March 30, 2009, 8:08 AM — Another week, another e-reader. This time out it's the eSlick from Foxit Software. You might be familiar with the company from their various non-Adobe PDF tools. Their Foxit Reader is a fairly popular alternative to Acrobat.
Anyway, the eSlick is priced at a mere $259.99, and GearDiary got hold of one and posted a first look.
A quick look at the specs: 600x800 screen, E Ink display, 128 megs of RAM onboard with an SD slot that supports up to 5 gig SD cards (a 2 gig card is included with purchase price), 6.4 ounces, and a built in MP3 player.
Unfortunately (though perhaps expected, given the source) the eSlick supports only PDF and .txt formats. The unit does come with Foxit Reader pre-installed and a copy of Foxit's PDF Creator, but that means an extra conversion step for any non-PDF documents you might want to read on the device. PDF Creator works as a virtual printer, so you'll need software that can print your documents (print to PDF) in order to convert them. Data transfer is via USB cable; no wireless capabilities, though presumably you could just plug the SD card into your PC and load it up that way.
I guess it comes down to whether or not it's worth saving ~$100 in exchange for these extra steps. Of course if most of your source material is in PDF format anyway then you're all set.
The Foxit eSlick is shipping now, but the website says they're back-ordered and the next shipment is due in on April 10th.
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