Sony Reader to Debut with 10,000 Titles
September 27, 2006 | by Geoff Duncan
Sony's electronic paper-based Reader is finally due to hit stores next month, and Sony promises more than 10,000 book titles will be available from major publishers.
After an abortive launch earlier this year—and an earlier product marketed not-so-successfully in Asia as the Sony LIBRIé—Sony Electronics has announced that its Sony Reader will hit retail shelves in October 2006, accompanies by more than 10,000 ebook titles from major publishers via its Sony Connect eBook Store.
"Today, we're writing a new chapter in digital technology for reading," said Ron Hawkins, Sony Electronics' vice president of Portable Reader Systems marketing, in a statement. "Easy and enjoyable to use, the Reader fulfills the promise of electronic reading in a way that no other device has been able to do. Not intended to replace traditional books, but to supplement them, the Sony Reader allows people to take a library of books and other reading material with them wherever they go."
The Sony Reader is a lightweight, portable electronic device which uses an 800 by 600 "electronic paper" display with four levels of grey developed by E Ink) which offers the look of printed paper. Text is crisp, easy on the eyes, and readable even in the brightest sunlight. The Reader itself measures 6.9 inches by 4.9 inches and weighs nine ounces, making it lighter and smaller than most paperbacks but, with 64 MB of built-in memory plus options for removable cards, can serve up a lot more content. The built-in rechargeable battery supports about 7,500 page turns per charge, The Reader can display content purchased in Sony's BBeB Book format, along with PDF documents and JPG images—heck, it'll even play your MP3 and AAC files, and (via the Connect store and data transfer via a USB connection) can serve up your favorite RSS-enabled blogs and news sites free of charge.
The Sony Reader will run about $350 and will be available through Sony, authorized dealers, and retailers like Borders. And the ebooks? Sony says its Sony Connect eBook store will offer titles from Hyperion, McGraw-Hill Professional, Cambridge University Press, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, National Geographic, Kensington Publishing and Regnery Publishing, and others—these publishers are in addition to Penguin-Putnam, Simon and Schuster, Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group USA, and Holtzbrinck Publishers, along with TOKYOPOP, all of whom previously announced support for the Sony Reader earlier this year. Titles can be purchased and downloaded online using PC-based software—sorry, no Mac support. Sony says eBook prices are about 25 percent less than physical book prices. (We're wondering: hardcover or trade paperback?)
Sony's LIBRIé product ran into criticism for digital rights management in the BBeB format which interfered with customer's use of purchased books. Reportedly, books purchased from Sony Connect for the Sony Reader will be usable on up to 6 devices (one of which must be a PC); the Reader reportedly does not support HTML, digital books from eReader (which offers almost 20,000 titles), nor does it resize PDFs, so unless a PDF document displays appropriately right off the bat, it may not be useful. The Reader also doesn't have any sort of display lighting, meaning users will need a nightstand light to read in bed…just like the old days.
Post Your Comment...Comments
matthew on Sep 29th, 2006 at 11:04 AM:
I am looking forward to the technology and will be trying it out, but I refuse to cooperate with any DRMed media services and so if this can't display my text the way I want it I will have to return it.
mxh on Sep 29th, 2006 at 11:19 AM:
There will NEVER be a backlight on any reader using eInk. The whole point is for the reader to duplicate the experience of paper. Ordinary books are legible because of outside lighting, from a lamp or out of doors and the eReader is exactly the same.
This is a huge advantage and not a disadvantage. I've seen the eReader and the legibility is many times greater than on an LCD monitor or PDA; it uses almost now power because power is only required when changing a page. Once the new page has been created no power is needed to maintain it.
Jason Howard on Sep 29th, 2006 at 12:17 PM:
The quality of these readers are amazing. You dont need a backlight unless you are reading it in the dark, in which case a normal book light would work just fine.
Matt on Oct 4th, 2006 at 3:16 PM:
MXH, thanks for the feedback. I havent seen one of these yet, but my concern was in low light situations. I understand it's to emulate reading on paper, and I like that. But my concern lied only within nighttime, low-light reading. But if a regular light is all I need, "I would need that for a book anyways" then I can't imagine it being a big deal. Thanks for the input.
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Matt on Sep 27th, 2006 at 9:16 AM:
I think overall Sony did an efficient job, but not a great job. Not reading HTML or a PDF file may eliminate the need of the Sony Reader for many people. But if I'm on a plane and I don't want to carry around all of my books, the least they could have done is added a backlight. Maybe 2nd Gen will have that.