This post was published 3 months 5 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

As expected, Sony announced two new flavors of their Reader ebook devices today at a clever little event held at the New York Public Library. Both the 5 inch Pocket Edition and 6 inch Touch Edition had been heavily leaked before hand and look great. However, a third model was also announced that we hadn’t heard about in advance, the Reader Daily Edition. Built to be able to handle newspapers or magazines as well as books (hoorah for Landscape Mode), the Reader Daily Edition has a seven-inch touchscreen with 16 levels of gray (sorry, no color for those “artistic pictorials”). In addition, the Daily Edition comes with an AT&T 3G modem built right in for accessing content wirelessly for free, but only from the Sony eBook store. Sorry no net surfing. However, you can also add content via a USB port or a memory card slot (I assume SD).

Sony also announced a very cool feature that will reach across their full line of Readers, a partnership with Overdrive.com which will allow you to download content from participating public libraries for free (assuming you have a library card there). Libraries are still being lined up but two biggies, the New York and Chicago Public Libraries, are already on board. Apparently this feature allows you to “check out” an ebook which will only be usable for a set period of time, say two or three weeks. Each library will only have so many licenses for each book, so if they are all checked out, you’ll need to wait. While I resent almost all forms of DRM, I admit this is a pretty damn clever concept and should do a lot for popularizing ebook use, especially in areas with good libraries. Sony also says they will be bringing some University libraries on board as well. Since most Universities allow you to sign up for libraries cards even when you are not a student for a small fee, this could be an incredible way to make academic knowledge more readily available. Imagine having access to the stacks of one of the great research libraries, from anywhere in the world. Incredible.

All this information about Sony’s newest readers reminds me that while I adore ebooks, I don’t much care for the Kindle, despite the hype. The Kindle was created by Amazon, a bookstore, to allow you to buy more of THEIR books. Sony on the other hand is an electronics company that is making devices for reading ebooks….ANY ebooks. Sure they have their own ebook store, but the focus is on the reading experience, not where you buy the book. Would you buy a TV made by HBO that ONLY received HBO? When I look at them like that, Sony wins this round hands down in my opinion.

Here is what Sony’s press release has to say about the three new Ebook Readers…

The Reader Pocket Edition sports a five-inch electronic paper display packaged in a stylish chassis and is available in a variety of colors, including navy blue, rose and silver. It is available for the ground-breaking price of $199, making it the most affordable dedicated reading device on the market.

The Reader Touch Edition features a responsive, menu-driven six-inch touch screen panel that enables quick, intuitive navigation, page turning, highlighting and note taking with the swipe of a finger or by using the included stylus pen. It comes in red, black or silver and retails for about $299.

The Reader Daily Edition gives consumers wireless access via AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband network to Sony’s eBook store from just about anywhere in the U.S. Book lovers will be able to browse, purchase and download books as well as select newspapers and magazines when and where they want. There are no monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity and users still have the option to side load personal documents or content from other compatible sites via USB.

The seven-inch wide, touch screen display provides for intuitive navigation and comfortable layout of content, including newspapers and magazines, whether you’re reading in portrait or landscape orientation. In portrait mode, about 30-35 lines of text are visible, making the experience very similar to that of a printed paperback book. A high contrast ratio with 16 levels of grayscale ensures that text and images are crisp and easy to read. The Daily Edition also boasts an attractive aluminum body with an integrated cover for durability. It has enough internal memory to hold more than one thousand standard eBooks and expansion slots for memory cards to hold even more. It will sell for about $399.

As is clear from the Press Release, these are sadly still very US-centric devices (just like the Kindle). No word yet on when or even if a European release is coming,

(Photo Credit: Engadget)

Rate Post

(No Ratings Yet)   

Similar Posts

• Sony is releasing two eBook Readers
• Sony Reader Hits Target
• Lulu puts eBooks on iPhones and Sony eBook Readers
• Sony Opening Up their Ebook Store to Self Publishers
• Lots of Ebook News

Zealot (476 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).