Electronic book readers have grabbed many headlines in recent months, with Amazon's Kindle selling moderately well, but if you've been waiting for a little color before taking the plunge then perhaps Fujitsu has the answer for you - that is if you have plenty of cash to spare on one of these things. Dubbed FLEPia, this 8-inch eBook reader will make its debut next month in Japan with a price tag of around $1,000.
The device can display up to 260,000 colors, using low-powered touch screen technology, and store "the equivalent of 5,000 conventional paper-based books" via an SD card slot capable of holding up to 4GB of data. It also offers connectivity so you can purchase content directly, but unlike Amazon's use of the Sprint 3G network, the FLEPia relies on 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
It runs Windows CE 5.0 and is said to last 40 hours from a single charge so, surely, it can be used for a bit more than just reading books. But even at $359 the Kindle 2 is considered too pricey by many. At $1,000, this will be a much tougher sell for Fujitsu, but it's a start and prices should fall as the technology continues to improve.