Borders sells Iliad ebook reader

Book chain Borders is following Amazon's lead by selling an ebook reader through seven of its stores.

The Iliad Book Edition, developed by Philips spin-off iRex, differs from the US-only Amazon Kindle in that it includes Wacom touch-screen technology to allow annotation of text.

It has an 8.1in 768 x 1,024 electronic paper display supporting 16 levels of greyscale and is driven by an Arm-based 400MHz XScale processor.

There is 256MB of internal flash memory, 128MBytes of it available for the user, but it packs MMC and CF slots for extra memory and more can be added via a USB port.

It will sell for £399 including 50 classic titles, though these are freely available on the internet anyway.

Borders spokesperson Alex Hippisley-Cox said the company delayed offering an ebook until the technology was up to the task. But she did not believe it was about to undermine Borders' business.

"We don't believe the [paper] book is going to disappear," she said.

The iLiad will be available in Borders stores in Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Cheshire Oaks, Brighton, and Oxford Street and Islington, London, from tomorrow.

See Test Bed comment Scroll on a roll as epaper goes mainstream