iLiad eBook reader

I love stuff like this. Why? Because I'm convinced we're all going to be reading our daily papers, latest favourite novels and other online delights on something very like it in the not-all-that-distant-but-maybe-a-while-yet future. Philips spinoff company, iRex, has announced that this eBook reader will be on sale from next month, so you could well be reading your favourite novels off one before you know it. The "iLiad" is its horribly spelled name and it'll be joined in the market by Sony's similar Reader device.

It's got a 400MHz XScale processor, 64MB RAM, 224MB usable flash memory, WiFi, Ethernet, 3.5-millimeter audio jack, and SD card, CF card and USB slots. Apparently, you should get over a week of reading sessions (assuming that each session is 3 hours) off the battery while PDF, XHTML, TXT, and MP3 formats are all going to supported, with more promised for the future. If rumours of the €650 price tag are correct, it's going to work out more than twice as expensive as Sony's Reader.

iRex iLiad (PDF) [via Engadget]