Sony Reader available Late Summer 2006

[jæd]

Originally Posted by Laurens

Unfortunately, Sony has no plans for a European release, at least not for the forseeable future.

Bit silly that, as I would guess that Europeans read more books per capita than those in the USA...

[dugbug]

Originally Posted by jæd

Bit silly that, as I would guess that Europeans read more books per capita than those in the USA...

Now now... lets not get ahead of ourselves

[Kosst Amojan]

Thats pretty dim Jaed, and you guys wonder why we call you elitist.

[mrbonheur]

Originally Posted by Kosst Amojan

Thats pretty dim Jaed, and you guys wonder why we call you elitist.

In addition, it is simply not true that Europeans buy more ebooks than us-citizens.

[leandroide]

Well... there is an interesting report of reading habits in the European Union in:
http://www.wischenbart.com/Booklab/B...nce%202005.pdf

In page 25 the graph shows that the book reading per capita is around 37 books/person a year on average.

Anybody has data from USA?

Cheers,

L.

[jæd]

Originally Posted by mrbonheur

In addition, it is simply not true that Europeans buy more ebooks than us-citizens.

Well... This is why I said "I guess"... And I meant it to mean. "Just because the market may be perceived as smaller and more difficult to reach, it might actually be the same size and as equally attractive as the US"...

Ie, in Europe we have more languages to deal with so the book market is more fragmented but we still want the Sony Reader...

[pitcher23]

Originally Posted by leandroide

Well... there is an interesting report of reading habits in the European Union in:
http://www.wischenbart.com/Booklab/B...nce%202005.pdf

In page 25 the graph shows that the book reading per capita is around 37 books/person a year on average.

Anybody has data from USA?

Cheers,

L.

I believe you misread the data. I found the source study here:

http://www.publishing-watch.org/docu...ust%202004.pdf

On page 75 it has more detailed information on the chart you linked to where it states those numbers on the left of the chart are a percentage of those EU members that read 8 books or more per year for reasons other than study or work. A far cry from 37.

[leandroide]

Originally Posted by pitcher23

I believe you misread the data. I found the source study here:

http://www.publishing-watch.org/docu...ust%202004.pdf

On page 75 it has more detailed information on the chart you linked to where it states those numbers on the left of the chart are a percentage of those EU members that read 8 books or more per year for reasons other than study or work. A far cry from 37.

Mmm...

I see that my Ph.D. supervisor was right when she told me that you have to put the meaning of a graph in its caption!!

Now that you point it, 37 books/person a year on average was too much. Even for Europe!!

L.

[NatCh]

Wow, I'm finally above average on something! Well, above European average, whatever that means to anybody.

[pitcher23]

Originally Posted by leandroide

Mmm...

I see that my Ph.D. supervisor was right when she told me that you have to put the meaning of a graph in its caption!!

Now that you point it, 37 books/person a year on average was too much. Even for Europe!!

L.

Heh. I was trying to find where it stated what the numbers on the left column represented, which is what made me check the source. I was trying to figure where they found the time to read all those books

[marc59]

Being in Europe I find it disappointing to read the Sony reader will not be available here shortly. Despite Sony s reputation concerning drm I would rather buy their reader than the iRex. The iRex is not only more expensive - I basically read PDF ebooks and I am not interested in the extra features of the iRex - but the product is also made by a Philips owned company. Having lived most of my life in Philips hometown I have seen zillions of innovative products being launched by this company only to be taken off the market shortly afterwards. Either the products had serious defects or the marketing was so horrific that no one bought the thing. Sony just seems to deliver more reliable products. So... where are you, Sony? I would love to read my next 37 books on your Reader.

[ath]

Originally Posted by marc59

I basically read PDF ebooks and I am not interested in the extra features of the iRex.

One fairly good reason for going Reader would be that Adobe does the PDF implementation. Within the PDF profile, neither you nor the ebook producers are likely to get any surprises.

Haven't seen any information for the iLiad so far on the PDF implementation.

But note that Bill McCoy seems to say that PDFs have to be specially formatted for the Reader -- no support of reflow. I'm not sure I got that right, though -- Adobe Reader for Pocket PC does reflow, so why not Acrobat Reader for Reader?