gdgt

Before I purchased my Kindle, I looked at the original Sony Reader. I was impressed, but not impressed enough to purchase it over the Kindle. Now that I've used the Kindle for a while, here's why I think the new Sony will not kill the Kindle. I'd be interested in others thoughts as well:

1) Selection. I do not believe that the Sony store is going to have nearly the selection that Amazon does.
2) The IPOD version of the Kindle. Far and away the best thing Amazon did, IMO, was to create this IPhone app that syncs with the physical Kindle.
3) Sprint EVDO - The new Sony appears to use AT&T 3G built in. I've had better luck with the connectivity in the Kindle in more places than I have with the connectivity in my IPhone 3G. Will this hold over to the new Sony?
4) Price. I think the price of the Kindle makes it more compelling, except for the Kindle DX. I'd love a Kindle DX, but it's too pricey in my opinion.

Thoughts?

Mike.

Well i know the Sony reader just revealed that you can check out books from library for 14-29 days which i think is a big advantage since they are free. But i think you are right about the selection, unless of course they partnered with google, but i guess we will see where this takes us.

It is all about pricing!! I travel all the time and practically live in airports. This should be where all the ebooks are, but they are not. The problem is price why would I pay $200-$400 for the ability to read? Something I can do for a few bucks. Amazon and Sony should drop the price on these to $50-$99 and this market would explode. Make all the money on the books. Until they do this ebooks will continue to be a neat niche market.

I agree about the pricing. Unless you are not married with kids (which I am) I dont have $400 bucks lying around just for the heck of it. and the books cost just the same as paperbags or more. I also live in airports, spending 15 hours on airports and planes every week.

Now, the network connectivity, I don't know if I find that a super important component to be honest. I don't have a problem plugging a device to my laptop every week to download stuff. i don't expect to have a wireless mp3 player either. and books thak a lot longer to consume than songs.

I would be willing to spend $200 buck for a device like this one, but not 400. and the same goes for the Plastic Logic one, which sounds way cool, but its the same issue, pricey.

Now if they charged you $400 dollars AND they gave you a voucher for $200 on books, that I would pay.

The reason I mention the connectivity is because that's one of the benefits of the Kindle that they tout.

If it was $400 and they gave you $200 in books, yeah, I agree, I would consider it as well.

Mike.

I actual use my ckindle to browse the mobile web. its actually not bad if you are surfing the text friendly sites. With the browser you can download .mobi and .azw (maybe epub later) books and have them appear on your home screen. I wonder what will be the Sony policy for web access?

I wonder about future Amazon firmware? it has been some time since the last update....

Needless to say but the competition is great for consumers :)

I understand that Sony and Amazon need to make their money and maybe they cannot meet their bottom line at $50, but the iPhone didn't begin it's destruction of the smartphone market until it was subisdized at $200, and netbooks are the best selling PC's on the market because of their pricepoint.

The market just doesn't give enough room for a dedicated reader at $400. By compairson I can get a netbook, iPhone, x-box, half a MacBook, Zune HD, the list goes on and on for that price. I just don't think the ebook market can mature until the price point comes down to at least the $200 mark. In fact I am seriously looking at the pocket Sony version because of that fact.

They say that the majority cost of all ebooks is the e ink display. I have a rocket book reader from 1999 with e ink. They've been making these displays for over a decade. Why is the cost still as high and the tech behind it just as unimpressive? Why have no tech journalists asked this question? Why are screen changes still slow and nausea inducing? Why can't they get these things closer to 300dpi (like real laser printed docs). Why haven't cheaper manufacturing processes been developed? It seems that compared to the rest of the tech industry e ink displays are way behind. They've made little to no improvements on cost and resolution. I don't blame Sony or Amazon. I blame the e ink companies for the high cost and mediocrity of the ebook market.

How is the rendering of PDFs? I have a large library of magazines and books in PDF and would love to have something portable to read them without lugging the laptop around.

Bob

Someone else will need to answer this, as I believe it is much better with the DX. I have an original Kindle and to my knowledge and experience, it will not read PDFs natively.

Mike.

PDF rendering is native and it uses the touchscreen to scroll around and zoom. Plus, in lanscape mode it cuts a PDF into two 1/2 pages. Really good way to keep original format. There is a vid of this at mobile gadget with the prc600. I am certain the daily edition will use the same interface.