Samsung’s new e-reader for the rest of us?

Samsung rolls out its first e-book reader device in South Korea on Monday with this entry level unit: SNE-50K. According to its specs, the SNE-50K is rather an out-dated device lagging behind most of the counterpart, not to mention Amazon Kindle.

The SNE-50K lacks the feature of wireless downloading, so I am not sure how the readers could access the content. It has a built-in memory capacity of 512 MB, which is quite limited and could only hold about 400 titles as some testers reported. The display is also a problem: the 5 inch screen with a resolution of 600*800 does not seem to suffice for most of us. The only advantage we see from the SNE-50K is that it can be used as a notepad with handwriting recognition.

This device is sold at about U.S. $274. Not really a bargain, is it? People now can only access about 2,500 titles from the book library (Kyobo Bookstore, Korea’s largest bookseller). The first entry of Samsung into the e-book business won’t surpass the Amazon Kindle or even Sony reader in any way, but with the strong electronic technology background of Samsung I bet the next e-reader device will certainly stir the e-book market.