Although Sony has long offered some nicely designed, feature-packed E Ink readers, the company has trailed Amazon and Barnes & Noble for a while now in both sales and media coverage, and this week is no exception. Yesterday, while Amazon sucked up all the media attention, Sony Electronic’s vice president of digital reading Phil Lubell told Bloomberg that his company plans to introduce two new Sony Reader models “probably” in August, and is currently working on two tablet devices for release later in 2011.
The article doesn’t provide much info in the way of hardware specs, but it looks like prices will remain somewhere in the $180-300 range.
As for the tablets—which will incorporate Sony’s ebook platform—you can expect to pay a Sony premium:
Sony may price its two tablets — one clamshell-style with dual 5.5-inch screens and the other with a 9.4-inch touchscreen — higher than some rival products, [Lubell] said, without elaborating.
Read the full article at Bloomberg.com
Tell me again, why I wouid pay more for a Sony e-reader or tablet? No chance.
Well, this article is only half right. The Sony S1 and S2 tablets got a decent amount of media coverage, at least that I saw. However, not a word about possible new e-readers. I hope they have some major improvements over their current lot.
Given the disgraceful “customer service” I received from Sony, I’ve had to walk away from 200 or so ebooks I bought from them. Not in *this* lifetime, Sony !