Kobo
Launched: May 2010
Launch price: $149
Current price: $139
The Kobo is Borders' answer to the Nook and Kindle. Like its rivals, it uses electronic ink, and it comes with 100 public-domain classics pre-loaded. Its 1 GB drive can hold about 1,000 books..
When it hit the market, Wired's Charlie Sorrel wondered if it the Kobo would finally topple the Kindle as the e-reader of choice, thanks to its rock-bottom price tag and bare-bones feature set.
"It looks like a huge threat to the Kindle, and Kobo seems to have trimmed just the right features to get to this low price," he wrote. "Right now we don't see much reason to buy Amazon's locked-down machine."
But Amazon quickly hit back with a Kindle price chop, and its entry-level gadget is now priced identically to the Kobo -- which seems destined to fade to also-ran status.
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