Why is the Sony cheaper than Cybook and Hanlin?

[JinRoh]

Hi there.

I am interested in the 3 readers in the topic.

I like the style of the Sony and Cybook, and the wide range of formats available with the Hanlin but...

Why is the Sony reader (a company whose products are usually more expensive than the rest, ie ps3) cheaper than these two?

I can buy the Sony at 208€ shipped, Cybook at 230€ shipped and the Hanlin at... about 240-250...

How is that? I mean, should I buy the Sony? Eventhough there are certain problems with it (such as the lack of mobipocket support) it seems to have the better quality/price ratio, and it got better reviews in general than the other two.

What am I missing?

Thanks! (I only wanted to spend 200€ish in a reader)

[HarryT]

The relative prices vary from country to country. Here in the UK, the CyBook is cheaper than the Sony, which in turn is cheaper than the Hanlin.

Personally I think that the Sony is the weakest of the three in software terms, in that it's pretty much the only bookreader on the market which doesn't support MobiPocket.

[zelda_pinwheel]

on the other hand, sony *does* support epub, which is the industry standard and overall a far more robust, complete, and future-proof format than mobipocket. and mobipocket files can be converted to a different format if necessary, so they are not out of reach of sony owners.

i am sure that whatever you end up buying you'll be very happy with it.

[wallcraft]

The Sony is cheapest because they have the largest volume of worldwide sales, except perhaps for the Kindle. In the US, the Kindle is expensive because Amazon has no reason to reduce its huge profit margin (its sales are limited by EInk screen availability).

[bill_mchale]

Also I think there is the basic fact that Sony probably expects that many purchasers of the Sony reader are going to buy books for the reader from Sony. Therefore they may be selling it for little or no profit in the hopes of developing a market for the ebook store.

--
Bill

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Also I think there is the basic fact that Sony probably expects that many purchasers of the Sony reader are going to buy books for the reader from Sony. Therefore they may be selling it for little or no profit in the hopes of developing a market for the ebook store.

--
Bill

I was wondering that. I know Sony actually takes a loss on the PS3s, knowing that they'll make it up in games (actually most game consoles do, except for the Wii, which makes a profit). I doubt for the Reader they'd take a loss though, too much of a gamble.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

I was wondering that. I know Sony actually takes a loss on the PS3s, knowing that they'll make it up in games (actually most game consoles do, except for the Wii, which makes a profit). I doubt for the Reader they'd take a loss though, too much of a gamble.

There is a big difference here though. To publish a Playstation game a game publisher has to license it with Sony and Sony gets some type of revenue sharing on it. And, yes they sell their own games too.

Were as with eBooks... especially since they added support for Adobe DRM there is no requirement that a publisher has to pay them anything.

I think they just make money on each reader and wanted to get into the market early to establish market share. I think they want these thing to become as popular as iPods and cell phones. (which we know won't happen at that level)

Face it, pretty much everyone that has an eInk book reader at this point in the cycle is an early adopter or a pioneer. Remember it is the pioneers that get arrows in their backs.

BOb

[Andybaby]

eink is a steam engine, soon we will have jet rockets (lets just hope it doesnt take 100 years like it did steam engines and jets)