Tony99 writes “Eighteen months after the launch of Sony’s Portable Reader, is it having any effect on the book market?
With sales gradually increasing and its price dropping, is this product (or those like it) going to be serious competitor to the traditional book, and will the book trade follow in the footsteps of the music business?
(Opinions wanted)
Read further at BBC technology“
Um, No…
Would you throw your iPod away and get a device that made it _harder_ to listen to music?
We already have e-book Reading Devices: They called computers/laptops. Increasing, smart phones and UMPC’s will solve portability issues.
There’s no reason a consumer would buy this device. It’s only purpose in life is raison d’etre is format lock-in and DRM.
Bad investment — complete misuse of an institution’s funding.
Re:Um, No…
Here’s my experience with the Sony Reader:
Re:Um, No…
“I use it mainly for reading loads of journal articles and RSS feeds comfortably lounging, without a backlit monitor or a mound of paper around me”
Does the “eReader” connect directly to the Internet to access these articles and RSS feeds?
Are you able to actually do anything with this material once it’s loaded on to the device — i.e. cut, paste, email to yourself?
Is there any other format it can play other than text?
Again, I ask: Why would I want to buy such a limited Device when I could get a Smart Phone or even something larger? If I wanted to pretend that I had a “Sony eReader”, I could simply ignore all the other features the Smart Phone came with.
The whole purpose of the Sony eReader is to serve as the limited front-end for Sony’s eBook products. It’s hard for me to imagine a consumer actually wanting to acquire a device whose capabilities are so limited — again, where there is so much more to choose from.
Sony has a long history of introducing devices that no one has any use for. (See the history of its failed ‘iPod killers’.) This eReader is simply the most recent manifestation.