comments
Anup
,Guwahati, on May 24, 2010 10:35 AM
Its been a month since I bought the Pi and I've already run into a glitch. The device wont start up. Period. I'm in the process of seeking tech help from the Infibeam people and am disappointed with the e-reader. I simply cannot recommend it to anyone. Perhaps Kindle is a safer deal... and one shouldnt go for the Pi simply because its a cheaper option. I for one am regretting my decision to buying the Pi.
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dilip vyas
,mumbai, India, on May 07, 2010 01:46 PM
Yes, I agree the prices of Ebooks are pretty stiff on their website. Paperbacks are cheaper. EBooks on the contrary should be cheap since there is no printing or paper involved and selling is direct and not through any one in between. Wonder if anyone has experienced loading ebooks sold by amazon on Pi.
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SAROJ KUMAR PAT
,KUCHINDA, SAMBALPUR, ODISHA, on Feb 04, 2010 09:37 AM
WHETHER DIRECT INTERNET BROWSER IS AVAILABLE IN IT ?
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Jayesh
,Ahmedabad, on Feb 03, 2010 02:50 PM
infibeam is a company, who hire people who just know to copy and paste ...... Zero original 100% copied. They should be parcelled to Mumbai.
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Sash
,Bangalore, on Feb 03, 2010 01:37 PM
There is nothing indian about this book reader other than the fact that it is a rebranded and repackaged Bookeen Cybook Gen 3. Pl research properly before you publish articles.
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Nirakar
,Cuttack, on Feb 03, 2010 08:41 AM
I am happy to note about Indian e-book reader. I want to know whether it has internet browsing facility or not? Please inform me the details about it.
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Mel
,Chicago, on Feb 03, 2010 04:35 AM
"There are plans to add more books and unlike the Kindle, the Pi gives its users a cool option to upload their own content via a USB." You need to double check your facts. The Kindle allows users to upload their own content (.prc/.mobi, .txt, & .pdf) using USB as well.
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Anonymous
,Mum, on Feb 02, 2010 03:03 PM
I checked the website, the ebooks costs double the cost of paperback. who the hell is going to pay Rs. 900 for a book that costs Rs.430 in paper back. (The Lost Symbol) Infibeam needs to come up with more aggressive pricing.
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Deepak
,Jodhpur, on Feb 01, 2010 06:46 PM
Infibeam was supposed be bought by Amazon but somehow the deal didn't go through. This is Amazon's design. That's the reason for the smilar design of the website as well as the e-reader.
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Tushar
,Gurgaon, on Feb 01, 2010 09:44 PM
It is nothing like amazon is going to buy them. They have copied the whole design as well as the logo of Amazon and the e-book reader is made by a chinese company and you can get the bulk deal from them for 5800/-. Same design and config and you can put your own logo their.
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