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

[Bob Russell]

The Sony Reader team is announcing today a new upgrade offer for PRS-500 owners. Turn in your existing PRS-500 Sony Reader and get a $100 credit on the purchase of a new PRS-505, which can support reflowable display of text-based PDFs and ePub with Adobe Digital Editions DRM. The offer and full details are available at the SonyStyle offer page. It's Sony's way of addressing the needs of the original PRS-500 owners who desire the ePub support of the 505, but can't get it through a firmware upgrade. And it's a tip of the hat to those early customers that contributed to the early success of the Sony Reader product.

The offer is good news on several fronts. This is going to be a convenient upgrade option for many PRS-500 owners who are longing for the ePub feature of the PRS-505. It appears to be more evidence that Sony is in the e-book race long term. And, in addition, the offer is generous in some of the specifics. For example, you get to keep the A/C adapter when you turn in your PRS-500. You can even do the trade-in "on the spot" at SonyStyle brick and mortar stores for the most convenient way to upgrade.

A few more details:
* Customers doing the upgrade will buy the 505 first and then send in their old 500 to get the credit. This means you may have to wait a bit to get the credit, but it also means that you won't ever be without a Reader.
* There is a shipping cost to send back your old unit. But when buying the new unit, SonyStyle.com often offers free shipping.
* This is a Sony-only promotion, which means you can buy online at SonyStyle.com or in person at a SonyStyle store, not third party retailers.
* If you bring the old unit into the store and do the trade right then and there, the credit will be applied at purchase. If you do the trade later or purchase online, the credit comes back when Sony receives the 500.
* This is a US-only promotion. (Not good for UK 505 purchases.)
* Extended warranties do not appear to be transferrable to the new device
* The offer is good until January 31, 2009

On the other hand, if all you care about is the absolute lowest-cost way to upgrade, you may want to consider unloading your existing PRS-500 at eBay. Sale prices for the devices appear to be around $150-$250 these days, which ought to beat $100 even after eBay fees.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story...

As we know, Sony is watching MobileRead just like many other industry insiders do. Well, it looks like the enthusiastic email campaign of "Nate the Great" may have just been what turned the tide. The following note was addressed to the MobileRead community from the Sony Reader team and announces the upgrade offer:

We would like to thank you for your support of the Reader Digital Book by Sony® and digital reading in general. We’ve been monitoring the site and have been gratified to see the tremendous positive response to our recent firmware upgrade announcement. The ability to access EPUB books and reflow standard text-based PDF documents opens the device to a world of new content.

We’ve also seen the requests from PRS-500 users about making an upgrade available for that model. After lengthy discussion and investigation of different solutions, we determined that such an upgrade would not be technically feasible. Instead of leaving our early fans out in the cold, we’d like to thank them for being among the first to recognize the benefit of the Reader so we’re offering a special trade-up program.

When you trade-in your old PRS-500, we'll credit you $100 off a purchase of a new PRS-505. This program will run though January 2009 and you can find more details on the SonyStyle site: http://www.sonystyle.com/readertrade.

Please be assured that your PRS-500 will continue to work as before with the Sony eBook store and with your personal documents but if you would like to upgrade to a unit with EPUB compatibility, PDF reflow and other enhancements, we would like to make the transition as easy as possible.

Once again, we thank you for your continued support.

Keep on reading,

The Reader Team
Sony Electronics

[AndiR]

It is great to see that Sony value the early adopters of the PRS.
I don't know many other companies that have done this.
Well done Sony and well done Nate and the members of MobileRead for contacting Sony!

Regards from a rather warm Spain, AndiR

[HarryT]

It is perhaps work noting that PRS-500's generally sell for around $200 on eBay. You'll do a lot better selling your PRS-500 privately than accepting this trade-in offer.

[Gravitas]

So, no upgrade and looks like I'll be sticking with my trusty old 500 (as I'm in the UK), may get my wife a 505 for christmas though.

[acidzebra]

Will this put the complaints to rest... one can but hope. Pretty cool move from Sony (even with Harry's caveat that selling online will get you more $$$), especially given that technically, they owe people nothing.

[HarryT]

I agree, it's good "PR" for Sony, without a doubt, and (contrary to what some have said) it shows that they do listen to what their customers say.

[dhbailey]

And even more important, to my way of thinking, is the fact that they are making such an offer due in large part to the discussions that take place on this forum, which means that we are not simply voices crying in the wilderness.

That is very heartening indeed!

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I agree, it's good "PR" for Sony, without a doubt, and (contrary to what some have said) it shows that they do listen to what their customers say.

The Reader team sure seems to, anyway, HarryT: they've demonstrated it several times in the last couple of years.

I note that this offer presumably also applies to the limited edition red 505, for the interested.

[AprilHare]

It's all well and good if you live in the US.. :/

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by AprilHare

It's all well and good if you live in the US.. :/

On the matter of e-ink readers, I have all the sympathy in the world for those who live outside the U.S., however, how could Sony take any other position on this point? Officially they never sold any PRS500 units outside the U.S.

Doing so would have evidently violated the distribution agreements they apparently had at the time (they didn't even get to Canada untill well after the 505 was out).

The extra-U.S. PRS500 units were out of bounds to begin with: third pary buys, no warranty ... not ideal perhaps, but that's the way it's been all along.

[grimo1re]

No good for me as I'm in the Netherlands, but I'm really happy to see this response by Sony.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i think this is amazing news and i'm so impressed by the mobileread team, and all the people who participated in the email campaign. it's really gratifying to see that a major manufacturer is listening to what their customers want and taking it seriously, and i'm quite amazed and thrilled to see that mobileread is at the heart of it all ! great news !

[hansl]

Well, Sony for sure is well aware that they did sell a lot of PRS-500s to outside the US. So I'm totally <add appropriate wording here> off and will never again step into the early adopter trap. The amount of time wasted with the PRS-500 "support" of PDF by far outweighs the fun part. Not to speak of the 10000 pages fairy tale or the undocumented stand-by mode which cannot be turned off. I changed the device in my profile from PRS-500 to NDS lite. For the latter I can reuse caritas' work on PDFs on small devices and I can even phone home with it :-).

Edit: BTW any green soul around here who cares about the extra electronic waste? And don't tell me about recycling. Avoiding garbage is the point.

[iacchi]

Originally Posted by NatCh

On the matter of e-ink readers, I have all the sympathy in the world for those who live outside the U.S., however, how could Sony take any other position on this point? Officially they never sold any PRS500 units outside the U.S.

Sad, but right

[suineg]

Two interesting things to notice.

The pdf and website say nothing about the working condition of the PRS-500. I wouldn't suggest sending in a broken screen PRS-500 but if you are buying a 505 anyways to replace one with a screen that is messed up they might take it since they are going to refurb them anyways.

Two is that the James Patterson model is not eligible even though it is currently the same price.