Sony’s Reader Aims to Kill Kindle
Just weeks after Amazon put a new version of its Kindle e-book reader on the market, Sony is following with a November upgrade to its Reader, writes InformationWeek.
The PRS-700 is priced at about $400 - $40 more than the Kindle and $100 more than the previous version that went on sale in the US in Oct.‘06. It is the same size and shape as the old 10-oz PRS-505, including a six-inch display.
Its new features:
- Page-flipping with the slide of a finger
- Zoom-in by tapping the screen
- On-screen electronic keyboard for creating notes
- Searchable text, which can be highlighted with the stylus pen
- More memory - able to store about 350 average size digital books - plus support of external SD memory cards for additional storage
- Same e-ink display technology as the Kindle that uses little power but equipped with built-in LED reading light for low-light conditions.
The new Reader has the same battery life as the old model - 7,500 pages of reading on one charge. Among the file formats supported are Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, and Sony’s proprietary BroadBand eBook (BbeB) files, writes The Financial Times Blog.
Unlike the Kindle, content cannot be bought and downloaded directly from Amazon.com’s 140,000-title library via a cellular wireless connection.
Borders will have the new reader in most of its 520 large-format stores and offer in-store downloads of e-books, in response to positive customer reaction to the service during a pilot program.
The Borders-Sony cobranded e-book site - where users are directed through the Borders e-book tab to download Sony’s e-book software - will be changed this month to highlight new merchandising and make the checkout more streamlined, Internet Retailer reports.
Earlier this year, Borders ceased using Amazon.com for its e-commerce operations.