Comments on: Beware! Sony’s doing another e-book reader: Proprietary mania again?

By: bowerbird

bowerbird — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:21:40 +0000

richard said:
> At $1500, though, it is not a minor investment.

no. but it’s not a terribly expensive portable computer.
with a wireless capability. and a powerful e-book-machine
with a big color-screen “bundled in at no extra cost”…

-bowerbird

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 17:53:25 +0000

I would say being able to natively display HTML should not even be an option in this day and age.

“New Reader”, I actually use a Fujitsu Lifebook P1500, which has an 8.9″ screen in a widescreen aspect ratio. Around 2 pounds, reasonable battery with the wireless adapter turned off, and it uses everything: Palm eReader, MS Reader, and uBook are all installed. And I can use it for computing too.

At $1500, though, it is not a minor investment.

By: pond

pond — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 16:27:01 +0000

WHAT WOULD MAKE THIS THE EBOOK IPOD…

…is major publishers selling etexts for 99 cents apiece!

Even with proprietary formats and dirty DRM, it would take off.

What’s the odds that publishers will go for even reasonable prices, though?

By: New Reader

New Reader — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 15:54:34 +0000

Well, I’m not a PDF hater, but I’ve got a substantial collection of PDF ebooks. Every one of those 600+ page tech books I have to study comes with a PDF version of the book on CDROM. Now if the new Sony will render them well, I just may pick on up. I can always convert my HTML & TXT books to PDF on my Mac by just printing it out that way. Annoying, true, but an easy workaround as well.

At this point, the only way I can read those three formats (read them well, anyway) would be with a TabletPC. But they are incredibly overprice IMHO.

I’ll be watching this one closely.

By: Ron Lauzon

Ron Lauzon — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 22:44:08 +0000

Not a PDF hater, but… They need to support a other open formats than PDF. For Sony to even be a competitor, they need to support text, and HTML in addition to PDF. RTF would be a nice addition. If all they are going to support is PDF, I won’t even bother looking at their device.

However, it looks like they finally got a clue on the memory expansion. How long did it take them to figure out that the Memory Stick was a failed (horribly failed) product?

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 19:38:33 +0000

From the article:

“Users will be able to load any .pdf file onto the reader, according to a person familiar with the device, as well as files with a special Sony e-book format.”

and:

“…the reader also will be able to connect via a computer’s USB port and accept standard SD memory cards already found in many digital devices.”

Cue all the pdf haters.

Having content on hand at launch will give Sony a leg up on the competition, but the ghost of Gemstar still speaks loudly to the early adopters who would be most likely to buy this thing.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 19:03:29 +0000

As someone who also remains skeptical as to whether or not Sony has truly learned from past DRM missteps, with the Librie best example, the competition between the Librie2 (whatever Sony ends up calling it), iRex Illiad and Hanlin will make for an interesting period in the history of e-books and e-readers. As these three devices

I also think the Play Station Portable will play an important part in Sony’s e-book strategy, and e-book content from the Connect service will likely find its way onto the PSP Connect service for the PSP.

By: Bingle

Bingle — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 17:44:58 +0000

Wow, that’s the first I have heard of this. It sounds as though it will be available to purchase soon after the CES appearance, also – at least the article seems to imply that they’ll beat iRex and Hanlin to market.

Interesting. If it’s not too crippled, I might end up picking up the Sony version after all.