Sony Announces New E-Book Reader

On October 2, Sony announced its new E-Book rear, the PRS-700. From the wording it looks like it will complement, not displace, the PRS-505.

The new reader is about 10 ounces with a six inch display, similar to Kindle. The new Sony Reader will also have a touchscreen (which Kindle does not) and has a stylus with virtual keyboard for virtual notetaking.

Sony Reader, like Kindle, has e-ink display, which means no backlight, which means no night reading. Except the new reader has a built-in LED reading light (wonder what that does to battery life.)

The Kindle has built-in wireless for buying books from Amazon. Sony Reader doesn’t have that but it does have SD and Memory Stick card slots, and the Sony Reader is making major inroads at retailers, being stocked at both Borders and Target.

The PRS-700 will be available next month for about $400. You can get pix and more details at Sony.com.

Sexy iRexy

Forbes has an article on the new iRex Technologies e-book reader, the iRex Reader 1000. This new reader apparently sports a 10.2″ (diagonal) E-Ink screen (Kindle’s is 6-inch.) The reader will also accept e-book, PDF, HTML, and Word formats. It also has a stylus and a touch screen. iRex says the basic version of its reader will be $650 — yikes! Additional options could pump it up to $850.

The iRex Reader will still be greyscale, just like Kindle and the Sony Reader. When are we going to get color from E-Ink-based devices? “E-Ink enthusiasts will likely have to wait until 2009 for color E-ink and as late as 2012 for video, says Russ Wilcox, the chief executive of Cambridge, Mass.-based E-Ink, which developed the black and white pigment now used in every paper-like reader.”

You mean I could carry around a Kindle that would allow me both to read a book and watch a podcast of the morning news? I’ll wait. Not very patiently, but I’ll wait….

Here Comes the Kindle Competitor?

So the rumors about a new Kindle have been quashed by Amazon. But there is an 8×11″ e-book reader on the horizon. It’s just coming from a different company. TG Daily has a brief update about a new reader from Plastic Logic with plenty of good photos. You can catch it at http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-39220-97.html. Wired.com has a few more details at http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/plastic-logics.html and some more pictures.

Briefly: 8×11 view display, flexible plastic (Wired has a picture of the reader going all bendy), pop-up touch-sensitive keywords, Office documents read without fuss, no price announced as yet (bummer.)