The Sony PRS700: the Newest Member of the Sony Reader Family

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Will it be sold in the EU?
I'll have it, if it'll be under 200€...

It's probably going to be sold in the EU soon, but don't hold your breath for that 200€ price.

Its being aimed as a premium model, and with the 505 being sold for around 250€ , this is probably going to be around 300€ - 350€ or so.

What I'm hoping is that this and the recent price reduction by Bookeen will make Sony drop the price of the 505 in Europe. Seriously the € = $ is getting old.

[jerryleejr]

Ok initially I was like ok I was wrong they waited 33 days after I bought both my 505's to release a new model. And yes at first I was impressed but after looking at what was offered and the deal I got. (I purchased two 505's for just 50 bucks more than one 700) I realized that my 505 suits me just fine. I purchased it for Reading which it does wonderfully, I was never interested in a touch screen, My big feature would have been WI-FI or Mac compatibility. The latter obviously has nothing to do with the Device. I was really hoping Sony would add Epub and secure PDF books to its store. So I think I can wait for a couple more versions before feeling the need to upgrade. Plus I really like my Red Reader.

JJ

[tompe]

I would really like to have search inside a book. What I often would like to do is to mark a word and search for all occurrences. I am very bad at remembering names when I read so this would help me.

[grimo1re]

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I'm saving up for a digital SLR camera....perhaps I should put that in past tense now. I need this model, I crave it.....

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, my guesses were waaay off... I didn't expect new hardware. Will I buy it? Unfortunately, I thought the 500 and 505 were overly-costly, and this is $100 more. At $200, I wouldn't have hesitated, but at $400, I'm standing pat.

With my iPaq.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

= more support issues = higher support costs = less money. It's not as one-sided as you suggest!

Well, you also get more support issues with more customers... but I doubt that most companies would be worried about it. None of this software needs to be that complicated; it should be relatively easy for a company like Sony to support their reader software on more than one platform. Not to mention, the purchase rate amongst Mac users might be far higher than amongst windows users. Lets consider the fact that none of the Hardware based readers properly supports Macs yet; therefore Sony could get a much larger piece of the market. In addition, Mac owners are often amongst the earliest adopters of new Technology.

I am sure there is probably a bean counter somewhere who figures that maybe, 5-10% of the people who buy the readers might end up buying a Sony PC. Of course the last Sony PC I saw was so crowded with junk software that it barely ran (and that is from the store).

--
Bill

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

No announcement of new books? No deal with a big publisher or even a brick-and-mortar seller? So we're going to have to continue buying books from the little Sony "bookmobile" while the real stash of ebooks remains over at Amazon or else still on paper? Man, I am really bummed. I coulda sworn this was gonna turn out better. Oh, well. Have a good night, all.

I didn't expect anything along those lines. I certainly didn't expect anything with Amazon. (see my other messages about that.)

It is actually [sort of] what I expected, a new device to supplement the 505. But, truth be told I thought they might be announcing a bigger screened device. I didn't see this one coming.

The revamp of the ebook store will be nice. Hopefully there will be a performance improvement with the changes.

One thing that this does show is that Sony is committed to this space and all the nay sayers about Sony abandoning the reader look to be wrong at this point. I hate to say I told you so...

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

= more support issues = higher support costs = less money. It's not as one-sided as you suggest!

What they could do is open up the specs needed to write a driver and get the device authorized then start an open source project. This way they wouldn't really have to "support" it but it would go a long way to getting Mac/Linux support.

Then of course, as others have said here, allowing the purchase via a browser from the store. Even it you would need some open source app to be able to authorize to your account from Mac/Linux.

(I think people that buy a Mac would be more likely to by a reader. Because they have already proven that they don't make their choices by following the crowd and are willing to pay a bit more to get what they like and want. Nothing against Windows users... I actually use both.)

BOb

[rahlquist]

Ohhhh say it again, say it AGAIN!

Originally Posted by NatCh

Let me say that again: Built. In. Frontlight.

SOLD!

[pilotbob]

Many people have talked about the $100 credit for a used 500 being usable to buy a 700. I have no doubt that Sony will do this. Hopefully they will amend the current deal soon. Any one have a good contact to put this bee in their bonnet?

BOb

[WillAdams]

It's really a shame that we lose the joystick button --- but the touch interface is a big plus for me. If/when it can annotate and mark up a .pdf directly, and upload the marked up .pdf to a PC, it'll be huge w/ editors and the publishing industry.

If it just had handwriting recognition and calendar and address book and notepad and sketchpad/ink functionality it'd be the Newton MessagePad replacement I've been waiting for.

William

[InspectorGadget]

Originally Posted by InspectorGadget

Did someone say, "Plastic Logic?" My understanding is that their eInk technology is entirely plastic, omitting the thin, fragile glass membranes inside the current Sony screens THAT KEEP !@#$% BREAKING unexpectedly in 10-15 percent of the machines.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29270

Originally Posted by HarryT

Where do you get your figure of "10-15% of machines" from? I'd be astonished if that figure were accurate - Tribble, the German seller for the CyBook Gen3, which some people regard as more fragile than the Sony Reader, tells us that he's seeing failure of rates of under 1% for the machines he's selling. If Sony really have a failure rate more than 10x that of Bookeen, there's something very badly wrong.

Harry,

It was right in that thread whose link you edited out of your quote of my message (restored above). It was 11.27% of the respondents to JSWolf's poll "Has the screen of your 505 ever broken?" Granted, I made a big leap as I implied it was 10-15% of the general population. Hopefully it's not that much, but it was that fraction of the poll respondents. Go figure.

- The Inspector

[lovebeta]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Many people have talked about the $100 credit for a used 500 being usable to buy a 700. I have no doubt that Sony will do this. Hopefully they will amend the current deal soon. Any one have a good contact to put this bee in their bonnet?

BOb

Not if they give a higher credit. I think it is not hard to eBay PRS-505 for around $200.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lovebeta

Not if they give a higher credit. I think it is not hard to eBay PRS-505 for around $200.

True.. not hard but a bit of a hassle.

BOb

[Gogolo]

Thats the problem with statistics

What sort of people are voting in such a poll? Maybe the rough ones? Or those who have a screen break and are looking for help in a forum? Or those who are geeks, using their reader excessivly and therefore will experience more hardware problems.

We don't know. Even Tribbles statistic will not show the real size of screen breaking.

Gogolo