Sony 505 on display in Waterstones

[Ned]

Don't know if it's the same in every UK Waterstones, but I saw they had a silver Sony 505 on display in the Harrogate one yesterday.

It was fastened to a shelf amid some junk at the bottom of the stairs where you might not notice it and had a large font so showed only 15 or so lines per page.

After my Cybook, I didn't like the silver surround at all and thought it made the screen look darker.

But if I hadn't seen one before, there's no way that such awful presentation would make me think ebook readers are a good thing. I certainly can't see this increasing their sales.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

The Waterstones (Wimbledon branch) that I bought my one from had the display opposite the stairs, in a space between two shelves of general fiction - you had to detour to get around it if you were browsing books - so it was very definitely noticable. Plus they had two or three large banners drawing attention to it. And the font was on the default.

It is down to the discretion of the store manager as to how they use their display materials - the average store gets so much that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to fit it all in, and still have room for the customers to get to the books. So hopefully not many stores are suffering from the management the Harrogate one appears to be.

(ex Waterstones employee here...)