RSSBorders to Sell Sony Reader Device
By Nate Mook | Published April 3, 2006, 2:59 PM
Sony inked a deal on Monday to sell its new Reader device in Borders bookstores across the United States, including some airport locations. The Sony Reader, demoed at this year's CES conference in January, offers a high-contrast, high-resolution (800x600) electronic paper display for viewing e-books and text documents.
Sporting a form factor much like a Tablet PC, the Sony Reader is roughly as thick as a paperback book and includes internal flash memory, along with optional Memory Stick or Secure Digital (SD) slots. Sony will sell books for the device through its CONNECT service, and offer prepaid cards at Borders. The company says prices will be competitive with brick-and-mortar bookstores.
"With this agreement to offer the Sony Reader to Borders customers, we are adding an exciting, new book format that gives those who are passionate about reading another way to indulge that passion. We are proud to be associated with Sony for the introduction of this exciting new product," commented Borders Senior Vice President of Trade Books Bill Nasshan.
Fiction and non-fiction books from both major and independent publishers will be sold for the Reader. Sony will additionally provide customers with a selection of book-related content through CONNECT, including blogs, news feeds and online magazines.
"Reading enthusiasts can now join the ranks of other digital media consumers to read their text content -- e-books and Internet content -- portably, anytime, anywhere," said Lee Shirani, vice president of Sony CONNECT.
The Sony Reader is not just for books, however; the device can display Adobe PDF files and JPEG images. Sony says battery life is "seemingly limitless" -- amounting to 7,500 page turns. Pricing for the Reader will run between $299 and $399 USD.
A better idea would be for the major book publishers to come up with a standard ebook format, even PDF would work. Then turn to a company to produce a smaller, cheaper device that will handle books from all publishers. Theres no reason a device can't be under $100. Make it palm sized. Give it a memory slot, or a usb connection to add your own PDF's. Non color screen because the main idea is to read on it, not view pictures. that will keep the costs down. And sell the books cheaper than a hardback or discount them with the purchase of the hardback. I personally like the idea of ebooks, but I'm not up for giving up my hardbacks all together. I like to collect them.
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|If you make the device palm sized, then what's the point of having a reader? PDAs can already display PDF-based or Microsoft Reader based e-books. Not to mention that most PDAs have color displays.
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|I don't know about everyone else on BN. But I think this is a good/Bad idea. The reason this will be a success.
A small device with the abilities to store tons of books. I know books nowadays vary from $5 on up to 4-500 dollars. With the ability to download a $400 book that's twice the size of a laptop and weighs almost 30lbs, and store it on a device that's the size and weight of a PDA is great to me. Even more so being able to store 10 Books twice the size of a laptop weighing in at 30lbs each on a small device is awesome.
Why it won't be a success. Inital price, current limited availibility of E-Books. But soon you will probably be able to find any book in Electronic form.
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|The thing is, is that many books have color images or text and with this device, you wont be able to see the color
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|I have some reservations, but I'm going to try and keep an open mind until I've had a chance to play with one for a while... At least there's an SD slot option, and I like the sound of that long battery life.
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|I cant see the use of this product. With high cost of the device might as well buy the book. Well, if its a 1000 page book then it is difficult to carry it around while travelling. Most regular travellers have a laptop on which you can read an e-book. If you dont have one wait for the MIT Labs $100 and it will be worth reading a book on it.
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|Did i see a price point of $299? And its the same size as a paper back book? WHOA! Might as well just say that the consumer will need to purchase books for the enxt 20 years in order to realize cost savings
I've been reading books on my palm for YEARS now.
Talk about missing the boat... sony has missed the boat, cleared the pier, and is far FAR out to sea.
What a mess. Can someone say corporate restructuring? Its consuming products devision is a nightmare right now. The only thing that can make it worse is if they somehow include their software inaptidute into this product and consumers will lash out (all of the oldschool sony MD owners know what i'm talking about - can you say SoundStage).
If this is their opinion of innovation. Whew!
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|I think the biggest reason this is doomed to failure (like all of the earlier devices) is that they charge anywhere from full to hard cover price for the darn books.
Why do I get a discount on software if I order the program and download it? Why do I get a movie cheaper via PPV than I do going to BBV?
I'm not going to pay the same price for an e-book. What about used e-books? When will those be available? I spend a fair amount of time in Half-Price books because the cost of a paperback is now up to $7+ bucks.
They really need to rethink their pricing model. If they were selling books for half of what I pay (or even 75%) for a hardcopy, then I think they'd get people buying.
I know I'd love to have my entire library on a few memory sticks. Just think, joing the Double Day book clubs would let you download your selections directly to your bPod (book-Pod) just like you do podcasts today.
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|DOA. It's Sony prorietary crap. The only redeeming point is it will do .pdf files. It remains to see how well, but that's a start.
"Competitive with Brick & Mortar stores" - translated reads something like "Expect to pay full hardback prices despite our obvious distribution advantages."
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|Nearly every document on your PC can be printed to PDF output for free. Nearly every web page worth keeping can be "printed" to a PDF file. Take a look at PDFCreator at theopencd.org. This isn't another Librie (or Rocket eBook) and I'm going to buy one of these gadgets the moment they're available!
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|"we are adding an exciting, new book format that gives those who are passionate about reading another way to indulge that passion."
Great...more propietary Sony products. When will they learn? Sure, innovation and new technology are great, really, but in the computer world you must have interoperability. PDF reader and ability to read JPEG images are steps in the right direction, but the device itself uses a proprietary format.
"Reading enthusiasts can now join the ranks of other digital media consumers to read their text content -- e-books and Internet content -- portably, anytime, anywhere,"
Yeah...they can "join" the ranks of Palm PCs and Cell phones you mean? Way too late for this IMO.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, all I've read so far is on this BN article. If I am completely missing something, someone please enlighten me.
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|I think we are missing the point here. This is not about a PDA. This is a new technology of displays that do not need to be refreshed and that do not make your eyes tired.
If you want a PDA, or you only read sometimes for a short time, get something else.
The Sony Reader is based on electronic paper. Unlike LCDs, electronic paper has to be drawn once. There is no refresh on the screen and no need to have the device switched on. The advantage is clear: for your eyes, the difference between reading a book and a sony reader is none. You can even read it under sunlight. And it only uses power when it switches pages.
On the other hand, PDAs and laptops tire your eyes with the refresh of the screen, they cannot be easily read under sunlight and they use power all the time.
Why will I buy a sony reader? Because it is like a book. I can read it under sunlight and my eyes will not get tired. I am somebody that reads a lot. And believe me: the difference between reading the screen of a PDA and the screen of an epaper based device is huge.
Meanwhile I will carry my PDA with me for browsing with gprs, downloading documents and navigating with my gps. And a sony reader for reading my favourite books.
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