SONY PRS-505 Advocate

[Linda]

Originally Posted by allen.gotwald

I travel a lot and I like to read in coffee shops during down time. Normally I'm reading at home. But when I am out with the device just sitting and reading I will get one or two people come up to me and inquire "what is that?" Prior to seeing someone with a SONY device, I didn't know they existed. Of course I wasn't actively searching for one, but after seeing the 505 I was impressed. The 100 free classics clinched the deal for me since I favor classics and poetry. Between Gutenberg, Mobileread and Manybooks.net, I have enough reading for a lifetime and it's all in BBeB or LRF format. For me SONY has hit a homerun. If it accomodated Mobipocket, I'd be able to buy from an array of sites and it would be as close to perfect as an ereader product could be, for me, because the inventory would be almost limitless.

I was in the Washington DC subway at a main transfer point a couple of days ago. They were putting up huge banners advertising the Sony 505.

[revmike]

The kindle led me to the sony. I buy allot of my cd's from amazon and I saw their advertisement for the kindle. I liked the idea of having an asortment of books on hand without carrying a backpack. I didn't like the kindle at all, but it showed the sony reader as a similar product. I searched the internet and found this site and found a borders that had them in stock and the rest is history.

[Taylor514ce]

Borders... since the device is available directly from SonyStyle, online or at their stores, as well as at Best Buy, Circuit City, even Target, in addition to several online vendors, I would think that Borders would do something to differentiate. Such as coupons for Borders Rewards members? Nope, they all specifically exclude the Reader. Some sort of bundle? No again.

I even called a Borders store and point blank asked if they'd be willing to lower the price, and was told that Sony did not allow discounting the Reader. That answers that, but doesn't explain not attempting to bundle the product to provide a better value.

Then again, you'd think a computer retailer would also attempt to stand above the rest, bundling an SD card, for example. Nope.

Right now the best deal going appears to be from SonyRewards.com. Join the rewards program and apply for the Sony credit card, which will get you about 10,160 points, worth .01 per point. Then you can buy the Reader out of the rewards catalog for essentially US$200.00 vs. US$300.00. You have to be willing to wait, though, for the card approval and for the darn thing to be available.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I even called a Borders store and point blank asked if they'd be willing to lower the price, and was told that Sony did not allow discounting the Reader.

There's probably a bit more to it than that. At a guess, I'd say that Sony probably sells them to Borders at the same wholesale price they do to everyone else (in other words, not discounted 50% the way Borders buys their books), and Borders chooses to not take a loss on the sale (the same choice that Sony makes). But that's mostly guesswork.

[Taylor514ce]

I can understand no one being willing, or allowed by Sony, to discount the product. Especially since no one can seem to keep the device in stock, why start discounting? But none of the retail vendors even attempt to differentiate, which I find strange. But then again, since everyone is selling every one, why bother?

Which is why I'll buy it through SonyRewards. If there is no specific reason to buy from any one particular vendor, then I'll simply find the cheapest overall method.

[revmike]

The only reason that I bought mine from Borders was because I did not want to wait for it to arrive if I bought it online. Somethings I can wait for, this was not one of them.