Notion Ink Adam - Doubts and Confusion Abound

Image by darkpollo via Flickr

It has been a long time since Notion Ink started on their journey to create that tablet of dreams. A tablet to rival even the mighty Apple iPad and the now immensely successful Samsung Galaxy tab.

Slowly the technical specifications started rolling in. And astounding they were! Dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, Pixel Qi display, HDMI ports, inbuilt Adobe AIR/Flash compatibility, Android 2.2 and beyond compatibility, etc.

The company was however very careful in what it released. I never found a single video of the tablet in action. Everything from the boot screen demo to app functions were 'custom made' videos. Even pictures of the tablet being posted were either immensely photoshopped or had serious typographical/grammatical errors (check out this screenshot posted yesterday). Although this was indeed making me suspicious, it didnt really dampen my spirits especially since its an Indian made tablet which hopefully would be much better and cheaper than its Apple and Android counterparts.

Yesterday, after long and long and extra long delays, Notion Ink finally opened their 'store' to pre orders. However thats when things started to go wrong, horribly wrong. Notion Ink had promised the Notion Ink "family" that it would open its doors first to them and then to the world, 6 hours later. Many many 'members' then commented on the blog that they hadnt received the notification mail even when they were part of the Notion Ink 'family'. Later when the store opened up for everyone, there were payment faults, error messages, payments getting failed etc. Notion Ink has admitted now that there was indeed a problem with the servers.

To add to the slew of problems was Notion Ink posted their terms and conditions and warranty policies which not just shocked many but also made Notion Ink Adam a contender for 'scamware of the year'. To be short and precise, Notion Ink will charge you for every single manufacturing fault of theirs even if its within the warranty period and will deduct the shipping charges from your pocket too! I cant remember the last time I came across such insane warranty policies. Oh wait, there's more. Notion Ink Adam will apparently ship from China! (Yea even I was WTFed when I first learnt about it) And so, you will have to shell out $50 for shipping plus import duties regardless of where you are located.

Compare this to the support system of Samsung which gives you Samsung warranty without any such weird preconditions and shipping issues. I really dont mind shelling out the extra $$$ to get the largest selling Android tablet. Notion Ink's business just seems way too fishy right now. What a shame!

Bad Time to Buy an E-book Reader

Image via Wikipedia

This really is a bad time to buy an e-book reader, especially if you happen to live in India. I'll tell you why. The two of the most popular conventional (read eInk) e-book readers are the Amazon Kindle and the Infibeam Pi. They are slow, colourless and lacked intense multimedia capabilities. But then, after iPad release a host of companies came up with their tablet offerings. The netbook, once a hot product, seemed to dying a painful rather sooner than expected.

The problem with the tablets is that since they have an LCD display, there is a considerable amount of strain on the eyes on prolonged usage. The eInk on the other hand doesnt do colour, so thats a potential let down.

Enter Notion Ink. A revolutionary product in the making which seems to have solved the problems of netbooks and tablets all at the same time. Its powered by android and has a pixel qi display. Pixel qi is something quite revolutionary which inspite of having a brightness comparable to LCDs, has the ability to reflect direct sunlight and also reduces strain on the eyes. Seems too good to be true doesnt it? Even I didnt believe it until my friend Abhirup convinced me about this truly amazing development going on in this country. A lot is being promised and lot of interest has been generated thanks to this cutting edge device and thanks to its really attractive price tag of $498 for the 3G with wifi version. However, no release date for this device has been announced as yet although its expected that it might release by the end of this year or early next.

Incidentally even Infibeam is ready with its tablet offering. They call it the Infibeam Phi (the eInk edition is the 'Pi'). The Phi has Android as well as Windows versions and is decently powered. However since it has an LCD display, its difficult to call it as an ebook reader. The dual screen technology of pixel qi is far superior than the traditional eInk and almost as good if not at par with LCD brightness, this is where I think the Notion Ink tablet scores over the Phi. But even the Phi hasnt been released yet, although Infibeam is taking preorders.

Hence my conclusion that this is indeed the worst time to buy an ebook reader. The suggestion would be to stay put and abstain from investing in any such devices until both the Infibeam Phi and Notion Ink hit the mainstream market.