Sony Launches New E-Readers, Lowers Prices

I am interested in these devices, but I am skeptical whether they can ever be as tangibly pleasing as printed books.

"The company will know sell"

{sadly shaking head} come on, jeez.....

The think I find disappointing about e-books is their prices. They cost as much, sometimes even more, than regular paperback books. Add to that the price of the e-book reader and it's far from being an ideal solution. Moreover, it's far less versatile if you go on vacation where power outlets aren't as easy to find. I might consider buying one only when the reader's price drop under 100$ and books can be obtained for about 50% of the paperback price (5-10$).

Bought a Sony PRS-505 for 300$C when they finally became available in Canada in January 2009. I love the device and have had to wrestle my wife for reading time on the unit. I can finally buy a second device and end the constant negotiations. I have not bought a single printed book edition since getting the device and I love it's capacity to handle files of different format (LRF,RTF,txt and PDF). As for it not being a wireless device, I really don't care. The screen is about 2/3 the size of a paperback and not really adequate for any browsing. Just connect it to a computer. If the new units are anything like their predecessors, at the new price point I'll gladly buy a second. Although if Sony does the same thing as the last time, I'll have to wait 2 years for any units to be sold across the border... sigh..

any worthy pocket pc can have all the functionality of an e-reader and then some. nokia n8xx series works great, i read on it all the time.

Ya but does it have a 2 week battery life? This was created to replace books with some form of electronic ink tech that renders it looking exactly like your reading from paper.
I don't think id consider buying one until the touch versions reach the $150 price range, anything more then that and il feel like im riping myself off. With the prices of online books your simply paying for convenience and nothing else it seems.

I've been looking at a couple of E-books, i haven't made a decision yet on which one to get. At $10 for a newly released hardcover they're cheaper then book stores, plus i can start reducing the number of bookshelves (12 in the house now) for storing books i'd like to keep.

As a business school student I looked into getting an e-reader to read all the cases. The lack of integration with some DRM'ed contents (e.g., adobe digital edition), poor graphic display (for charts) and without annotation support discouraged me. Ended up buying a tablet pc with good battery life and PDF annotator. e-readers have great potential to replace textbooks in the future, but for now, my combo is the way to go.

As long as there is drm and the books are the same price as printed books, I don't see these taking off. Plus $199 with no books included is still too much imo.

Sony reader is better than kindle, in my opinion. You can connect your sony ebook reader directly to you pc via a usb cable. and you can read pdf files. those two features are more than enough for me to buy a sony reader. Unfortunately, I bought the old edition already. I can't afford to buy a new one since I am jobless now.
(Anyway, a real book always feel better than a ebook reader.)

It doesn't *really* weigh only 7.76grams, now does it....

Maybe my eyes are getting old, but I wouldn't even consider an e-reader smaller than a paperback. The 6 inch screen version is still too expensive, but I will buy one when they are down to the price of the smaller version. Also, who would want wireless on an e-reader? Takes too much power. I am more concerned with things like adding a PDF annotator so I can make notes on technical papers in PDF format. Having the ability to read novels on it is a plus, but I think the price should be in line with real books. Not all books are exactly the same price. Seems like a subtle price fixing to me.

Buy Books !!!! I will never buy an e-reader especially after what amazon did recently with 1984.
I do own over 1,000 paper good ole books and i guarantee you that my books will work a lot longer than an e-reader.

when are these going to have a COLOR LCD or OLED?

will have to wait and see what kind of screen they use. The PRS 505 was great I have one , but the 700's screen sucked. As far as the ebooks, I prefer to load mine on SD card then put them on reader. I don't like the idea of someone being able to mess with my books wirelessly. All the books I use are PDF, you can convert docs using OpenOffice; if some PDF are secured/locked, I use PDF-restriction remover, then I can edit Title and other tags with PDFinfo. Great programs and only 9.99 for one of them - the other is freeware.
You can find a lot of free ebooks online, just search for them...

7.76grams - wow, a full ebook reader, with like, sides and a screen that ways less than 4 pennies! IMPRESSIVE

I have used the sony prs-505, and I must say the screen sucked. Resolution is too low and small text looks grainy and hard to read. I hope they improved the resolution on this model. Also, encryption would be a very nice feature for e-book readers. Especially when reading questionable or objectionable (to governments, or others) materials. For these reasons, I would stick to a tablet for now.

If I was looking for an ereader, I would probably get one of these. After Amazon's move with the Kindle, I think this will be a common sentiment.

If i ever decided to buy an "e-book" it would be one without wireless connectivity. I don't want my books being remotely deleted, or the company I purchased it from to have that much power. If i buy a book, im gonna buy the real thing. There's nothing like seeing the space between the front page and your bookmark getting bigger and bigger.

I love reading eBooks, but I hate carrying a "dedicated" reader around with me. I just installed MobiPocket Reader onto my Blackberry and loaded the MicroSD card with eBooks and MP3s. I couldn't be happier and it was basically free since I already needed to buy a phone anyway.

I'd love a full-color, full-video e-reader but it has to have a memory storage slot, like, SDHC, a GUARANTEE that purchased files are mine to keep and use on as many readers as I like for my own use (but not to sell),but it must include something really worthwhile, like the Amazon Kindle's free, fast download method. And I'll never buy one while the publishers are trying to get ten bucks or so out of me for a digital copy that costs them NO production costs. I don't mind paying a fair price for the hardware itself. A $5 maximum seems reasonable to me for an A-list new book; the author and distributors do deserve *some* profit for providing the digital book, but current prices are rediculous. And the sooner newspapers hop onboard, the better.

I HAVE a full color, full-video e-reader with a memory storage slot (2 actually), and a guarantee that purchased files are mine. It is called a Pocket PC. It has a 4-inch screen, full VGA, plays back full AVIs (no need for low quality conversions like iPod), has WiFi, and with uBook (www.gowerpoint.com) has a very nice reader for HTML, PDF, TXT, RTF, and other formats. Text and formatting is resizeable. Also, it has an illuminated screen, meaning I can read it in dark places where there is insufficient lighting for normal books or the Kindle. I've read tons of ebooks on it, and it is fantastic. My particular model is the Dell Axim X50v, but there are plenty of others out there, not to mention some nice Palms such as the TX.

No wifi means they can't go and delete your books

I use my old Palm T3 with 3.5" screen and SD full with eBooks. Battery longs 7-8 hours of reading. Perfect for me.

I'll be getting one as soon as prices drop some more. It's great for people who are out and still want something to read while they're on the subway or bus or waiting in line let's say.