Toy Department: Sony Reader links and ‘Hot Recorders for those cool podcasts’

The Sony Reader will soon be back in the news, big-time, when the actual units materialize for non-beta consumers. I continue to wonder about Amazon’s competing device (if it’s more than a rumor) and the Content Question.

While Sony is bragging about the 10,000 or so titles in its e-store, Amazon’s hardware will start out the gate with perhaps twice that number readable in Mobipocket. Is Sony gonna pay off Amazon to use BBeB format? I’d love to see wider discussion of these issues when journalists write up the Reader.

Meanwhile props to Bob Russell at MobileRead for putting together a collection of Sony clips. He’s also pointing to an article on whether e-ink readers are useful or just a fun gadget.

In other gadget news, New York Times has run an interesting little round-up on deluxe disk-based recorders that you can use for podcasts. Reviewed are “the Marantz PMD 660 ($499), the Edirol by Roland R-09 ($399) and the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 ($350).” The Time concludes: “While any of these devices will provide quality audio, the Edirol’s compact size and use of AA batteries give it a competitive edge.” The above photo is of the Edirol.