Related Sections: Portable Gadgets
Sony Reader arrives, aims to be iPod for books
It's been delayed and delayed, but Sony's portable Reader, first announced in January, is finally for sale. To recap, the Reader (model no. PRS-500) is a handheld that's meant to stand in for that stack of books in your carryon. Storing up to 80 complete books on the surprisingly low 64 MB of internal memory (you can pump that up with Memory Stick or SD media), the 9-ounce Reader displays them page by page — including the cover, copyright, dedication, and all the rest — on its 6-inch (diagonal) screen. The display uses E Ink technology, which means it's purely black and white, but it also has the advantage of consuming no power unless the page is refreshed (i.e. you turn the page). Battery life is rated for about 7,500 page turns, and you can view RTF and PDF documents on it as well. Books for the Reader are for sale on Sony's online store that no one's ever heard of, Connect.com, and should cost you about 20% to 30% less than a print copy (that's off either the hardcover or paperback, depending on where the book is in its cycle). Encoded with copy-protecting DRM, the download can be copied to six devices.
Goofing around with the Reader last night, I found that it worked pretty much the same as the models Sony showed off at CES in January. It's simple enough to use, though the controls are a bit inelegant, and the E Ink tech makes the refresh rate kind of slow for anyone used to a 2-GHz PC. Text was clear enough (though certainly not as defined as black ink on white paper) and was easy on the eyes since the screen has no backlight. I was also a tad disappointed that you can't change the font — apart from making it larger. You're stuck with whatever the publisher gives you, and forget about adjusting leading or justification.
Will books come out for the Reader at the same time as the hardcover editions? That's up to the publishers, which include heavyweights like Penguin-Putnam, Simon and Schuster, Random House, HarperCollins, and Harlequin, and so far they've put 10,000 titles on Connect. The Reader will ship to retail outlets, including Borders, by the end of this week. But if you can't wait, you can order one from Sonystyle.com for the tidy sum of $350.
By LostMK at 1:22 PM ON 10/05/06
Good idea - Yes
Ipod of its kind - No
It needs to have a much larger screen, programming options for still and moving images, better user-input controls (it looks worse than a gameboy... -- the original ones >_>). Also it would not hurt to make some of the user-input use touch-screen rather than those ugly ugly buttons...
By BrainiacV at 2:01 PM ON 10/05/06
Yes, but can I write notes on it? It would be great for technical manuals and such, but only if I could add notes.
By curtisjackson at 2:16 PM ON 10/05/06
I remember John Warnock (co-founder Adobe Systems) talking to us about just such a device about 15 years ago. This one would seem to be lacking what we envisioned back then in only one key area -- it is too small. It needs to be 8.5 x 11, or at least much closer to that.
It also does not (yet) support anything but Windows XP. They've had nearly a year of delay time on the device itself; that should have been plenty of time to add support for other platforms, most notably Mac OS X.
I applaud Sony's attempt and their ingenius power-saving technolgy and readable screen, but until they come out with a larger version that is Mac-compatible, this fish isn't biting.
By jsauvageau at 6:41 PM ON 10/05/06
I don't know why you're complaining about the size. If I were the type to take a bus to work every day (I walk, actually) and I wanted to read, somthing the size of a paperback would be much more acceptable to me, than carrying around something the size of a notebook or laptop. That's the point of the reader.
You can have Word documents, MP3's, PDF, txt, rtf, and images as well (JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG). You can take blogs and online newspapers with you and listen to an audio book. You can rotate the display. When you turn the power off, the last page in memory is shown at startup. The software provided will let you convert pdf files to a size that's readable on the screen. I haven't seen anything that says it won't work for a pdf book you've purchased online and have the DRM file for.
Anyway, maybe you get the idea, now. Also, compare iPod battery life with Sony battery life. Sony is much better, by far. I can charge my MP3 player for 40 minutes to get a 50 hour playback (or 3 minutes, for 3 hours playback). Can you do that with the new and very slightly improved iPod? NO! I also have the Ericsson phone because the battery will last for 12 hours talk time/400 hours standby. Sony lasts for so long, even when I've dropped it several times on cement floors. What's the point of buying an expensive iPod, just to be like everyone else? BAA, BAA! No thanks. I prefer to research my electronic buys before hand and checking ALL specifications, I don't let the latest fad dictate my purchases, I let my brain do that.
My only regret is that they don't have it in Canada, yet, and there's no target date here.
By LostMK at 7:47 PM ON 10/05/06
on your cellphone!
Text DVICE to 72434
editor@dvice.com
LostMK:
I want this: http://usera.imagecave.com/captjtk/TNG-PADD....More »