Iranian entrepreneurs have made inroads into the e-book reader industry, offering Persian speakers the chance to read texts on demand in their mother tongue for the very first time in e-reader history.
Manufactured jointly by startup and major e-book publisher Fidibo, and Digikala, Iran's largest e-commerce store, the e-reader called "Fidibook" was unveiled this week in a bookstore in Tehran, reported ITIRAN.
While several major companies across the globe including Amazon have been in the business of e-book readers for over a decade, none of the brands support the Persian language.
The homegrown device is deemed unrivaled as there are no alternatives to the Persian-supporting gadget in the international market.
Lack of support for the Persian language made reading in Farsi a chore for users of brands such as Kindle as they could not adjust the font and use the many options the device held for other languages.
Furthermore, average book readership is pitifully poor in the country. Iran's Public Libraries Institution says each Iranian hardly spends about 15 minutes reading books every day.
The e-reader might help boost the figures as e-books are made available at vastly cheaper rates and occupy virtually no space.
The device can be purchased on Digikala and some bookstores; the price is set at 5.49 million rials ($130) with one million rials ($23.8) credit for buying e-books from Fidibo.
>Features
Fidibook features a 6-inch E-Ink display with 212-pixel density and 758×1024 resolution powered by a 1.0 GHz dual-core processor. The e-reader packs 8GBs of internal storage which can be expanded via an SD card slot up to 32 GBs.
E-Ink enabled products are easily readable even in direct sunlight because the electronic paper component reflects light like ordinary ink on paper. Furthermore, the technology needs no power to hold an image or page of text.
Fidibook supports four formats, namely, TXT, EPUB, PDF, and Mobi and weighs 190 grams.
The device can connect to the internet via WiFi networks and offers 512GB RAM. The 2800 mAh battery only needs to be charged once a month if one spends 30 minutes every day using it, which translates to 15 hours of use with a single recharge.
The gadget goes without a headphone jack, a feature that will probably be added in the next versions of Fidibook.
>Rivals
The most recognized e-reader brands available in Iran are Amazon's Kindle and the Chinese Onyx Boox.
The prices of Kindle models currently listed on Digikala's website range from the Kindle 8 at 7.8 million rials ($185) to Kindle Oasis at 22.39 million rials ($533).
It merits mention that the All-New Kindle Oasis, the brand's latest e-reader, costs $250 on Amazon, meaning Iranians have to pay more than double for the device to get their hands on the reader.
While the price difference is in no way justifiable, one fact that needs to be pointed out is that e-book readers can be considered a niche product with marginal customer demand across the country.Low book readership in Iran has actually contributed to the high prices set by importers.
The matter in question has been brought to the attention of officials in recent years, with many calling on the general public to read more.
ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi is one of the officials who have come on board. During a visit to the ongoing 31st Tehran International Book Fair, the young minister dropped by the exhibition stands of several e-book and audiobook publishers, including Fidibo, Taaghche, Ketabrah and Navaar.
Later in the day he took to Twitter to praise the services and wrote, "We can prevent cutting down trees by turning to e-books".
We had better wait and see if Fidibook will find its place in the market or the project will suffer from the disinterest of the public in reading.
>Riding Toward Higher Reading
Established by Iranian cultural product chain store Book City Company in 2014, Fidibo has Android and iOS apps in addition to a website.
Fidibo launched a new service in February, which provides commuters taking a ride on Tehran subway with free but limited access to an extensive collection of e-books.
During the month from February 20 to March 20, there were 50,826 commuters using the service. The subway system boasts an average daily ridership of more than two million.
The introduction of a locally developed e-reader with the distinguishing feature of supporting the Persian language might become the solution to the country's low book readership.
