I want it!! - but the price is expected to be $400 not $300. Ouch.

My wife and I were in a store yesterday and noticed on their exit rack a set of cheap gadgets such as a 1GB MP3 player for $20, a media player for $40, and a portable CD player for $12...
I then commented to her that I remember the first advert for a portable DVD player for $2700 - now - $100 range...
These will be in that cheap-gadget exit lane for $20 soon enough. One thing that would really increase its usefulness is an ability to highlight or mark text/pages/add notes... that'd eliminate many people from printing pages out.
If you think about it - this is a nice alternative to a GPS as you can upload a full map in it. Sure, it's manual but you can then use it to read books as well... Great for travel. The more we can do with one gadget the better - too many singular use ones collecting dust...

@GreenofaKind: Actually, the new Reader can highlight text and store footnotes. We left it out of the original copy to save room, but I've added a sentence about it in the second paragraph. We hope it gets cheaper (and better), too!

I agree with James S. These devices cost way too much. I'd be all over this reader if it were under $200.

I dont actually see whats so special about this device my phones battery lasts a long time, Its got a colour screen, wifi, media player etc. and I can read pdfs and word documents on it and it only costs between 200-300GBP. all theyve done is take allot of the functions out of a phone changed the screen to a bigger and more energy efficient one and sold it on, in other words they've tryed to fool people into thinking its good by creating a whole new type of product and people dont know how much these new products should cost so the makers get to mark the price where ever they want.

When they come out with a *COLOR* reader that will display *NORMAL FILES* (i.e. .txt, .doc, .pdf, etc.) as well as their "special and proprietary format"--then it might be "news".

Until then, this is just an "expensive and proprietary toy".

For $400 you can get a *slightly bigger* device that is a complete tablet PC in COLOR, that will display EVERY FILE IMAGINABLE.

This is an absolute waste of technology intended to do nothing more than suck money out of the pockets of idiots who "have to have the latest and greatest." It's "interim technology" at best and "pointless and useless" at least.

Save your money. Say no to the corps who are trying to lock you into their proprietary model and wait for the entrepreneurs who will get universal readers to the marketplace.

I bought a PRS 505 a while back and love it.

It's really a different tool than a PC or smartphone.
Here are some key points:

- never even gets warm, no less hot

- you can spend a whole day reading without
running the battery down

- it's thin, easy to hold, easy to sit in your
favorite chair and use like a book.
no neck strain like you might have reading on
a laptop

- FANTASTIC if you travel. You can take a whole bunch of books, reports, papers etc. with you to browse when you're stuck on the plane without the bulk of paper or the difficulties of trying to use a laptop on the plane. Also you won't drain the battery even on a long US to asia flight.

- It (the PRS505 anyway) actually does display more documents types than advertised... PDF, .dvi, .ppt, .doc, text files, .html ...

- I showed it to my wife's grandmother who is 94. She was able to use it easily, and loved that you could make the text large enough to read comfortably (has a magnifiging glass button).
Not to kid anyone, I like this feature too. Really helps reduce eye strain.

This product really does for books what an iPOD does for music. Yes you could plug earphones into your laptop and carry that around. Or phone (more realistic, but then do you want to use all your phone's battery NOT making calls?) Sony please keep these products coming.

can the sony PRS-700 reader support .chm files?

The current set of ebooks are very expensive, I dont really know if Sony are doing the right thing by making newer models far more so.

I have owned a PRS-505 for about a year. It is wonderful. However, as excited as I am about the PRS-505, the PRS-700 does not seem like a vast improvement. Even if Sony were to offer a $100 trade in to buy the PRS-700 (they allow this with a PRS-500 to PRS-505 upgrade), I am not certain if I would make the change. But, the good news is that the street price of the PRS-505 will probably drop when the PRS-700 becomes available. Anyone who finds a PRS-505 at a discount should not hesitate to purhase one.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. I've been reading ebooks on Palm devices for years. Awesome backlight lets you read anywhere (except perhaps in strong direct sunlight). I get colors where I want them, copy/paste/notes if I need them. Battery life is consistently good, Palm Reader ebooks are reasonably priced, I do all the other Palm things along with reading, and I DIDN'T spend freakin' $400.

The only thing the proliferation of other electronic reading devices has done for me is making publishers more aware that there is a market out here. There's a virtual smorgasboard of ebook offerings out there now, whereas it used to be one pathetic tray of stale hors d'oeuvres. Hooray for that!

let's face it a jail broken iPhone beats the hell out of this thing why multifunctin I'm typeing this on my iPhone and not a problim it seems like they tape a touch-screen a d-cell and a sd card and are calling it the latest thing come on we are adults the this makes about as much sence as buying riped jeans the e-reader is a pointless waist of technolagy

What i really want to see soon in the ebook readers as well as color option (years away? oh come on) is a very simple application. A basic text editor like notepad. I have a few short stories and whatnot i like to try and work on occasionally, but sometimes the mood has to hit me just right. and for the same basic price as kindle it seems to offer nothing to warrant the what 50 dollar price reduction?

I agree with many of the comments; you can keep this over priced useless piece of junk. Hey Sony you hear use? Listen to the market for once and not yourself for once. For a little more like 200-300 I can buy a tablet PC as mentioned - Hey wait.... I m using one to write this...
BUT something like this should be way cheaper since the technology for this has been out for many years. A good place for a cheap bare bones reader of this type; but with the ability like mentioned to read way more documents; BE in Color with also it can playback audio/video in any ormatis where? IN THE SCHOOLS. I can go on be my point is made I AM NOT INTERESTED YET SONY.....

Reading all these comments really makes me wonder how ignorant people are about e-readers . You cannot compare this product to other gadgets like iphone or tablet PC. I actually have an iPhone and a tablet PC and none of them compare even remotely to the Sony e-reader. I bought PRS-505 about a month ago, and had it for 4 weeks. As soon as I learned that there was a better one coming I returned the 505 for the full price and pre-ordered the 700. I've been without the e-reader for 2 days now and really miss it. Iphone with its terrible battery-life is useless for reading books in comfort and without the eye-strain. Don't get me wrong, I love the iPhone for what it's made (phone, calendar, music and mobile internet/email). The table PC gives me too much eye-strain, it's too hot and cumbersome. Again, its a great computer. But these two gadgets simply are not in the league with the reader when it comes to e-texts.

Cheers

i have an EEE PC which i bought last christmas to use as a book reader. its a decent book reader. but not great.

i recently bought a prs 500 on ebay. and i fell in love with it.. then my girlfriend sat on it.

i saw the ads for this thing and i emailed every1 i knew and told them to get me the 700 for chirstmas

currently ive ordered a kindle which i intend to return before the 30 day mark.

reading on a laptop is nothing like reading on an ereader. no ifs, and or buts. that also goes for the PSP, the DS, and Mobile phones (both a Palm, and a HTC 8925)

every1 says... the screen looks fake.. you know those stickers that come on new devices. thats what the screen looks like. its very readable. its perfect for its function.

Use an ebook reader for a month before saying a laptop could do it better. it cant. nothing can besides a actual book. and then not even that.

Why? You can read PDF's on the PSP which is priced at $160.

The "I have a phone/notebook" ney-sayers are simply missing the point:

Yes, I have an iPhone and a MacBook, but IMO there is considerably greater eye-strain when using the iPhone screen for extended reading, and the notebook is ergonomically wrong as a book, plus the LCD screen will still tax your eyes over extended periods.

The e-ink screens are what sets these readers apart. That, and the ergonomics. The new Sony is also a great design, and I just pre-ordered one:-)

While I assume most people posting here just leave their opinion and then never check back, I'm going to respond.

I have a computer, a laptop, a Palm. I've used all 3 to read ebooks on. None of them compare to these ebook readers.

You're missing the whole point of electronic ink. It's NOT A COMPUTER SCREEN. Monitors are shoving a tons of light in your eyes in a small square shape and it creates a ton of eye strain. This is e-ink. It has no light, it looks just like holding a newspaper. You can read it broad daylight, or in bed (with the built in LED or a book light). You eyes will not suffer from eyestrain like they do when looking at a computer monitor. Also, as so many people have stated but people seem to ignore, this does not ONLY read proprietary formats, you can copy a PLAIN TEXT FILE and it will read it. You can't get more "open" than that.

If you think your solution is so much better, you need to go see this thing in person. The only reason I won't buy one now is the price, and I think it's horrible that there has been color e-ink since 2003 yet they sit on that tech until they've sold more b&w versions. Once a color version comes out, comic geeks will be all over these.

I think that many of you are missing the point. The e-book reader isn't a laptop replacement. After all, how many computers have batteries that would last based on page-turns instead of hours.

I have a prs-505 reader, and I can go months without charging it. For example, if I turn on my reader and read a page, and then leave it on that page, a week later (so long as sleep as not turned on), the page will still be displayed on the screen, like an actual book!

Also, how many of you can actual read a book on a tablet screen? There's something called eye strain, that occurs when you are staring at a backlit screen for hours. I regularly read my e-book reader for hours on end and have no problems with eye-strain.

Also, for those people who say that this is proprietary, well you are extremely confused and ill-informed! This reader supports txt, lrf, bbeb, pdf, and rtf files. What this means is that you can go on almost any website and use ms word or adobe acrobat to convert a file for you. Also, you can use Calibre to creat perfect lrf files for free. I regularly read project gutenberg books for FREE!

All I have to say is that I've saved hundreds by using my reader. I've probably read over a 100 books on the darn thing and love it.

I know I can't convince you naysayers, but seriously, don't hate unless you've actually used the device. It seems that none of you have ever used one. Especially the ones who think that Tablet PC's are great alternatives!

I have a Netbook and it pales in comparison to the reader for e-book use.
My Iphone sucks for e-book use.
My Treo sucked for e-book use.
My Windows mobile sucked for e-book use.

The reader is far better for every day use and works as a great simulation of the written page.

I found an online converter for Sony reader
http://www.lib2go.com