Finally, new Sony rumors

[yagiz]

Originally Posted by charleski

A touchscreen for highlighting and annotations would be very nice, but right now I'd only consider upgrading from my 505 to a device with the Pearl screen. If the new Sonys don't have them then that's a real problem.

Same here.

[porkupan]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Still, odd that they wouldn't say "New eInk Pearl screen with 50% more contrast" if it was.

Does Amazon ever mention the word Pearl in their advertisement? Did any of them mention Vizplex for that matter?

All the user needs to know is that this is a less power consuming, faster, more contrast e-Ink screen. The fact that there is no extra layer of touch screen is already a humongous improvement. Assuming the touchscreen is still usable, of course.

I think if the "full clear touchscreen" is no fake, and if there is a WiFi connection in 650, these new readers are going to be a major hit. They will not blow Amazon out of the water (too much muscle is needed to dislodge the Kindle in the U.S.), but they may make a major dent in the crap-quality nook. And Sony may re-establish its place as a worldwide leader (meaning the rest of the world, outside the reach of Amazon ebook store).

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by porkupan

I think if the "full clear touchscreen" is no fake, and if there is a WiFi connection in 650, these new readers are going to be a major hit.

I agree. I've been waiting for a larger screen device, say 8 or 9 inches, but if what Sony claims is also true for the rumored 950, I'd consider buying that rather than waiting any longer.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by porkupan

Does Amazon ever mention the word Pearl in their advertisement? Did any of them mention Vizplex for that matter?

Fair point

I think if the "full clear touchscreen" is no fake, and if there is a WiFi connection in 650, these new readers are going to be a major hit. They will not blow Amazon out of the water (too much muscle is needed to dislodge the Kindle in the U.S.), but they may make a major dent in the crap-quality nook. And Sony may re-establish its place as a worldwide leader (meaning the rest of the world, outside the reach of Amazon ebook store).

It will be interesting to see how they do. For me, the experience of using a Sony has been that it is a well made device, pleasant to use etc., but that I struggle to get the content that I want. I've got more faith in Amazon at the moment to sort that out, and in the UK at least, I think that their device requires less technical know-how to operate. So, I think that I'd recommend a Kindle to normals, even if the new Sony has lovely hardware (as I hope it does - competition is necessary).

Of course, once I've had a Kindle 6 months (instead of -2 weeks), I might think different ...

[simplyparticular]

Note that the screen shot says "What's New," so it's unclear what they're keeping from the 1st gen Pocket/Touch.

Stylus? SD slot? Hmmm.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Mycropht

Under the Sony slides it says: "Screen images simulated. Product images representative."

Just to cut the "Are the screenshots real?" discussion....

100% utterly irrelevant to the "are the screenshots real" discussion, given that the "are the screenshots real" discussion is about "are the screen shots really of an official Sony product presentation for their new ebook readers", not a discussion about "are the photos actually photographs of text on the photographed readers or was it photoshopped on later." The second is without question true-- 99.9% of images of electronic devices you see in official ads have the screen image photoshopped in place. The issue is-- why would Sony photoshop in such an ugly block of text as an official image to try to show off their product?

Look at this-- use of that image is unjustifiable (pun intended.)

Originally Posted by porkupan

Does Amazon ever mention the word Pearl in their advertisement?

...

The fact that there is no extra layer of touch screen is already a humongous improvement.

Yes, but the fact that there is no extra layer of touch screen actually (IMHO) falls in line with the TMI reasoning of Amazon not mentioning that their new screen is a Pearl. Just like the majority of non-techie ebook reader owners who aren't reading Mobileread likely have no idea what the heck a Pearl screen is, I would think that the majority of them have no idea (or curiosity) of how a touchscreen works.

I may be wrong-- this may be official wording-- but I'm not willing to accept that yet.

[yagiz]

Originally Posted by Squirsier

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/19/s...er-on-a-charg/

With pics! Even look like they might fit the same covers, wOot!

Quite interesting! No additional layer + faster + better battery + multiple dictionaries = I'm sold even without Perl. I guess it's too early to ask for a release date. Will it be ready before the Xmas period?

Originally Posted by porkupan

Does Amazon ever mention the word Pearl in their advertisement? Did any of them mention Vizplex for that matter?

Sony's supposed line taken from the blurry photo of what might be a PowerPoint presentation reads:

Full clear touch screen
No additional layer of E Ink screen giving an amazing and crisp paper-like appearance

Contrast that boring statement with the better advertisement from Amazon:

All New, High Contrast E-Ink Screen: Our graphite Kindle DX uses our all new, improved electronic ink display, with 50% better contrast for the clearest text and sharpest images

Additionally Amazon uses the key phrase "Latest Generation"

If nothing else, Amazon seems to be better at advertizing their new Kindles than Sony is with these supposed new readers. If these a real, Sony is going about it in their usual half-hearted way.

[yagiz]

Originally Posted by jswinden

If nothing else, Amazon seems to be better at advertizing their new Kindles than Sony is with these supposed new readers. If these a real, Sony is going about it in their usual half-hearted way.

I don't think that you are comparing two similar statements. One is the advertisement of an already launched product taken from a live site, the other one's origin is not even certain, unless I'm missing something.

[OrcaBlue]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Sony's supposed line taken from the blurry photo of what might be a PowerPoint presentation reads:


If nothing else, Amazon seems to be better at advertizing their new Kindles than Sony is with these supposed new readers. If these a real, Sony is going about it in their usual half-hearted way.

Too many rumors lately. I would wait until Sony makes the official announcement. Other wise, it just futile to comment on or criticize something that is not even factual. Hold your horse...and be patient little grass hopper. You will have plenty more reasons to trash Sony soon and even more reasons to praise the awesome Kindle 3.

Originally Posted by yagiz

I don't think that you are comparing two similar statements. One is the advertisement of an already launched product taken from a live site, the other one's origin is not even certain, unless I'm missing something.

My main point is that Sony always takes a half-hearted approach with its readers. They don't seem to try very hard to sell them. When I bought my first Sony reader it was because I read about it here on MR. I had no idea that Sony had even released a reader. Kindle was all over the news and being discussed a lot. Sony just didn't have that great of a send off for their readers, and still doesn't. You have to fish around on their website just to find their readers. They did the same thing with their Clie line of PalmOS PDAs. The Clies were better than Palm's own PDAs, but Sony never really pushed them much and then dropped them when sales were low. Well duh, sales are going to be low if you don't push a product line.

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

Too many rumors lately. I would wait until Sony makes the official announcement. Other wise, it just futile to comment on or criticize something that is not even factual. Hold your horse...and be patient little grass hopper. You will have plenty more reasons to trash Sony soon and even more reasons to praise the awesome Kindle 3.

If you read what I've written in my many posts on this subject you will see that I'm extremely sceptical of this rumor--I think it could be a hoax at worst, or a lame internal PP presentation at best.

[OrcaBlue]

Originally Posted by jswinden

If you read what I've written in my many posts on this subject you will see that I'm extremely sceptical of this rumor--I think it could be a hoax at worst, or a lame internal PP presentation at best.

My point is it is pointless to compare a rumor ad with Amazon's actual marketing ads.

Originally Posted by jswinden

My main point is that Sony always takes a half-hearted approach with its readers. They don't seem to try very hard to sell them. ...

I think the reason is that when the ereader business just started, it was just a snitch sector. There was very few people interested in them. It's the earlier adopters like people on MR and earlier manufacturers like Sony and IREX that slowly build the market. No one know that ereader business would grow to where it is today. Hence, Sony decided that it would concentrate on other sectors like PS3, LCD TV, Digital Camera, VAIO Laptop, MP3 players, and Camcorder.

I agree with you on the fact that SONY's advertisement for the ereader is pretty weak.

[igorsk]

viktorz over at the-ebook.org forums dug out an old PR from PVI which might explain how Sony made a touch screen without layer on top:

PVI’s new Touch EPD uses the innovative “force sensing” touch technology. In this technology, several force sensors are placed under the e-paper display. When a user touches the display, proprietary software calculates the location and intensity of the touch with input from the sensors. There is no additional layer of materials on top of he display as there is in traditional touch technologies; as such, there is no impact to the reflective qualities of the display. This technology requires no ITO (the most fragile component in traditional touch panels), hence exhibits superior robustness. Unlike capacitive touch panels which requires the touch medium be conductive (such as a finger), this force sensing technology works with either stylus or fingers. The cost of the technology is competitive with resistive and lower than capacitive touch panels. In other words, the force sensing technology is highly competitive against all existing touch technology in the market, especially for the e-paper application.

[Mycropht]

@ardeegee: Point taken.

Anyway, I am sure that the presentation is real. That was not a paid advertisment in Wired but, as it seems, an internal presentation. The quality of internal presentations is sometimes abysimally bad.