Sony’s New “Reader Digital Book”
Sony has hit some hard times. They needed the PS3 to succeed, and it’s currently sitting behind the Nintendo DS, PSP, and Nintendo Wii in recent sales figures from Japan. Their LCD HDTVs are considered nearly the best, but they are too expensive for the normal family. They need a new product to help out in the consumer space. I’ve written about eBooks before, but now Sony has released a new reader at an almost-reasonable price ($300).
The Sony PRS-505 (released 10/2/07) is an ultraportable eBook reader that is about the same size as a normal paperback and weighs only 9 ounces. It’s 1/3″ thin and holds 160 eBooks. You can hold even more eBooks by sticking in a 2GB SD card (no SDHC support apparently–so keep those 8GB cards to yourself) or a 4GB Sony Memory Stick. The downside? Sony expects you to buy the eBooks from their store. Even worse, the eBooks are about the same cost as paperbacks on Amazon. You can load your own documents, but they have to be PDF, RTF, TXT, BBeB (Encrypted and Unencrypted), or images (note: the device is grayscale). RSS is weakly supported and you are limited to 20 feeds that you need to manually update. Likewise, podcasts are not supported, but you can listen to MP3 and AAC files.
The best part about this eReader? It’s environmentally friendly. The device only uses power when you turn the page, and you can turn the page 7500 times on a single charge [Sony]. And, you’ll save trees by avoiding those pesky paper books.
Sony’s e Ink technology affords a bright, high contrast screen that isn’t subject to glare.You can also zoom in. Unfortunately, you can’t interact with the text (e.g. highlight it, make notes) and the display is grayscale.
With improved RSS/podcast support and cheaper prices on eBooks, this will be a great device.
(Thanks to Tekzilla Episode 5 for their PRS-505 review)
Edit (11/19): The Amazon Kindle is much better than the Sony Reader. It has integrated free wireless (via EVDO) and has books for $9.99. The Sony Reader still wins for aesthetics though.
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