Samsung WiFi eReader at $299

Samsung put a price tag of $299 on its new E6 eReader due this spring.
The eReader is aimed at Samsung’s existing retailers, although the company plans to branch out to college bookstores and other venues.
Although Samsung initially showed two eReaders at the Consumer Electronics show in January, the company has whittled its line down to one initially, and announced today that Barnes & Noble will provide the eBookstore for the device.
The E6 has a six inch E Ink screen and is the first eReader to let users “write” notes with a stylus on the screen rather than requiring an on-screen keyboard for notes, said Samsung.
The WiFi and Bluetooth device does not offer 3G over-the-air-downloads. It however, lets other Samsung eReader owners share documents over WiFi and it also permits the Barnes & Noble lending feature that lets users loan eBooks to other users (via PC or other device) for up to 14 days.
The Samsung E6 eReader is aimed at Samsung’s distribution which includes over 1,000 retailers, but the company may also strike business-to-business deals and pursue college bookstores, said Reed Sullivan, senior VP DAV and Digital Imaging Marketing.
The monochrome unit includes 2GB of internal memory and has a MicroSD slot that supports up to 16GB. It supports read only Microsoft Office files and E Pub files.
Sullivan said regional CE retailers continue to show high interest in eReaders. Although the margins on the products are low (they can hit 20 percent), retailers may be able to make up the shortfall through accessories and bundles as in other low margin hardware categories such as MP3 players.
Although Samsung decided to launch with only one device, Sullivan said there may be other device in the future and the product is “getting a lot of resources” from Samsung.