SONY officially introduces the new line "Reader WIFI" @ $149 asking price

[feenix1363]

Currently showing on the UK site as £120. Wish I could place a pre-order, at that price I'll definitely be updating my prs600.

EDIT
And then ten minutes later its at £159.97. Perhaps I won't be treating myself just yet

[owly]

I have a friend who'd buy a Sony right away if it had a Spanish to Swedisg Dictionary built in.

[Crusader]

Depending on what the new Kindles look like I might opt for one of these. My Opus is still working perfectly, but it would be good to have one of the Pearl e-ink screens.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

It is incredible to witness once more that most people lack basic understanding of finance.
I wrote before that considering how historically high the Japanese Yen is nowadays, it is impossible for Sony to compete on price.
It is a miracle that they manage to sell this new model (which includes 12 dictionaries) at such a price.

The high yen is a negative only to the extent of japanese-sourced components and value-add.

With the reader, the single biggest cost is still screen, which is Taiwan-sourced, not Japan-made. So a high yen would lower the cost of the screen. Other large costs are the adobe license, payable in dollars, and software development which is done in california.

Sony is not a japanese company any more than Ford is an american company; both are multinationals with facilities spread across the globe, who source components and build products however/wherever is most convenient, regardless of where their corporate HQ might be located. Just because previous reader models were built in Japan is no guarantee the T1 is; it might be coming from the same chinese facilities that build PS3s.

Also of note, well-run multinationals usually spread their cash reserves and play financial games to hedge against currency fluctuations. Losses in one currency are offset by gains in others.

Finally, Sony's reader business is small enough ($250M out of $86B) that any hypothetical losses are rounding errors compared to their recent losses from phones, Playstation hardware, and TVs ($3B in just the last year). Whether they make or lose money on the readers is of limited impact on the bottom line as long as HQ thinks it is an important enough business for the company to stay in it

So it really doesn't matter whether *we* think it is possible for Sony to compete on price, or whether we think they need to do it. The T1 redesign and launch says *they* believe it. And, if the quoted IDC report of 800,000 units sold in 2010 is accurate (and it probably is; their 2009 numbers were 1.1 million) that means Sony reader sales have been stagnant at best, declining at worst, for the last two years.
And those have been years of explosive growth in the business.

With their global market share down to 4% Sony is in danger of falling into nichedom or worse so they "probably" needed to do *something*.
The something is T1.
Now we get to see what the market thinks of it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Papi

I never understood that part. I don't know how much they pay for those dictionaries, but why not simply let people buy the dictionaries they need and make the reader a bit cheaper ?

Sorry for the OT...

Not really OT; the design philosophy behind the T1 is fair game.
And that philosophy is standard Sony checklist engineering.
The Sony designers figured "Kindle has one dictionary? Hah! We'll throw in 12!"

It makes no real difference to the cost; licensing dictionaries is cheap. (Some Pocketbook models are supposed to come with 30.)
Lots of companies do that, throw stuff in to see what sticks. Some people see long features lists, preferably with lots of ™ and ® sprinkled through, and they're impressed.

[ProfCrash]

I wouldn't mind more dictionaries on the Kindle. I wouldn't use them but if they helped others, then go for it.

Interesting numbers for the older Sony models.

The fact that Sony did exactly what all the non-Sony users had been saying for ages it needed to do to attract us tells me something. That as nice as the older design is, it is not nice enough to keep Sony in the market.

I am more curious as to what finally caused Sony to decide to try and play in the e-reader market. They have a new model out that looks like all the other e-readers in the market and they are finally doing something about their bookstore. Is it possible that they never saw the e-reader as anything other then a niche item and treated it as such? That would explain why they are just now updating to compete with the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. They are realizing that it is not a niche market and there is real money to be made.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And, if the quoted IDC report of 800,000 units sold in 2010 is accurate (and it probably is; their 2009 numbers were 1.1 million) that means Sony reader sales have been stagnant at best, declining at worst, for the last two years.

IDC said Sony sold 1.1 million eReader devices in 2009? That is pretty interesting. According to this article about eInk displays, the market has been tripling in size every year since 2006.
2011 projection: 27 million
2010: ~9 million
2009: ~3 million
That means Sony had over a third of the market before the Nook came in late 2009, and less than 9% a year later? Brutal.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by kjk

IDC said Sony sold 1.1 million eReader devices in 2009? That is pretty interesting. According to this article about eInk displays, the market has been tripling in size every year since 2006.
2011 projection: 27 million
2010: ~9 million
2009: ~3 million
That means Sony had over a third of the market before the Nook came in late 2009, and less than 9% a year later? Brutal.

Yeah, and they had even more before then. Before Amazon, they were the Kings, quickly were dethroned and haven't done well to turn it around. Dropped considerably each year.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by kjk

IDC said Sony sold 1.1 million eReader devices in 2009? That is pretty interesting. According to this article about eInk displays, the market has been tripling in size every year since 2006.
2011 projection: 27 million
2010: ~9 million
2009: ~3 million
That means Sony had over a third of the market before the Nook came in late 2009, and less than 9% a year later? Brutal.

The 2009 number is an estimate from a digitimes report in summer 2010.
Another report I remember seeing around here had them at about a million and pocketbook at 900k.
The numbers I've seen for 2010 are around 12.4 million with 8m being Kindles. For the last 5 months of 2010, K3 was apparently moving 1 million a month.
Note that the 2011 projection of 27-30 million is eink reader displays; LCD devices like Nook Color and Pandigital, among others, are extra.

To see how fast this market has changed, consider that it took Sony 4 years to ramp up to 1 million per year. (Total global sales up to dec 2008 were 300k. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Reader)
B&N did it in one.
http://ceoutlook.com/2010/10/27/1-million-nooks-sold/
And then they sold another 2 million in 6 months.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20048052-1.html
So Nook has gone from zero to 4 million-plus per year in two years, and that's only selling to NorthAm. Since over half of Kindles are sold *outside* NA, you can see B&N is giving Amazon a good challenge. Sony? Not so much, alas.

Basically Sony lost all their market momentum with the switch to epub and the 700 & 600, which came just as Kindle exploded the market and let in hordes of mainstream readers.

Sony needs to sell a *lot* of T1s to get back in the game.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Papi

I never understood that part. I don't know how much they pay for those dictionaries, but why not simply let people buy the dictionaries they need and make the reader a bit cheaper ?..... People most of the times will need only 1 or 2 dictionaries, and there's a good chance the one you need is not included if you're not a natural English speaker. ....

To be honest, I never use the Sony dictionaries - it just seems so much easier to use paper ones, that I know and trust, and by now I have about 7/8 different languages, so not as limited .

[carpetmojo]

[QUOTE=HarryT;1725763]Thanks, Mike. Yes, I think it is still a work in progress![/QUOTE..
Harry - is this what you got to ? [this sans pics, they didn't copy/paste. I will try to do a link..]

I just wonder if they're doing a T1 without wifi for £120, but the other - the "Reader WiFi " is the one they "dont have information available " yet ? Because it does look, as it's laid out on the page, like there are two models, and the "naked" one's price is firm...........

Reader eBook For £120.00

Reader™ Wi-Fi®

This is e-reading

15.2cm (6.0”) ultra slim and lightweight reader with superior paper-like touch screen and Wi-Fi.

1. Overview
2. 3 model(s) found
3. Get eBooks
4. Accessories
5. Specifications

Display products as a list Display products as a grid

Sort by:

PRS-300
PRS-300
PRS-505
PRS-505
PRS-T1
PRS-T1

Available in:

* Black
* Red
* White

Carry 100s of eBooks in your pocket: New ultra slim Reader with 5" display

Reader Pocket Edition™ with 512MB memory for up to 350 eBooks



The Reader from Sony is the perfect way to store and read digital books. With enough space for up to 160 eBooks, it has a long battery life and amazing paper-like screen. It’s smaller than the average paper back and easy to use.



The world’s lightest eBook Reader*

Ultra slim and lightweight reader with superior paper-like touch screen and Wi-Fi®

Online Sony Store price

£120.00 Incl Vat

We’re sorry, temporarily unavailable


Online Sony Store price

Sorry, price information for this product is not currently available.

Online Sony Store price

Sorry, price information for this product is not currently available.
More Info

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by feenix1363

Currently showing on the UK site as £120. Wish I could place a pre-order, at that price I'll definitely be updating my prs600.

EDIT
And then ten minutes later its at £159.97. Perhaps I won't be treating myself just yet

It shows at £120 right now. I am looking at it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Crusader

Depending on what the new Kindles look like I might opt for one of these. My Opus is still working perfectly, but it would be good to have one of the Pearl e-ink screens.

But the Kindle isn't compatible with your ePub eBooks. The T1 does have a browser.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

I just wonder if they're doing a T1 without wifi for £120, but the other - the "Reader WiFi " is the one they "dont have information available " yet ? Because it does look, as it's laid out on the page, like there are two models, and the "naked" one's price is firm...........

There is not a non-WiFi T1. They all have WiFi.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

I like the way those look. Those are rather snazzy. Wish there were some page-turn buttons in a thumb-friendly area...

Thumb friendly is the touch screen.