Samsung brings pens to the ebook

Samsung ereader
Scribble notes all over Samsung's new ereader

Samsung has announced its first ebook devices at CES 2010 this week – the 6-inch E6 and 10-inch E101, each shipping with a stylus allowing you to write on the e-paper page.

The books are Wi-Fi enabled and support all the usual formats (ePub, PDF and TXT) so you can download books from Google Books' massive public domain library online, or buy books from commercial online bookstores.

"The 6-inch E6 and 10-inch E101 further solidify Samsung's position as a global leader in display technology by raising the bar on the quality of writing capabilities for e-Book," claims Samsung's CES release.

The pen can be set to different thicknesses and even has calligraphy settings, should you wish to pen a nice-looking haiku or two on the go. It can also be used to copy and paste and cut text on the e-book.

"We've used our expertise to create a high-quality e-Book with today's on-the-go consumer in mind," said Dominic Webb, General Manager, Display Division, Samsung Electronics UK and Ireland.

"Samsung is addressing a common frustration that users experience with many of today's e-Books by using an electromagnetic resonance pen to save them time when writing on their e-Book."

Samsung's new E6 and E1010 e-Books also feature Handwriting Recognition Capabilities and Samsung's unique "Text-to-Speech" engine which the company claims can read a book with accurate pronunciations for users who are driving or in noisy environments.

The E6 and E101 are set to launch in the UK in March. No word on pricing yet, but we expect to hear more shortly.

Adam Hartley