Only a few weeks ago Sony took the electronic book reader market by storm with its announcement of two new devices which undercut the popular Amazon Kindle by $100, but lacked the wireless connectivity of the Kindle. Sony’s latest announcement of a wireless-equipped ereader shows that the Kindle pricing is actually reasonable.
Sony unveiled the 3G ereader today. It will be available in December of this year at a retail price of $399- a price tag $100 higher than the equivalent Amazon Kindle. It seems that making a cheaper device than the Kindle is one thing, but that making a comparable device cheaper is a horse of a different color.
Keep in mind
that while it is $100 higher, it has a touchscreen and landscape viewing ability. Sony reader is also open to many formats, whereas the Kindle supports one format (their own). The user should look into what’s best for them.
Geography counts too
Sony is also quicker to move into international markets. I’ve heard that they have press conferences scheduled in the UK and a couple of other places, so hopefully they’re working on being a little more open than Amazon is. The US is not the only country interested in reading ebooks!
Though their wireless connection only connects to the Sony bookstore.
Formats
amazon would be smart to adapt to others formats. But it is not clear cut as saying the only format it takes is “their own”. Any format can be converted to work with a Kindle. Many people are doing it, but the common user will not want to take those steps.
Brian C. Gray
http://blog.case.edu/bcg8
Wireless cards are cheap
Seeing as I can install a new wireless card for under 20 bucks I call shenanigans!
Yeah, but…
That’s an 802.11 card which is fairly commoditized now. 3G is something completely different that operates in different frequency bands away from the range 802.11 cards share with microwave ovens and other such things. The rules for use, sale, and marketing are different too when it comes to FCC type certifications.
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Stephen Michael Kellat, MSLS
PGP KeyID: DC5A625B
Data service
You are also prepaying for the wireless service that the data is going to travel over so comparing the $100 for the wireless to the cost of a network card is not a fair comparison.
Sony might want to consider using a 802.11 solution though. It would be cheaper and the $20 network card analogy would be correct then. I have an iPod Touch and am able to find free networks all over the place. I have the Kindle book reader on my iPod Touch and I moved all my books to the Touch using wireless instead of connecting my iPod to the computer via a USB cable. There are clearly places that I would not be able to get a new book but at many coffee shops, restaurants, places of employment, and friend’s homes I can access wireless and download a new book to my Touch if I wanted to.
No Kindle or Kindle Iphone App in the UK
So it’s quite funny to see the fuss that is made of the Kindle vs other battle.
I’m just keeping out of it all until we get a proper choice over here. If Amazon doesn’t care about it’s non-US customers why should I care about them?