No ePub for PRS-500, but Sony offers $100 trade-in credit to upgraders

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by bobbarkerissatan

The gesture is appreciated, but this really is too little, too late. This all amounts to very little. 1. sell our PRS500s to Sony for less than if we were to sell it privately. 2. buy PRS505 from Sony for full MSRP instead of buying it used or looking for a discount, thus negating a significant portion of the credit.

And nothing about this offer prevents you from doing just that. If you can get a better deal elsewise: go for it.

A lot of folks may not be up to, or interested in the acrobatics involved there, this gives them a nice option.

Originally Posted by AprilHare

You left out visitors to the U.S. who return finding their electronic gizmo isn't supported due to them being born elsewhere.

Those would have been sold in the U.S., right?

I'm in France at the moment, and I'm under no illusions that anything I buy here that isn't also available back home will be supported when I get there (and maybe not if is available back home).


But I suppose I may be more informed than the average international traveler, due to my MR experiences.

[hansl]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I'm afraid you are mistaken. Sony never sold a single PRS500 outside the U.S. All the extra-U.S. 500s were sold by third parties, either individuals, or retailers. I'm given to understand that Sony is a bit perturbed with those retailers for their international sales, actually. You are correct in that Sony knows that there are a lot of 500s outside the U.S. (they couldn't help but be, since the follow MR!), but as I said earlier, they were bought outside official channels. The distribution agreements I mentioned above mean that they can't recognize those units in any case: they're disavowed. It was 7,500 pages, and they probably did manage that under a specific, unlikely set of circumstances -- it's Marketing. Sure, it's annoying, and borderline deception, but it's also not any secret. If you plan to avoid every company that uses it, you're not going to be buying very much at all. Heh, somehow I find I'm not too bothered by electrical waste that causes a dinky 1,800 mAh battery to take more than three weeks to run down. I have 2,500 mAh AA rechargeables that run down in less time than that just sitting on a shelf!

You have to decide what's best for you to do with early adoption. It's always a bit painful on the 'Bleeding Edge' and if you don't want to ride it, no one would blame you for it in the slightest.

OK, this was a quick reaction during my first anger. I paid 300 EUR for that thing so $ 100 is close to nothing anyway currently. For the future I'll properly stick to the European market.

Regarding the green part, I didn't talk about the battery but the whole reader. Say, if 50% of the reader owners trade in their reader, what will happen with those?

Anyway I find this forum a nice and friendly place, so I'll try to avoid angry rants in the future.

hansl

[tor]

what really annoys me is that there is nothing wrong with my 500, i understand that Adobe DE needs a bit more RAM ( but I'm sure sony could find a work around ) there is no reason for not including epub support. I think that in this day and age dumping a perfectly good device in such a manner is just plain wasteful and not really showing a green attitude.

Bring on openInkspot.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by hansl

OK, this was a quick reaction during my first anger. I paid 300 EUR for that thing so $ 100 is close to nothing anyway currently. For the future I'll properly stick to the European market.

Your call about the markets thing, you're the only one who can properly make it.

I actually understand where you're coming from here, I just also see the other side and find it more compelling is all.

Originally Posted by hansl

Regarding the green part, I didn't talk about the battery but the whole reader. Say, if 50% of the reader owners trade in their reader, what will happen with those?

I see what you're getting at now. They are running a refurb program on these at the moment, but I don't know how long that'll last. Eventually, they'll likely end up in a landfill or in an electronics recycling program, depending on who has them at the time. I'd think that if it's Sony that's doing the end disposal they're more likely to get recycled: they're a big electronics company, and this node of it is located in California, the state most likely to declare stuff 'hazardous,' and regulate its disposal.

Originally Posted by hansl

Anyway I find this forum a nice and friendly place, so I'll try to avoid angry rants in the future. hansl

Hey, you weren't out of line! And I didn't mean to seem to be calling you down. I apologize if I came across that way.

We work hard to keep the forum a place where intelligent discussion can go on respectfully, but it's the whole community that makes that happen.

As long as your 'angry rants' are as respectful as that one, and your reactions to responses as gracious as yours was, then they're not just welcome, they're one of the main points of the MR community.

[hansl]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Your call about the markets thing, you're the only one who can properly make it.

Well, since I felt that the iLiad was too expensive, I thought buying a PRS-500 would be a good idea and that Sony would recognize the demand
and widen their distribution area what they admittedly did but not to my country (Germany)

Originally Posted by NatCh

Hey, you weren't out of line! And I didn't mean to seem to be calling you down. I apologize if I came across that way.

No no, I don't feel pushed back in any way.

Originally Posted by NatCh

As long as your 'angry rants' are as respectful as that one, and your reactions to responses as gracious as yours was, then they're not just welcome, they're one of the main points of the MR community.

Er, it was not meant to be respectful, only lawyer-proof
Thanks for your kind reply,
hansl

[daffy4u]

Congratulations to the PRS-500 owners and good for Sony for offering the upgrade credit! I do like the win-win situations.

[grimo1re]

Why are people outside of the US complaining? Y'all knew Sony wasn't selling the PRS500 outside of the US and that you'd have to use vouchers on the Connect Store and all that? Sheesh! I think Sony did well and I knew full well what I got into when I bought my reader via an internet retailer and I think you all did too. So what's the deal?

[vivaldirules]

I'm amazed not so much that some people here are quite pleased and others quite displeased with Sony's offer but with the vehemence of the remarks. I find it puzzling and depressing that so many people can be so easily delighted or enraged over something as simple as this. I'm glad there are no weapons laying about.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I'm amazed not so much that some people here are quite pleased and others quite displeased with Sony's offer but with the vehemence of the remarks. I find it puzzling and depressing that so many people can be so easily delighted or enraged over something as simple as this. I'm glad there are no weapons laying about.

Whadd'ya mean "no weapons laying about"??? I've got my whipped marshmallow blaster right here. Take that, you overly reasonable un-excitable voice of reason, you!

<buries vivaldirules in a pile of steaming whipped marshmallow; blows smoke from barrel of blaster; runs like H*ll>

Xenophon

<incoming!>

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Whadd'ya mean "no weapons laying about"??? I've got my whipped marshmallow blaster right here. Take that, you overly reasonable un-excitable voice of reason, you!

<buries vivaldirules in a pile of steaming whipped marshmallow; blows smoke from barrel of blaster; runs like H*ll>

Xenophon

<incoming!>

heh...

[vivaldirules]

Arf! Arf, arf!

[eppythacher]

Thanks for the information. This may sound strange, but it would have been more professional for Sony to contact all their north American stores first, then announce the trade in deal to the public, to avoided inconveniencing their customers. Does anyone disagree with this?

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I think I have an explanation for your experience.

Bob didn't stress this in the original post, but Sony only decided to make this trade in offer because of the campaign I started on Friday. It looks to me like they put the deal together yesterday with the intention of announcing it today. The store manager probably came into work today with no idea that the trade in deal existed. (What usually happens is that the store gets a regular shipment of marketing info around 2 weeks before it is supposed to take effect. That didn't happen this time.)

We only heard about the offer last night when Bob got a call from someone we know at Sony. We have had conference calls before, but those were usually planned out a few days in advance. This call was completely unplanned.

I think we should have stressed how sudden the announcement was. I'll try to remember that in the future.

[suineg]

As much as I agree with you eppy, I am pretty sure they contacted them with some kind of global email.

I know at my work I ignore a lot of stuff so I am sure on the first day the manager might not even had gotten in by that time and didn't check his/her email yet etc...

I am sure Sony didn't just start it and then think all their stores would figure it out eventually.

[grooks]

Originally Posted by eppythacher

Thanks for the information. This may sound strange, but it would have been more professional for Sony to contact all their north American stores first, then announce the trade in deal to the public, to avoided inconveniencing their customers. Does anyone disagree with this?

There was another thread about this telling people who want to do the trade-up to wait a few weeks. It sounded as if MR was given an advanced heads-up. I think us members knew about this before the stores did.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by volwrath

I want a $150 trade-in

Allowing you to keep the AC adapter is giving you more then the $100 value.