MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Sony reveals pricing for its Portable Reader PRS-500

bobl · 10-12-2006, 08:03 PM

Natch,

Thanks for the response. The exchange in this forum is great.

I agree that Sony holds no exclusive on pushing proprietary standards in the e-book space. Re: Costs -- they're largely a factor of volume and maturity. If you bake Sony's corporate allocations into the cost, it can certainly go up from my estimated parts costs, but at volume those allocations drop dramatically as a percentage of cost. Not only does that happen for Sony but real overhead per unit drops all the way through the supply chain. When you break down the materials costs of the screen, for example, it is much, much less than burdened cost of a low volume product would indicate.

The One Laptop Per Child Project is attacking the screen for the $100 laptop with that thinking in mind. And they have come up with a very interesting screen technology.

That being said, I'm a sucker for e-reading devices -- bought one of the original rocket e-books when they came out. IF the Sony device could read DRM'd PDF's, I would be very tempted to buy it as an interim measure. Size of PDA screen is tight as someone else suggested. BUT my preference is an OpenReader standard with a paperback sized device for less than $50 - a do-able solution over the next few years.

10-12-2006, 08:03 PM	#30
bobl BooksOnBoard Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2006 Device: Cybook, iPAQ, Sony Reader, Iliad	More Natch, Thanks for the response. The exchange in this forum is great. I agree that Sony holds no exclusive on pushing proprietary standards in the e-book space. Re: Costs -- they're largely a factor of volume and maturity. If you bake Sony's corporate allocations into the cost, it can certainly go up from my estimated parts costs, but at volume those allocations drop dramatically as a percentage of cost. Not only does that happen for Sony but real overhead per unit drops all the way through the supply chain. When you break down the materials costs of the screen, for example, it is much, much less than burdened cost of a low volume product would indicate. The One Laptop Per Child Project is attacking the screen for the $100 laptop with that thinking in mind. And they have come up with a very interesting screen technology. That being said, I'm a sucker for e-reading devices -- bought one of the original rocket e-books when they came out. IF the Sony device could read DRM'd PDF's, I would be very tempted to buy it as an interim measure. Size of PDA screen is tight as someone else suggested. BUT my preference is an OpenReader standard with a paperback sized device for less than $50 - a do-able solution over the next few years.