Sony Reader reviewed by MIT Technology Review

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by NatCh

You're clearly thinking of the iLiad, after 8 months I'll only have charged my Reader a dozen times or so.

The storage capacity of lithium ion batteries is not just affected by charging cycles. Environmental conditions, as well as leaving the device on its charging dock can negatively affect battery performance in as little as 8 months.

In addition, you also need to discharge Lithium Ion batteries once a month to keep them at peak storage efficiency. So, with an ebook device that runs so long on a charge, how do you get it to do its once a month discharge?

I also hope Sony doesn't attempt to exploit "green" in their sales efforts for the Sony Reader. Their decision to build the Lithium Ion battery into the device in such a manner as it can't be simply removed: in the future I see this as becoming illegal.

We simply can not allow manufacturers to continue to build things like Lithium Ion batteries into mobile devices and not allow them to be easily removed for proper handling post consumer usage. Sony has a zillion removable Lithium Ion batteries for use in devices such as their DSC-T9 pocket cameras. They have little excuse for not using one of them in a similar manner in the Sony Reader system.

[William Moates]

scotty1024, I agree with you about the replacability of the Reader's lithium ion battery. This may have parallels with the 1st-gen iPods; hopefully Sony will not make the same mistake as Apple, which initally did not offer a replacement option for worn-out batteries. Since the average lifetime of the rechargable battery was 18 months, many owners were furious that thay had no choice but to buy a new iPod. I remember seeing a news article about a guy protesting this problem by going around NYC putting up posters over the official Apple posters, with his new poster warning about the replacement non-option. Eventually, Apple did offer a $99 warranty-preserving replacement service, and they have been offering it for all subsequent models.

Sony should do the same for the Reader; to do otherwise would be a public relations faux pas.

[nojetlag]

I think apress.com is going in the right direction, most ebooks are 50% or more off the hardcopy price. However ultimately I feel it will go in a direction where you buy the books directly from the writer, cut the middle man and you can lower the price signficantly and still as a writer have more at the end in your pockets. Won't work for all the writers but a big group i guess

[BlackVoid]

Do NOT discharge your Lithium Ion battery!!! Discharging will cause reduced capacity and lifetime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion

On book and song prices
I think e-books should have at least an 50% price reduction compared to paper versions. Otherwise, what is the point.
An $.99 for a song is bloody expensive IMHO. You pay about the same amount for a DRM encoded incompatible content as for a CD version.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

Several people I know do well to finish even 1 book a month. $350 into 24 = $14 per book to own the Reader itself.

One book a month?! Whoo-boy, I'm trying to cut down to one book a day.

[BlackVoid]

# Unlike NiCad batteries, lithium-ion batteries should be charged early and often. However, if they are not used for a longer time, they should be brought to a charge level of around 40%. Lithium-ion batteries should never be "deep-cycled" like NiCd batteries.
# Li-ion batteries should be kept cool. Ideally they are stored in a refrigerator. Aging will take its toll much faster at high temperatures. The high temperatures found in cars cause lithium-ion batteries to degrade rapidly.
# Lithium-ion batteries should never be depleted to empty (0%).
# Li-ion batteries should be bought only when needed, because the aging process begins as soon as the battery is manufactured. [citation needed]

[bob_ninja]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

The storage capacity of lithium ion batteries is not just affected by charging cycles. Environmental conditions, as well as leaving the device on its charging dock can negatively affect battery performance in as little as 8 months.

In addition, you also need to discharge Lithium Ion batteries once a month to keep them at peak storage efficiency. So, with an ebook device that runs so long on a charge, how do you get it to do its once a month discharge?

I also hope Sony doesn't attempt to exploit "green" in their sales efforts for the Sony Reader. Their decision to build the Lithium Ion battery into the device in such a manner as it can't be simply removed: in the future I see this as becoming illegal.

We simply can not allow manufacturers to continue to build things like Lithium Ion batteries into mobile devices and not allow them to be easily removed for proper handling post consumer usage. Sony has a zillion removable Lithium Ion batteries for use in devices such as their DSC-T9 pocket cameras. They have little excuse for not using one of them in a similar manner in the Sony Reader system.

You are correct that there are many factors that affect LiIon battery lifespan. Even if it were not used at all, eventually it will still degarde and fail. So there is an absolute lifespan limit regardless of charge/discharge cycles.

Yes, chargers can be dumb and overcharge (when left on dock) thus reducing lifespan. So don't do it. Simple as that.

I haven't heard of once perm onth discharge???? Are you sure? See:

http://batteryuniversity.com/

One of the main advantages of LiIon is low self discharge, so that they can sit idle for a long time without needing recharge.

In any case, you really have to abuse a LiIon battery to last only 2 years. I have a Palm Zire71 which is at least 2 years old and still working well. Sure I notice a lower capacity and higher self discharge, but it is still good enough to last 1+ week on a single charge. LiIon batteries in general last far longer than mere 2 years.

I do agree that LiIon batteries that are sealed, such as in most PDAs and this gizmo, are very bad design. I mean it is bad enough that I have to pay extra money for the special form factor of these things (as opposed to much cheaper mass produced AA format), but to also have to take apart a gizmo and risk damaginig it is too much. I will wait for the next reader to see if they address this problem.

On the other point, I don't think that color version is going to appear within 2 years. They have their hands full improving this Reader.

So in summary, this Reader version will easily last more than 2 years, probably closer to 5+ years. Keep in mind that this gizmo doesn't draw much power. Hence battery should last minimum 5 years.

As for the price of eBooks, I see it in relation to elasticity of demand for books. In general book demand is very elastic. Hence the higher prices for eBooks will simply re-derict demand to free books (Gutenberg) and/or pBooks. Another phenomenon will be that many sophisticated readers will turn to non-corporate sources on the net. The current trend is increasing switch from published news sources such as newspapers and magazines to blogs and forums such as this one. The same will occur for books. There will be forums for both amateur and semi-professional writers that will interact with reader in a more direct fashion. When they undercut published eBooks then publishers will take notice and adjust (eventually).

[airlik]

Originally Posted by rmeister0

It had better last longer than that for a $350 device, to say nothing of all the content I've bought so far.

Exactly what I was thinking when I read that - mostly because of the content. Kind of a chicken-and-egg thing people have long recognized...

- if no one buys ebooks, or the device doesn't catch on, Sony probably won't produce more Readers.
- if I think there's a chance Sony won't produce more readers, I'm not going to plop down more than a buck or two for any book that effectively has a 2 year lifespan - period.

Books aren't rentals - my library lets me do that for free. The argument that I could keep the Connect software around and read it on my PC (until the Connect software breaks with some future OS version) holds no water... if I wanted to read a book on a PC I'd not have purchased the Reader. In that case, the availability of software that removed the DRM would be the only thing that would make me buy eBooks. I came to a similar realization with online music stores a long time ago, and the only reason I buy music (and lots of it) online is because I can zip the DRM off and feel I haven't thrown away my money. Kind of an irony... I'm happy to pay and not copy, but only if they don't put junk on it to keep me from copying - because the major side-effect of DRM in restricting how I can personally use it is a show-stopper for me.

[tcv]

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

Wow.

tcv, I hope that you know you made me very, very sad. There are few things that I own, for which I paid $200+ that I do not expect to last for five years.

I apologize. I don't want to make anyone sad. I am pointing out that companies don't make money by creating product that you'll never want to or have to replace. It just doesn't benefit them at all if the Reader can last decades. And each component in the device essentially falls under the same meditation -- "how can we get them to buy more of our stuff!"

No, I don't believe that companies purposely create tech that dies. I do believe, however, that they don't focus on creating tech that could easily last a very, very long time. And I do believe that if they really wanted to, they could make a Reader that lasted 10 years.

[yvanleterrible]

If anybody remembers the passage of music from vinyl to CD, where older titles regularly make a transition to an other format. It is totally possible to expect a day where out of print paper books transfer to e-format!

[Cthulhu]

So I just read the full review that prompted this thread, and I have to say that I believe many people approach the issue of e-books incorrectly. The author was discussing the high cost of e-books relative to their...corporeality.
The thing I love about e-text is that I do *not* need a shelf, or a room to hold them; I just need some space on an 80 gb hard drive. The ephemerality of e-books should be a selling point, not a sadly admitted limitation! How cool is it to have the collected works of Shakespeare take up one electronice file folder rather than a box that's 8.5"x11"x24"?
The crux of the matter is the perception of who owns data or intellectual property, and who gets to use it, for how much money. Limitations to ownership, such as DRM software, are what point up the un-physicality of this data, and the model needs to be adapted.
I will admit that there is something nice about gazing upon a shelf of treasured books, arranged like so many trophies of my reading skill; there is a pleasantness of having texts arranged willy-nilly that allows for random access and increased brain function. But in my little house, and on my little boat, I'd much rather use that space for something else.

[Cthulhu]

Regarding Batteries and the longevity of technology in general:

How great would it be if the overhead of development was low enough that tech. companies could offer lifetime warranties?

I haven't bought a backpack since I started high school fifteen years ago. Every time one breaks, I take it to Eddy Bauer and get a new one. If a fender on the boat pops, gets ripped by a rusty bolt, Taylor Made will ship me a new one.

Obviously, there is such a thin profit margin that SONY might go broke offering to replace Readers with cracked displays, non-responive buttons, dead batteries. However, imagine that there were only small improvements to the Reader, maybe search functionality in two years, a colour screen in five. Now imagine that every time you broke the Reader, they gave you a new one....

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Jack B Nimble

True, but the basic idea still stands. If book premiers in paperback, the ebook still comes out some months later, at a substantial discount.

I see no reason the publisher can't make the eBook available at the same time as the paperback at a similar price, then discount it later. That's assuming no DRM or very unobtrusive DRM. If the publisher wants to "rent" me the book so that I can only read it on one device and can't pass it along when I'm done, the price should always be drastically lower than a long-lived solution like paper.

Not that publisher costs have that much to do with retail prices, but I wonder what the typical cost to produce, store, and ship a paperback book is, when you take into account average print runs, stripped or discounted books, etc.? What about retail location costs, e.g. floor space, staff, etc. at the bookstore? The author gets their pittance, the publishers pay for some amount of marketing, editors and copyeditors need to get paid, etc., and those costs probably wouldn't change much, but I'm just wondering what proportion of the actual costs is due to the physical medium. (And the electronic medium isn't free, either-- server storage, system administration, etc. are all involved, but I would expect costs to be much lower.)

[slayda]

Originally Posted by tcv

2 years seems to be the right age for most high tech -- laptops, computers, PDAs, MP3/Video players. The industry doesn't make money by you buying a single reader and using it for eight years. This isn't to say that they've built in obsolescence, but as time goes on, you're going to get a new device. First the warranty will expire, then the batter will not hold as high of a charge, then the screen shows problems like getting slower. There are a lot of reasons why you might want to move on and Sony hopes that you do!

Showing my age here but I have a "still working" HP-35 calculator -1972 ventage ($395 - that's 1972 dollars BTW). Can't find a battery pack for it but it still works when plugged up. {Of course that was back when mem were men & electronic item were made to last.}

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by slayda

I have a "still working" HP-35 calculator -1972

Heh, I have one of those on my "Shelf of Radom Stuff" here in my cube. No power supply, so I don't know if it works. It was "abandoned equipment" in a move a few years ago, and I snagged it for the shelf.

I also have two genuine Radio Shack recordable 8-tracks, a Pentium II CPU, an 8" silicon wafer (the kind they make chips on) -- copper electroplated, and a collection of aluminium foil animals.

That barely scratches the surface. Everyone who comes in my cube stops the first time and stares for a moment.