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Samsung has become the latest electronics company to release an e-book reader, selling a wireless device in partnership with W H Smith. The E60 is available online now from whsmith.co.uk and will go on sale in its stores from Thursday (26th August) priced £199. If ordered online, the device comes with £80 of preloaded e-books including The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama and The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville.
The device has a six-inch screen and 2GB of internal memory or the equivalent of 1,200 books. Readers can only buy books from W H Smith's e-book store if they use its wi-fi connectivity. However, e-books bought from competitors can be transferred using a USB cable. It also has a text to speech function and can play mp3s or audiobooks. Users of the device can annotate books using a stylus pen. The device supports ePub, PDF and TXT file types.
Toby Keir, head of non-fiction and digital books at WHS, said: "The new Samsung e-book reader is very impressive and we think it will prove popular with our customers. The ease of use combined with the sleek design and Wi-Fi functionality offer customers a unique product in this market and we’re confident it’ll be a great success with book fans."
Graham Long, vice president of Samsung's IT business division, said: "Samsung’s arrival in to the e-book reader market is significant as we are bringing unique functionality to this emerging market. The addition of Wi-Fi and accurate handwriting functionality to e-book readers will take the user-experience to a new level and ensure e-book readers continue to grow in popularity."
Samsung's entry into the e-book reader market comes just days before Amazon starts shipping the latest model of its Kindle e-book reader to UK customers. The wi-fi device costs £109 and the 3G-enabled model costs £149.