Sony Sucks!!!!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by europas_ice

We are NOT talking about a matter of $2. For example, the book Dune Messiah (by Frank Herbert), at the sony bookstore, is $17.46. On amazon, it is $7.19. This is a matter of $10 difference, more than 50%!

This is HUGE, and a huge part of the reason I want a kindle. I do buy books from the store a lot.

I just checked all the same eBook stores as before and the price Sony has is actually slightly better then the rest. Some are even more expensive. Amazon is the only one with a price less then the list price of the pBook. Sony is not really at fault here. We must blame the publishers for making deals with Amazon and not the rest.

[acprinter]

Originally Posted by stevejay

My Sony PRS does the job. One of the things most likely to fail is the component which comes in contact with the buttons.

This is surely the truth!

My experience with Sony has always been positive also my experience with Amazon has been positive. Sometimes we need to quite bashing others and look at ourselves.
____________

presently reading - Adobe Photoshop CS4 Classroom in a Book.

[JSWolf]

The experiences that get the most noise tend to be the ones that are not of a positive nature.

[rhadin]

At your link you wrote:

Originally Posted by TheDarkTrumpet

Ok, right now, I own the Sony Reader 505 - I love the device. I've had it for about a year and a quarter or so, pretty much since it came out, and it's been a trusty device for some time.

I guess I don't get it. No one has ever claimed that the Sony bookstore has the cheapest prices. I agree that on price alone, it is hard to beat Amazon. But Amazon made a business decision to deliberately lose money on bestsellers as an enticement for people to buy the Kindle and buy other books from Amazon. Sony has simply chosen not to follow that model.

And what I don't get is how a device that you have loved for more than a year now translates to Sony sucks because the cost of books that you want to buy are higher than that found at a competitor. By that comparison, Apple sucks because Apple products cost more than non-Apple products even though they accomplish the same basic task. Seems like flawed reasoning to me.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by europas_ice

We are NOT talking about a matter of $2. For example, the book Dune Messiah (by Frank Herbert), at the sony bookstore, is $17.46. On amazon, it is $7.19. This is a matter of $10 difference, more than 50%!

This is a publisher issue. When they did a new Hard Cover edition of the Herbert books ebooks were released at the same time & the publisher priced them based on the HC. Obviously Amazon said 'hey that's not right' & got them to change that and base the price on the paper back like it should be. It appears the publisher didn't bother to change the list pricing with other distributors. Kinda like Penguin when they "forget" to lower an ebooks price when a paperback comes out, sometimes they don't get changed for years. Amazon is more on the ball about pricing adjustments like that.

Sony must not pay attention as closely and companies like FW & BoB can't do much other than complaining to their distributor, which is usually Over Drive (Content Serve) or Lightning Source (Ingram). I suppose FW is kind of a distro now too with eReader.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by danioro

let me tell you about my experience with my very expensive Sony VAIO laptop sometime.....

Let me tell you about my experience with MY Sony VAIO laptop.

The screen started flickering one Saturday - a problem with the backlight. I phoned an extremely helpful woman at Sony's support centre, who arranged for a courier to call around to my house with a box to pick up the laptop on Monday morning (which they duly did).

Wednesday lunchtime there was a knock on my door, and the same courier was back with my repaired laptop. Two days to ship it, diagnose the problem (a faulty voltage converter for the screen backlight), repair it, and ship it back to me.

I call that pretty spectacularly good service, and that's why I've now bought four Sony VAIO laptops in a row. Good machines, and GREAT customer service.

[AbFabGab]

I am very happy with my Sony 505.
I have not yet purchased anything from the Sony ebookstore,
although I have downloaded some of their freebies.

I have found plenty of free reading material from a variety
of sources to keep me content. The categories include sci-fi,
fantasy, romance, spiritual, etc.

I joined two public libraries (NY & DC) from:
https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EBook_Lending_Libraries

I created wishlists on my accounts so I can easily access
something I'm interested in reading.

For "me", the 505 suits me well.
I'm pleased as punch with it! : )

When looking at ereaders, you need to look at the big
picture (device features, quirks, company, bookstores, freebies, etc)
then narrow it down to which device will give you the most satisfaction.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by danioro

this is a concrete reason. once you have the device, the books are 20% more expensive. The product itself is OK.
Newbies need to know that Sony charges more for books than the major competition.

You do not need to buy books at the Sony bookstore. Period.

[DixieGal]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I go to the Sony store via their library software to purchase books on discount that they have emailed me about. The prices generally match Fictionwise, which is my #2 source. Not having a Kindle, I therefore never bother to check their prices.

By purchasing via the Sony library link to the store, it automatically and quickly downloads the purchase to both the library and my reader. If the book should happen to be a dollar or so more than someplace else, then I'm happy to pay the difference for the convenience. For me, I have more money than time, and anything that makes a task more convenient is worth whatever extra it might cost.

Have you signed up for the Sony promotions emails? They come a couple of times per week and have really good discount prices for books.

[xianfox]

I tend not to trust the Kindle for the same reasons given as to why the "Sony Sucks."

Amazon owns Mobipocket and the Mobireader software they employ. There is nothing to stop Amazon in the future from locking the Mobireader software to only work with books purchased through the Amazon store. I don't know that Jeff intends to lock the Kindle in the future, but I tend not to trust large, multinational corporations.

In the Sony's case, they support the open epub format. This allows me to purchase books not only from Sony, but from a variety of sources, including the author's own site in many cases. Today that is true of both the Kindle and the Sony, however, I think it's much more likely that Amazon would lock the Kindle to their store than Sony would lock their Reader to their store.

As nice as Jeff can make the Kindle, I don't think I'll ever be a purchaser of it; not unless every other manufacturer of ebooks goes bust (a thought I don't relish, but is entirely possible).

[europas_ice]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We must blame the publishers for making deals with Amazon and not the rest.

While I agree we should blame the publishers, it doesn't mean I need to buy the overpriced books.

And I will point out that on the very book I mentioned (or another by the same author?) I emailed sony that their price was crazy high, and they DID talk to the publishers, and got them to drop their price, maybe by $4 or so. Still way more expensive than amazon.

And I agree that in terms of DRM the kindle is just as bad as sony, but at least they make it a LOT easier to get their DRMed books!

[JSWolf]

What will help is the day that Amazon opens their eBooks to more then just people with a Kindle. The rumors of Amazon opening eBooks to cell phones is just a rumor until it happens. And if it happens and we cannot manage those eBook on our computers then we are no better off. But that is speculation and remains to be seen.

[Seabound]

I'm very happy with my Sony PRS-505. I read a lot of public domain books, and also buy a lot from fictionwise. With the help of calibre, there is no need to restrict myself to Sony's Connect store, and I can also cull news articles for free into my reader. With my Sony, my reading has increased to ridiculous levels because of the convenience of having more than a hundred books in one device. Being satisfied, I have no reason to buy a Kindle, whose form factor I don't like anyway. It also helped that I did my research about ebooks and ebook readers before deciding on which ebook reader to buy. No regrets here. And I have not even mentioned my instinctive repulsion at Amazon's ebook/ebook reader strategy.

For me, Sony definitely does not suck.

[ChipnDale]

Maybe it's the economy...I love my Sony, then again so far I've only uploaded public domain books (I volunteer at a library so I can borrow pb/hb without paying).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by xianfox

Amazon owns Mobipocket and the Mobireader software they employ. There is nothing to stop Amazon in the future from locking the Mobireader software to only work with books purchased through the Amazon store.

Yes there is - their own commercial interest. They paid a lot of money for MobiPocket, and Mobi books sell world-wide. It is perhaps easy for people in the US to overestimate the influence of the Kindle and the Amazon eBook store - outside the US they are a total irrelevence. The MobiPocket business is world-wide. It would be commercial idiocy for Amazon to do anything but encourage its growth.