It looks like Amazon and Barnes & Noble aren’t the only ones who want to get into the LCD e-reader scene. Kobo, who like them has a 6-inch touchable e-ink reader, must have felt left out of the 7″ LCD device race, and apparently is releasing the Vox to fill that gap.
We actually heard about the Vox in an FCC filing a couple weeks ago, but held off on posting because there wasn’t much to say. But today the device was listed briefly on Canadian retailer Future Shop’s website, where a number of specs were revealed — though we should take them all with a grain of salt.
The few details revealed include an industry-standard 1024×600 7″ LCD, 8GB of internal storage, an a Micro SD slot. The battery is said to last six hours, and a number of Kobo-esque features are built in, like Pulse, Reading Life, and syncing content with other devices that have Kobo’s reading app installed on them.
It also “supports open standards and even keeps an archive of all the books you’ve downloaded,” the meaning of which isn’t quite clear. The “Vox” (Latin for “voice”) may refer to the ability to “connect highlighted words to audio.” In Future Shop’s specs, several e-book types are supported but not images or video, which I’m certain is a mistake, as graphic novels are mentioned in the product description.
It’s ever-so-slightly larger than the Kindle Fire, but at 400g, a tiny bit lighter as well. The price was $250 in Canadian dollars, though that may change. The Digital Reader claims to have a picture of an early version of the device, in case you’re curious.