For those who favor the Sony Reader, Engadget reports that the latest version, with wi-fi and a Pearl e-ink touchscreen, has just become available for pre-order for $149.99 from Sony’s website. The device will ship sometime around October 16th.
I have my doubts that Sony is going to have staying power in the e-reader biz for much longer, but perhaps it will surprise me. At any rate, if you have a thing for the Sony Reader, have a blast.
I’m actually considering this over the Nook Touch/current Kindle reader. I like the idea of being able to jot down notes on whatever I’m reading with the included stylus. I just hope it handles PDF files well. That alone will make or break this thing (for me, anyway).
I have a 6″ touch ereader from Sony.
I like it, but like everything else, it could be improved.
My main issues center around the onboard computing power of the device. Having loaded thousands of books onto my reader, adding just one more book takes hours, while the device re-builds its indexes. (if you only load 100 books into memory, it is much faster!!)
Also, changing from reading mode to note taking mode takes an irritating several seconds.
The hardware of the various ereader devices has now reached that point that I am satisfied. My major criteria for selecting a new device ( when the Sony dies) will be the onboard software, its ease of use, and its rapidity of response.
Sony is a strange company. They make fantastic hardware devices. But they don’t support them properly.
I have the small Sony Personal ebook reader. I love it. Very sharp screen and, even with a leather cover, it will slip into a pants pocket. Love the touchscreen.
But I had to mod it by installing third party software and fonts in order to get a readable font. It shipped with a horrid selection of fonts and there is zero chance that Sony would ever actually update or improve the software.
My wife has a kindle. It’s big and awkward next to the sleek Sony. But Amazon updates and supports the Kindle and the fonts are easy to read. I would definitely recommend kindle over Sony to most readers because of ease of use and support.
In USA Sony has been eclipsed by Kindle and Nook, but here in Europe, specially outside the UK, Sony is the major branch with Kindle, Sony has the advantage over the Kindle that it could be found in brick and mortar stores, so people not knowing about ebooks could touch them, and didn’t need to “trust” buying on the internet.
Anyway, Sony has made some strange moves, the Sony PRS-650 was the most looked for ereader this spring and summer (even during last Christmas campaign it was difficult to find), and Sony has lost a lot of sales because it wasn’t available. It seems Sony can’t decide if they want to retire of the e-books market or they want to continue.