Sony PRS-650 discontinued, new model soon?

[Poppaea]

Why shouldn't Sony be no.2 worldwide? Here in Germany all the big bookstores have Sonys on display and nearly no other ereaders. Most of the others are Pocketbooks and Bookeens Opus. So I would take it as given Sony is the biggest player here. Multiply this by Europe and you have some handsome sales.

What all of you keep forgetting are two valuable points

1. There are more countries in this world than the US alone and
2. out of the US wifi/3G does not attract anyone/hardly a single soul/play a role in buying decisions

[Pinecone]

Also, Sony is selling them as fast as they can make them. So why would they want to INCREASE the sales? Because they can't.

I don't have any need for WiFi/3G. I travel internationally a lot. I carry a laptop for work and surfing, and virtually every hotel has Internet. So I have no need of something that will addd size, weight and reduce battery life.

[rhadin]

I bought the Sony 950, upgrading from my Sony 505, which I gave to my wife, with the intent of subscribing to the electronic edition of the New York Times. I wanted the 950 for both the larger screen and the WiFi/3G, in the belief that it would make it much easier to download my daily newspaper. After a few days of trying the electronic version, my wife requested that we return to the print subscription. She didn't like reading the newspaper on the 950 (I loved it), although she does like reading ebooks on the 505, and so we canceled the electronic subscription.

That was a couple of months ago. Since then I have bought about 50 ebooks. Most of them are from Smashwords and require sideloading, just as I had/have to do with my 505. I admit that the books I have bought from the Sony ebookstore downloaded directly and easily, but the truth of the matter is that sideloading is not a problem. I may buy ebooks today, but not bother to load them onto the devices for days, at which time I sideload all purchased books at once.

My point is that I have the WiFi/3G but could have as easily done without it. It just is neither necessary for me nor a factor (now that I know I will not be subscribing to the New York Times electronically) for future consideration. Especially when I consider how infrequently I use it. Much more important are the features that directly affect my reading experience -- the touch screen, the dictionaries, the ergonomics, the feel of quality.

[speedlever]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Why shouldn't Sony be no.2 worldwide? Here in Germany all the big bookstores have Sonys on display and nearly no other ereaders. Most of the others are Pocketbooks and Bookeens Opus. So I would take it as given Sony is the biggest player here. Multiply this by Europe and you have some handsome sales.

What all of you keep forgetting are two valuable points

1. There are more countries in this world than the US alone and
2. out of the US wifi/3G does not attract anyone/hardly a single soul/play a role in buying decisions

I don't understand why the country one lives in makes a difference as to whether or not wifi is desirable. Can you enlighten me?

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I don't understand why the country one lives in makes a difference as to whether or not wifi is desirable. Can you enlighten me?

Studies have shown that only US buyers are overly keen on wifi/3G. Guess it is due to Kindle being the most known device in the US and Kindle has that feature. In Europe and other parts of the world wifi is no criteria for buying, here it is seen as value enhancing, but not necessary.

In Europe epub is the dominating format which you can buy at a plethora of shops. There are market differences. And as the US are not the world but just a part of it, it is perfectly possible that Sony is the second biggest company and not in need of wifi at the same time.

[speedlever]

I would have thought that wifi would be attractive world-wide. I can only speak for myself, but I struggled to not add 3g capability to the wifi requirement. Wifi is so prolific in the areas I normally go that I've not experienced the need for 3g. At least to my mind's eye, wifi is highly desirable and precluded any consideration on my part for the PRS350/650 or other such EBR.

I still don't get why it would be a regional thing (wifi, that is).

Regarding formats, I was completely unaware of ebook formats until I began my EBR research a couple of months ago. As far as I knew, ebooks were like emusic... you d/l from the site of your choice and play back on the device of your choice. Wow, was I wrong. Well, temporarily, at least.

And then I educated myself on how to make it work like I thought it should. Which freed me up to buy the device of choice.

As to whether or not Sony is #2, it doesn't matter to me. I was just curious why some figures were considered to be guesses and others were taken as fact.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I would have thought that wifi would be attractive world-wide. I can only speak for myself, but I struggled to not add 3g capability to the wifi requirement. Wifi is so prolific in the areas I normally go that I've not experienced the need for 3g. At least to my mind's eye, wifi is highly desirable and precluded any consideration on my part for the PRS350/650 or other such EBR.

I still don't get why it would be a regional thing (wifi, that is).

Regarding formats, I was completely unaware of ebook formats until I began my EBR research a couple of months ago. As far as I knew, ebooks were like emusic... you d/l from the site of your choice and play back on the device of your choice. Wow, was I wrong. Well, temporarily, at least.

And then I educated myself on how to make it work like I thought it should. Which freed me up to buy the device of choice.

As to whether or not Sony is #2, it doesn't matter to me. I was just curious why some figures were considered to be guesses and others were taken as fact.

I am not sure if wifi is attractive or not, the markets here are not unified as in the States. Each country has its own telephone company and add to that the new companies that were allowed after the states monopoles ended. It is a having the US divided into their states again, but this time with different languages and such. Now try to download your book via wifi. When being in France and being French I can use my SIMcard in my reader, but the moment I cross the border... hm, difficult.

Right now the following readers in Germany have wifi/3G:

Oyo which is tied to a shop called Thalia.
Acer Lumiread which is tied to a shop called Libri.
And Pocketbook which is tied to no shop but the 3G doesn't work in exchange.

Do you now see why I doubt the significance of wifi over here?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by speedlever

Jon,

Is there any reason to disbelieve that those are reasonably accurate educated guesses? They have to have something to calculate those numbers. How are they derived?

And speaking of assumptions, what is this one based on?
"Sony, widely assumed to be No. 2 in the e-reader market behind Amazon"

And speaking only for myself, connectivity ranks pretty high on the required feature list. Even though I spend 99% of my time disconnected (as per the article), having the availability of wifi/3g for purchase and/or file transfer is a major plus for me.

Thus far all my books with one exception have been purchased and d/l to my computer and emailed via calibre to my kindle.com address. The one exception was too large for Google mail to send, so I had to sideload that one. Sideloading is no big deal, but I find wifi connectivity more convenient.

Because these numbers are not taking into account the entire Sony line... 500, 505, 300, 600, 700, 900, 350, 650, 950... between all the different models, there is no way B&N could have sold more. Plus, Sony is old outside the USA. The nook only in the USA. So really, the numbers have to be wrong.

[Geppetto]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I don't understand why the country one lives in makes a difference as to whether or not wifi is desirable. Can you enlighten me?

Because different countries imply different cultures. Outsights are different, therefore your buying choices are different.

[elemenoP]

In the US, many people have wifi in their homes. We have wifi in Starbucks and in McDonalds, and in other public places. It's prevalent. Is that the case in other countries? If you can't find a wifi connection in any of the usual places that you go to, then wifi is not going to be an attractive feature in a reader.

eP

[astra]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

In the US, many people have wifi in their homes. We have wifi in Starbucks and in McDonalds, and in other public places. It's prevalent. Is that the case in other countries? If you can't find a wifi connection in any of the usual places that you go to, then wifi is not going to be an attractive feature in a reader.

eP

I don't think it is available freely like that in the UK.
Even in airports you gotta pay if you want wifi in duty free.

[astra]

Originally Posted by speedlever

I don't understand why the country one lives in makes a difference as to whether or not wifi is desirable. Can you enlighten me?

The availability of it?

P.S. I have Wi-Fi in my house since Jan 2005 and I am a network engineer, so do not "dislike" it. I just don't see any usage for one outside of my house and in the house I have enough computers that I have paid money for regardless whether I have or not ebook reader, not to pay more money for wi-fi feature on ebook reader if all I have to do in order to add a book is connect my ebook reader to one of many freely available USB cables plugged in to my computer.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by astra

I don't think it is available freely like that in the UK.
Even in airports you gotta pay if you want wifi in duty free.

It's actually free in most McDonalds and Starbucks here as well, plus a lot of hotels and other restaurants and coffee houses.

[astra]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

It's actually free in most McDonalds and Starbucks here as well, plus a lot of hotels and other restaurants and coffee houses.

Have not heard about it.
Maybe I should visit McDonalds for a change? We don't have Starbucks in the town but the last time I was in Starbucks not in a big city I have not noticed any advertisements about free wi-fi access.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by astra

Have not heard about it.
Maybe I should visit McDonalds for a change? We don't have Starbucks in the town but the last time I was in Starbucks not in a big city I have not noticed any advertisements about free wi-fi access.

Check here for the McDonalds free access.

http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/restauran...FUhO4QodpCr7iw