Fujitsu’s Flepia, the color e-book last seen in testing at an upscale Tokyo restaurant, is now available to buy. Don’t get too excited though — even if you’re in Japan, where the Flepia is on sale, it will cost you a whopping ¥99,750, or just over $1000.

You get a lot for your money, though. The reader has a an 8" screen which displays 260,000 colors, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (b and g), a mini USB port and, most important of all, a touch screen (although it comes with a stylus so we expect that it is a resistive touch screen, not capacitive like the iPhone.)

This is completed by a soft, on-screen keyboard (just like the Kindle should have) and a battery life of 40 hours (continuos use — Fujitsu says 2400 page turns). Books are stored on an SD card and can be bought from the online bookstore Papyless.

Curiously, the Flepia seems to be a kind of tablet/e-book hybrid. Along with the book reading software, the device comes loaded with Windows CE 5, meaning support for e-mail, spreadsheets, web browsing and the like. If you view this as a low powered, long life computer instead of a color e-book reader, it starts to look less expensive. The Flepia will start shipping on April 20th.

It looks like the age of the e-book is finally upon us, the dream of every science fiction writer ever. Next up — flying cars.

Press release [Fujitsu]

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