Indian e-commerce company Infibeam.com has launched an eBook reader called ‘Pi’, and started taking pre-orders for the product on its website at Rs 999. The eBook reader is priced at Rs 9999.00 and shipping will start on February 22, 2010. Infibeam’s CEO Vishal Mehta told MediaNama, “such a device is a win win situation for all including authors, publishers and readers”.
Kindle Versus Pi
The product at a first glance looks very similar to Amazon’s Kindle minus the keyboard, so much so that it might well be mistaken for a rip-off. “It is primarily because the screen is by E Ink and this is the best technology available for a e-reader. Other attributes that a device like this needs is to be light weight and thin,” is Mehta’s explanation.
Infibeam’s Pi (Left) and Amazon’s Kindle (Right)
Online E-Books
Infibeam, like Amazon, also has an online e-book store and claims it has 100,000 books on offer. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and books by Indian authors Arundhati Roy and Chetan Bhagat’s books are on sale on the site. According to the website, 454 Amar Chitra Katha books are also available.
Specifications, Keyboard, Sudoku, Music
Pi has a 6″ E Ink display, is 10 mm thick and weighs 180 gm. The 8 level gray scale display has no backlight, which might make an e-book difficult to read in the dark. It comes with an internal memory of 512 MB compared to Kindle’s 2 GB but this is expandable upto 4 GB via an SD card slot.
Kindle’s keyboard morphs the device into more than just a reader, but Pi steers clear of all that jazz – it has been positioned primarily as an e-book reader. However, Pi does come with a game function key and entertainment in the form of Sudoku. It also has a pair of earphones, like Kindle, allowing users to listen to mp3s using the device.
No Wireless, No Text To Speech
The major differentiator we think is the free wireless access that Amazon offers for the books to be downloaded directly to the Kindle. Amazon has tie ups with WiFi providers in USA for the same. Pi unfortunately does not offer this additional incentive that would have definitely attracted many users. Mehta told Medianama that “since at present India does not have 3G capabilities, including wireless connectivity would not have made sense, in the future we will have more versions of the Pi”. Pi also does not support text to speech which its Amazon counterpart does.
Market, Pricing
The company is shipping it for free in India and Mehta confirmed that India is their ‘primary target market at present’. Infibeam will be marketing Pi through the website primarily with affiliates and partners and there has been no decision on offline marketing yet. Without a physical retail partner to push sales, will users even learn of Pi’s existence?
Amazon’s adoption of a passive advertising mode – going more by word of mouth than branding and advertising, can become an advantage for Infibeam. The company needs to step up its advertising and Pi might just take off with its lower price amongst India’s booklovers.
A Kindle 6″, by the time it reaches the user in India, will cost approximately $405 (Rs 18,680) and the Pi is priced at Rs 9999 – much fairer, wouldn’t you say?
Indic Language Support, Regional Publishers
Where it scores above the Kindle is that it supports most official Indian languages including Hindi and Sanskrit and this Mehta feels is one of the USPs (unique selling points) of Pi.
We feel that the company needs to give Pi a definite “Made For India” flavour and leverage its language support, rope in not only English newspapers and magazines but also regional publishers. Kindle already offers Hindustan Times, India Today, Financial Express and India Express. Mehta agreed, informing us that Infibeam has signed with Harper Collins and other big publishers and are in talks with regional publishers as well.
Related:
–Hindustan Times Launches Kindle Edition
–India Today, Indian Express & Financial Express Launch Kindle Editions
–News Digest:Opera, Telenor, Nautanki.tv, TRAI, Vavasi-Zain & More
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11 Comments until now.
not sure w/o 3g in india how successful this can get. However, might have first mover advantage. as indicate b4 is amazon looking to invest in infi???
How is this a fair deal when it does not have the same features as the Kindle? The most important thing about the Kindle, according to me, is the 'library' i can download books from. And second aspect is quality. I dont think this eboor reader has the same build quality.
I am surprised why everyone is calling it an innovation! It is an OEM product from a manufacturer. See below:
http://www.ctaindia.asia/index_files/Page1168.htm
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EGriver_eBook
http://wapedia.mobi/en/File:Egriver.JPG
I don't think Infibeam's CEO has gone to school or university. If he did, he must have known about PLAGIARISM.
how would someone download books to this? you'll have to sync it with your computer?
i think that this would only be half as useful without the ability to get content on demand anywhere.
@Anoynmous:
Brining an Indian product is Innovation!
Marketing it in India is innovation!
Competing with Kindle, Nook and iPad in the market is innovation!
Going to US for shopping is not!
@Aristarkohs:
You could still read hundred-thousand books openly available in Internet (legally free).
How do you know it's build quality is not as good as Kindle? Both might be build in the same factory in China??? :-)
@Vimal: That's off-fully offbeat comment. It is not Plagiarism, it is open market competition. Why should I pay for shipping a Kindle from NewYork to India???? You have to be competitive in the market to sell. Everyone sells Jilebi's in Sweet stalls… but the one which offers, hot, cleanest and tasty one will win. Wish Mr. CEO Vishal Mehta all the success in his Business! Why do you guys drag down Indian Business ideas and cheer US business as innovation?
Either lead, or follow or get out of the way!
Reading is the primary feature required in any eBook reader. Others features (voice, 3G, WiFi) are fancy features, not really required for the purpose of mobile reading. If an ebook reader is coming at 50% discount without those "fancy" features, then there is a more than 50% market place in such places like India. That's intelligent to to sell such a device in such a market.
Any e-book reader will support any Indian Language provided the requisite Unicode font is downloaded and the os supports the font. I have a French e-book reader and it supports Arabic,Urdu,Hindi,Gujarati: tested with Malyalam and telugu. Might try exotic stuff like Ol Ciki (santai). So official languages are no big deal.
Infibeam;s Pi claims to have support for pdf files whereas Amazon Kindle does not have that kind of support. It appears to be a big difference to me as reading so many unread pdf files in my hardis a big problem which this offering can solve.
Can anybody verify it's ability to read pdf?