New Chapter on Digital Reading (Sony)

[BlackVoid]

"MORE CONTENT! "

They just added epub support which is gaining acceptance as a format for ebooks.
I do not care much for any kind of wireless. If you add it, at least give us the option to switch it off, otherwise it will just deplete the battery.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by lhdz12@sbcglobal

Anybody wanna predict what Sony's next move is?

A lower price, and a new publisher added to their catalog. Nothing new beyond that. That's my prediction.

(Go ahead, Sony: Prove me wrong!)

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Unless you're aware of some competing technology that I'm not, then yes, it would be stupid at the moment.

There is a competing technology: LCD.

The only real benefit of Eink is it uses less energy than an LCD. But if you have the Eink screen in a reader with a moderately powerful CPU, the power savings are negligible. Most of the power is consumed by the electronics, not the screen.

So far, the only device that actually showed the benefit of an Eink screen was the PRS-500. Mine had a 3 week battery life. (I think the reason it had such great battery life was good hardware design, not the screen.) The Cybook and Kindle get about a week, and from what I've heard the 505 gets around 2 weeks.

I have several devices that have a battery life of a week or more. Almost all have LCD screens.

[tonyofla]

Hope they announce a bigger catalogue here in Europe. I guess Mobipocket access won’t happen since they are already DRMed up with Abobe Digital editions?

[k1105]

As long as we're offering SWAG's - I suggest that Sony will offer a PRS-700 with WiFi and a Pixelqi display - low power, color lcd. Linux drivers sould already exist due to the relationship with the OLPC XO project. In fact if you took the specs for the OLPC and repackaged you might have an attractive eReader.

BTW- I'm a happy PRS-500 owner, but I desire an iliad.

[vivaldirules]

My prediction is that if Sony does not dramatically increase their content offerings right now, then by the end of this year you will have twice the probability of finding the particular book you're looking for at Amazon than at Sony. And epub and PDFs via Adobe DE sold by other vendors are not substitutes for a good Sony-formatted copy unless and until Sony fixes the display of those on the Reader.

[nathantw]

Originally Posted by HarryT

As has been said about a million times before, you CANNOT "backlight" an eInk screen for the simple reason that it's completely opaque .

However, as Sony's booklight showed, you can front light the unit. Why not have the booklight built-in on the front of display?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Slite

And to move away from eInk would just be plain stupid

And WiFi ... hmmm, don't really see the point to it, since all that does is drain the battery really.

But think of the money Sony could make by having a replaceable battery that does indeed DRAIN while using Wi-Fi.

Don

[seveng]

Higher res and/or larger screen would be nice as well. The biggest hurdles for me on the 500 are the small library, and trying to read manga on the screen. Even with the landscape mode the page is split in half and kind of ruins the experience.

[nathantw]

Originally Posted by seveng

Higher res and/or larger screen would be nice as well. The biggest hurdles for me on the 500 are the small library, and trying to read manga on the screen. Even with the landscape mode the page is split in half and kind of ruins the experience.

To trump the Kindle I think a higher res AND a color screen would definitely put it back on top if it also contained wi-fi.

[pilotbob]

I think Sony is going to announce that they are removing DRM from their full catalog and will sell all books in ePub format, the Sony eBook store will be opened world wide and you will be able to purchase from a web browser (was easier than Mac/Linux specific software). They will also be reducing the prices of all eBooks by 50% and adding 500,000 books to the catalog by the end of the year. You will be able to re-download all purchased ebooks in DRM free ePub format for free. Finally, there will be a new model with a atomic battery that never needs to be charged and will last about 50 years. They will offer a trade in program where they pay you $100 to send in your PRS-500 and they will send you the new PRS-505A (a=atomic). As a bonus the 505A has a new firmware that includes dictionary support and folder support for the library.

Excuse me now. I have to leave my apartments here in Cindarella's castle and walk down to main street to get my morning hot cocoa.

BOb

[Lord_Pall]

I'd be happy with sturdier and cheaper. No more glass substrate. Flexible screen, more durable, and <300 dollars is good.

[Scythe]

In order for it to be a "new chapter" in ebook's --- it'd need the following:

A color screen.

We've seen wifi/hspda done, as well as higher resolutions. What the PRS-505 needs desperately is a way to buy from the eBook store via wifi. I shouldn't need client-side software. I don't really care about a color screen, but if they want to go that way then be my guest. All I know is for us linux users, it just sucks since we have to go to a Windows computer for managing the books on it.

All I know is something good better be announced, because my wife just broke her PRS505 and I'm awaiting the outcome of this announcement.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

There is a competing technology: LCD.

The only real benefit of Eink is it uses less energy than an LCD. But if you have the Eink screen in a reader with a moderately powerful CPU, the power savings are negligible. Most of the power is consumed by the electronics, not the screen.

I must respectfully disagree, Nate. The point about an eBook reader is that it spends 99.5% of its time displaying a static image, and the screen uses no power to do that. During that time, the CPU can "hibernate" and again use very little power. LCD screens constantly use power.

So far, the only device that actually showed the benefit of an Eink screen was the PRS-500. Mine had a 3 week battery life. (I think the reason it had such great battery life was good hardware design, not the screen.) The Cybook and Kindle get about a week, and from what I've heard the 505 gets around 2 weeks.

Those are "standby" times, and don't really reflect usage. I can get about, say, 25h of actual "reading time" on my Gen3, on a battery charge. That's a 1000mAh battery - less power than that of the typical "AAA" battery. That's at least a factor of 10 better (probably more like a factor of 20) than any laptop computer with an LCD screen.

I have several devices that have a battery life of a week or more. Almost all have LCD screens.

Is that "standby time" or "usage time" of such devices? What's the battery capacity?

The only devices I can think of which have remotely comparable battery times were the old mono "PalmPilot" PDAs, which would run for weeks of a couple of AAA batteries. Their screen size, however, bears no comparison to that of a modern book reader.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I think Sony is going to announce....new model with a atomic battery that never needs to be charged and will last about 50 years.

cut

BOb

I heard about that, too. One thing you neglected to mention: Even though the battery will last 50 years, the person using the Reader will only last one day.

Don