And another UK Newspaper Article: The Times

[LazyScot]

Waterstones and Sony are definitely gearing up. The article is available on-line, and is on page 4 of the printed version. (Apologies if this has already been posted!)

Reasonable article in that the journalist has actually gone out and spoken to people about it, and is fairly positive in many places.

[Flub]

Same set of typical Luddite responses though I don't know what we're doing wrong. It wasn't this hard with mp3s

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by LazyScot

Waterstones and Sony are definitely gearing up. The article is available on-line, and is on page 4 of the printed version. (Apologies if this has already been posted!)

Reasonable article in that the journalist has actually gone out and spoken to people about it, and is fairly positive in many places.

Reasonable.. bah! It's another totally useless article bringing up the iPod once again. Why do they think readers have to be compared to iPods? They don't and should not. Totally different devices.

[kesey]

Originally Posted by Flub

Same set of typical Luddite responses though I don't know what we're doing wrong. It wasn't this hard with mp3s

Yeah right. A lady who spent 31 years looking after paper books, has 5,000 in her collection at her own home and she is supposed to jump up and down in glee at the thought of an electronic replacement? She did think the 505 is very pretty. That is, I think, a reasonable response - and not deserving of being called a luddite. More power to the lady in question, she is pursuing a hobby she loves - still searching after things she finds interesting, and enjoying the chase.

As e-readers evolve and become more available they will be adopted by people of all ages - as they have in the USA. If the technology is good enough, and if the prices asked for e-books are not unfair, this should not take too long.

[Flub]

I was actually talking about the people commenting on the article but you carry on jumping to conclusions over there.

[igorsk]

Remember how it began the other time.
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

[kesey]

Originally Posted by Flub

I was actually talking about the people commenting on the article but you carry on jumping to conclusions over there.

I'll be delighted to:-) "Same set of typical Luddite responses though" - I can't see anything in that statement to indicate exactly who you were referring to. Sincere apologies if I misread your comment. Perhaps you would allow that it was a mite unclear? The Times article seemed fair enough to me, and contained nothing anti-technology at all. The writer simply wrote on what he saw and got a comment from a lady eminently qualified to state her admiration of paper books.

That article would entice me to look for the PRS-505 in Waterstones, even if I were not otherwise inclined to do so. I'd say Sony would be perfectly happy with such publicity.

[Flub]

The only people they talked to were a 70 year old librarian who's initial response was

“Yeuuuch,”

and Mr De Winter (Age unknown) who apparently leaves books in the back of lorries and gave the opinion

“There’s nothing that will ever replace reading a real book in an armchair,”

Why aren't they asking people who might actually be interested in a bit of new technology as balance? There's plenty of people here who are happy curling up in an armchair with a nice ebook Myself included.

[igorsk]

Win a Reader.
http://www.metro.co.uk/gimme/article...4&in_page_id=4

[igorsk]

Another Times article.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle4656831.ece

[Flub]

That article didn't seem as negative. It was disappointing to read just how few books we read as a nation though

12 books a year makes you a heavy reader? I wouldn't like to speculate what they think of some of us

[Stumpy Peter]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Reasonable.. bah! It's another totally useless article bringing up the iPod once again. Why do they think readers have to be compared to iPods? They don't and should not. Totally different devices.

I was in a shop the other day and saw some 35mm film for sale. It is only a few years ago that it was said that digital cameras would never replace real film!

[LazyScot]

The article does mention that it is taking it to the hardest place for it be accepted. But I still content that there are some good points:

Even dusty old diehards find it hard not to be seduced by Sony’s glossy little gadget. “It’s very pretty,” Miss Cummings conceded. “Very nice.”

and

unlike a conventional computer screen, it is possible to read it in bright daylight.

and

Even readers with poor eyesight are accommodated by a button that enlarges the type size.

In the UK at least, all too many journalists are prone to not doing as little legwork as possible for an article (or so it seems to me -- with apologies to those journalists that do get out there). This one has gone and asked at least someone, and with the panel article that is on the same page (that igorsk has linked to) in the printed article is pretty good, showing someone who has at least tried the device:

The Sony Reader can also play music, though it cannot play video, and it is a gadget that is hard not to covet; its display makes the pages appear almost like paper. It is a significant technological advance.

The comments are much as you'd expect. The main point is that it does make people talk about it. There will always be people who hate new technology. I still can't stand mobile phones.....

[Flub]

Waterstones made a good decision having demo models in stores. I saw quite a few people having a fiddle with one this lunchtime.

It'll be slow but as the price drops and the publishing houses start to lose the technofear we should see more people starting to realise ebook readers are actually quite nice.

[pilotbob]

This is the second article on the Sony Reader coming to the UK that mentions battery life of 1680 page turns. Has Sony changed their specs from 8000, or just in the UK where the EU consumer protection is much more strict about certain things?

BOb