Ever heard of Kindle? Or Nook? If you haven’t you most certainly will as it would seem the days of paper-based books and newspapers appear to be numbered. Although when exactly – if ever – e-readers like Kindle or Nook will successfully exterminate traditional books is yet to be confirmed.
Now Poland has jumped on the e-reader bandwagon too and shortly Poles will be able to get their hands on their own own e-reader, the beautifully named eclicto. And when I say ‘their own’, I do mean a bit different, not just a Kindle clone.
Here’s how one blogger, nizejpodpisany, thinks the eclicto will differ from the rest:
For me eClicto is one of first examples of bringing e-publishing from international (English) to national (non-English) level. And it’s not about the equipment this time, its about the content.
The e-reader is a book with blank pages. There are a few models distributed in Poland, including iLiad and Cybook. The only problem is a lack of Polish language books, available in mobile friendly formats like ePub. eClicto is going to change it.
They will have to start with hundreds, or hopefully, thousands of books, among them bestsellers, to lure not only tech nerds but also book lovers. This will accelerate, let’s call it “e-quality change” of a national publishing industry, what in longer time will result in e-books being treated equally to p-books by Polish readers.
I have to say I haven’t really considered buying an e-reader yet. But I’ll tell you why I might possibly consider getting an eclicto in the future – and my reasoning behind that is pretty obvious.
Living in London I often miss some good Polish books my friends tell me about. Getting them shipped from Poland is not a massive problem, although I seem to spend most of my life online, whether at home, at work or on the train – and I gawp at screens all day long. So having another one, preloaded with books and allowing me to purchase (hopefully) the latest Polish novels at a a click of a mouse seems very tempting.
Still, as always, there are some technical aspects to be considered – is it easy to use? Is it comfortable to hold? Is the choice of books sufficient enough? Can I justify spending almost £200 on that?
I guess in this particualr case I’ll just wait and see. Very glad that Poland has its own, original device though.
When it comes to technology I love being ahead of the curve. Here however I’m happy being a late adopter.
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