Copia Electronic Readers Review

Finally, an e-reader that brings the social aspects of reading into your hand is coming our way. DMC, a consumer and enterprise technology company backed by 40 years of experience in digital timepieces, calculators, and GPS technology, is releasing a suite of 6 e-readers by June-all of them equipped with social and open, collaborative platform.

Each Copia e-reader lets you connect and share an interesting read with friends and also read your friends’ notes, form book clubs, discover new friends through common interests, or share insights into a book or other reading materials. Its maker is also working to make the device “talk” with other e-readers, Smartphones, iPhones, and other mobile devices.

Each Copia e-reader is built around the same goals: to create a social network centered around love of reading, and to be able to get content from social networks as much from online stores. Appropriately named Copia, each device from the electronic company DMC definitely promises the world abundant ways to get content. Now you can carry books – and your friends – anywhere you go.

Features – Hardware and Software

DMC will be releasing 6 models across two lines called Ocean and Tidal, offering the world a bevy options ranging from 6- to 9-inch screens, with or without physical keyboard, 3G or WiFi, monochrome or colored screen. All Copia readers come with tilt-sensitive sensor and earphone jack and microphone.

The Tidal line starts with the 6-inch 600 x 800-pixel EPD device, which comes with 2GB internal memory large enough to store 1500 eBooks, soft keypad, and micro SD card slot. Tidal Touch and Tidal Touch 3G both feature 9-inch touch screens, 768 x 1024 pixels, integrated WiFi, 3G (optional in Tidal Touch 3G), and WiFi (802.11 b/g). Tidal Touch 3G comes with a 2 GB onboard storage, while Tidal Touch offers 4GB internal memory.

The Ocean line also offers screen displays ranging from 6 to 9 inches and screen resolutions of 768 x 1024 pixels. Ocean 6, the smallest, comes with 6-inch capacitive touchscreen, 4GB onboard storage and WiFi but no 3G connectivity. Ocean readers also include accelerometers, microphone and earphone jack, WiFi, and 4GB internal memory.

Each Copia e-reader connects to Copia.com, a social networking site and e-book store carrying more than 1 million eBooks. Copia’s built-in social networking capability, built around the goal of integrating two sources of content in today’s world: online stores and social networking sites.

Pros

Users can create their community profiles then link it with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook profiles. Users can also browse books by categories, which may include community rating, price, and tags.

Like Kindle’s WhisperSync, each Copia e-reader is equipped with automatic syncing, allowing users to sync eBooks, notes, or comments with their computer or online account.

Copia is also leaving their platform open for licensing, which will soon make Copia compatible with Smartphones, PDAs, netbooks, laptops, and other mobile devices.

Cons

Copia e-readers are still in the vaporware, and while the social and open platform is pretty enticing, concept has not yet been fully worked out. Copia makers must still deal with the steep learning curve in its present form.