Sony Takes Aim At Amazon's Kindle

MojoKid writes "Sony recently announced two new eBook readers and has set its sights on tapping into Amazon's Kindle market share. The Sony Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition will come out at the end of the month and will reportedly cost less or the same as the older, more established Kindle. The Pocket Edition has a five-inch display, comes in several colors ('including navy blue, rose and silver') and fits, as one might expect, in a jacket pocket or a purse. It can store about 350 'standard eBooks' and can last about two weeks on a single charge, Sony claims. The Touch Edition is a bit larger, with a six-inch display that, as you'd expect, can be controlled via a touch interface."

Comments

new form of book burning

[Froze]

That is, unless they have fixed their battery tech.

Re:new form of book burning

[earnest murderer]

They'll just play an animation of a book burning as they erase them remotely.

Re:new form of book burning

[masterlogan2000]

That is, unless they have fixed their battery tech.

My thoughts exactly, first thing that came to my mind!!!

Good for the wintertime maybe? It gets really cold here in the Chicagoland area. Good to have a dual purpose ebook reader/pocket warmer.

Re:new form of book burning

[basementman]

Maybe they should join up with Amazon. That sounds right up their alley.

Re:new form of book burning

[houstonbofh]

That is, unless they have fixed their battery tech.

My thoughts exactly, first thing that came to my mind!!!

Not mine... I was thinking "How will Sony screw over there own customers this time?" Looks cool, but what nasty DRM lurks underneath?

Re:new form of book burning

[rosaliepizza]

Sony reader does not have built in nic so only you can remove fikes AFAIK

Re:new form of book burning

[The Faywood Assassin]

Normally with Sony, I'd agree with you. However, the Sony Reader supports more diverse formats than the Kindle.
Although Sony doesn't officially support it, there is software out there that will let you make your own books in BBeB format.
Calibre (http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/) is one that comes to mind.
Beny

Re:new form of book burning

[ArsenneLupin]

But what if somebody sneaks a rootkit on it?

Re:new form of book burning

[umghhh]

drm or not I need no device that can delete my files all by itself, files for which I paid with my own money. Of course a real book can be torn apart, converted to ashes etc or given to my son, some other disasters can happen that make it unusable. I still can throw it away of keep based on MY wishes, not like Kindle did of late deleting files on orders from its masters. If anything this one single action by amazon convinced me NOT to use any of such device unless of course I have no choice as they sue me for whatever violation of low I committed by reading the book to a stranger for instance etc. I cannot stop the so called progress but I am not going to make it faster especially if I dislike it so much.

Re:new form of book burning

[kaitou]

Well the Sony has no internet connectivity at all, so unlike the Kindle, there is no way at all for Sony to send a remote "delete" command. The two are completely different devices, by different companies. It's like refusing to run Linux because Apple is restrictive in its iPhone app store.

Re:new form of book burning

[Lumpy]

Ahh you have discovered the Sony way. Revision 3 of any of their hardware turns into a steaming pile of crap.

The PR5XX is a wonderful device with DRM for only their special format that you can completely ignore and use PDF files.

The new one will probably eliminate the Evil PDF hole that allows scumbags to read books that are not properly protected.

it's wierd how the current sony reader is the choice for anyone wanting freedom in their ebook life, but sony will fix that.

This is not sony's first trip down the ebook lane. I had a sony data discman in the 90's that used the tiny CD's in caddys. they had no DRM in them and it was easy to make your own books if you found a stash of $1.00 crappy books to get the caddys from.

Re:new form of book burning

[mcgrew]

Why do people call XCP "DRM"? It's a god damned rootkit. I can't understand why anybody would buy any sort of computing device from a company with a history of installing rootkits on their paying customers' computers.

If you have bought any kind of Sony computing device since the XCP fiasco, I really would like to know how you can trust it.

Re:new form of book burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Just who would do such a bad, bad thing?

Re:new form of book burning

[damien_kane]

Amazon?

Re:new form of book burning

[WuphonsReach]

Not mine... I was thinking "How will Sony screw over there own customers this time?" Looks cool, but what nasty DRM lurks underneath?

I was initially leery of Sony as well back when I bought my PRS-505 in Jan '08.

However, it will read books without DRM without any trouble. And there are 3rd party tools (Calibre) that will convert to the Sony book format. If you go to the MobileRead forums, you'll find hundreds of free books that members have formatted and converted into the Sony format.

Baen sells non-DRM books. Buy the book, download it in multiple formats.

So far, I think I might have bought *one* book from Sony's store. The rest have either been from older public domain works, or non-DRM stuff from Baen.

Re:new form of book burning

[jsebrech]

Looks cool, but what nasty DRM lurks underneath?

Probably not so much because this isn't a music or video player. Sony isn't in the book publishing industry, so they probably won't be hard-edge about their DRM. It's always the content arm of sony that dislocates the shoulder of the gadget arm.

Re:new form of book burning

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Sony PRS-505, and I can say that the DRM is hardly noticeable. You can activate up to 5 devices (computer, ebook), and you can easily copy the encrypted books to your reader through a normal file manager. It's not wireless, so they can't suddenly decide to erase books either. and for all you open format people, it supports TXT, RTF, and ePub, so no worries there either.

Re:new form of book burning

[Hungry_Myst]

Unlike the kindle, Sony doesn't have the power to remove books from your device. At least not until you sync to your computer. But let's look at the track record of deleted books from users eBook readers: Amazon: 1 Sony: 0

Re:new form of book burning

[Bigjeff5]

Calibre is decent, I'd say.

I have yet to find a really great (works well most of the time without tweaking the heck out of it) converter, but Calibre is getting close. It's also not just a converter, but a full Sony eBook Library replacement, which I think is -really- nice. Unless of course you like paying far too much for books at the Sony store.

Good for Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

I was starting to get worried about their eBook commitment with outdated PRS-500/505 models. Don't need Whispernet and don't need a freaking dedicated keyboard on a eBook device. Just give me the text and native PDF support.

I'm a big fan of Amazon but Kindle just rubs me the wrong way. I'm considered to be their target demographic too - a left coast liberal yuppie who loves to read obscure novels by authors who committed suicide. But I never made my peace with the device.

Re:Good for Sony

[schwaang]

I'm a big fan of Amazon but Kindle just rubs me the wrong way. I'm considered to be their target demographic too - a left coast liberal yuppie who loves to read obscure novels by authors who committed suicide.

Actually in the first 5 of Kindle Top Sellers at this moment are Michelle Malkin's "Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies" and Glenn Beck's "Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against and Out-of-Control Government,...". There isn't a single liberal leaning rant anywhere in the top 30, but I also see Dick Morris and Mark R. Levin from the right. So your assumption about the target demographic might be a tad off.

Re:Good for Sony

[Anachragnome]

This very thought, the idea that the method of distribution could be gamed (much like the media) in an effort to guide/hijack public opinion, occurred to me as soon as I saw the article about Amazon deleting all the copies of "1984" from people's Kindles.

But my inherent cynicism (ironically/coincidentally, cynicism largely a product of my reading "1984") went a little further down the road with that idea.

Has anyone done comparisons of the actual text in the versions of a book on a Kindle with the text of print versions? Might the same "gaming" be taking place with the actual text contained in the book files? Could one of the many text-comparison apps out there check this?

It seems to me that it would be impossible to alter the text of dead-tree books, short of an inside job at the printers or publishers, but with digital files, the possibilities are much greater. What level of security exists on the servers these digital files, before distribution, are stored on? Could the people that appear to be gaming "best-seller" lists also be gaming the text? The questions pile up quickly.

Yeah, yeah. Tin-foil hat and all that. That's why I didn't bring it up until I saw the above post. I didn't know about the "best-seller" lists appearing imbalanced and possible gamed. My cynicism seems a little more, no...a lot more, justified now.

Re:Good for Sony

[schwaang]

Occam's razor applies here. The rankings prove that using a brazenly partisan cable TV show to direct sheeple to read yet more of the same partisan crap in book/ebook form is far more thought control than furtive tweaking of content could ever be.

Re:Good for Sony

[Anachragnome]

"plurality should not be posited without necessity."

I agree. But do those that have the means of doing such as I described in my post know that?

We have both the CIA and the NSA. Four branches of military that these days are pretty much redundant in many ways.

Hell, Warcraft and Starcraft from the same publisher.

Occam's Razor is an interesting principle, but unless your aware of it, and consider it, it is kind of moot.

Re:Good for Sony

[bkpark]

Actually in the first 5 of Kindle Top Sellers at this moment are Michelle Malkin's "Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies" and Glenn Beck's "Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against and Out-of-Control Government,...". There isn't a single liberal leaning rant anywhere in the top 30, but I also see Dick Morris and Mark R. Levin from the right. So your assumption about the target demographic might be a tad off.

Also, given Amazon's anti-tax stance, I doubt that Amazon's corporate culture has much in common with the whole liberal establishment. I mean, maybe there is some in the culture and philosophy side, but nothing on the political or practical side.

By the way, what I seem to have seen in the past is a lot of people call themselves "liberal" without knowing what that word means in the U.S. In the U.S., "liberal" means that you love government programs and regulation ("tax and spend" and "big government") aside from a whole bunch of other things. If you just think that people should be left alone to do what they want with themselves (i.e. pro abortion, legalized prostitution and drugs, etc.), you should find a different label, because while "liberal" includes that, it also includes a whole lot of stuff such a person might be opposed to.

Re:Good for Sony

[nahdude812]

That seems extremely unlikely. Books have fans who will have read a book in both print and electronic form (I own several in both). Altering the text in any meaningful way would make such a fan go, "Hey, I don't remember that," and cross-reference that specific section with their printed copy. Also many authors regularly read their own writings in multiple media (you'd be surprised how a different medium can affect the feel of a story for example). The author him/herself would very likely notice any semantic differences.

The size of the conspiracy to pull that off would be prohibitive anyway. You'd need extremely talented writers who can emulate the writing style of the original author. You'd either need cooperation from both the publisher and the distributor (two separate third parties), or you'd need skilled crackers who can inject the altered text without detection (including updating the cryptographic hashes they use to ensure the text transmission was correct).

If you did a word for word comparison, it's possible you'd notice some words have changed, but that happens in printed books too - the author or publisher may decide to rephrase a sentence which reads poorly or correct a typo, and subsequent runs of the same book will be slightly different.

All in all, to alter a text in any semantically meaningful fashion, avoid detection from the author and fans of the book, keep it consistent with the writing style and sufficiently in-line with the original text to not seem out of place, and to either include multiple parties in the conspiracy or both hack into a secured network and break data integrity systems, the risk vs reward is far too low.

Re:Good for Sony

[langelgjm]

Probably because us coastal liberal yuppies are also socialists, meaning we pirate everything instead of buying it.

(It's a joke, people)

Re:Good for Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe liberals are reading those books for the laughs. Also a lot of liberals are strongly anti-Obama (read any recent column or cartoon by Ted Rall, for example) and might mistake Malkin's book title for something they'd agree with.

DRM

[wizardforce]

Unless they decided to dump the DRM, why would anyone on Slashdot want to buy these?

Re:DRM

[wasabioss]

Unless they decided to dump the DRM, why would anyone on Slashdot want to buy these?

It looks like you don't follow Sony very well. Recently Sony has so many surprise moves towards open standards. I own a Walkman player and a Sony reader and I have nothing to complain. The Sony PRS-505 Reader I'm owning right now is nothing like the Kindle. It reads txt, *ePub* and PDF natively and even plays MP3 and AAC files, and it even has two memory slots -- one of which is SD-HC -- to put your e-books into the device, on-the-fly. There is a killer software that goes very well with that reader, that is Calibre. The program downloads XKCD, The Register and even Slashdot and puts all of them neatly to my reader every time I connect it to my computer. So just want to let you know that Sony products now, are much better than the popular choices such as the iPod and the Kindle.

Re:DRM

[jtownatpunk.net]

Maybe it's time for you to leap into the past. Sony's readers have supported non-DRM media for quite a while. While the stuff in their store may contain DRM, there's nothing stopping you from loading all of the non-DRM files you can get your hands on. You can even import them into Sony's software for easy addition to your various book collections.

The fact that it is capable of accessing DRM-restricted media doesn't make the device inherently evil. There's nothing forcing you to make use of that function. You don't even need to load Sony's software if you're that bent by DRM of if you're worried that Sony will pull an Amazon and remove unauthorized files from your device. Just plug in a USB cable and the device mounts as a removable drive. Drag-n-drop your non-DRM media. Or use a memory stick or SD card. The reader never needs to be "exposed" to the internet or Sony's proprietary software.

Re:DRM

[vanyel]

In neither case is DRM a factor, as, aside from a couple of initial test cases, I never bought or buy DRM'd versions for either my PRS-500 or my Kindle on principle. It's bad enough to buy my books a second time to get an ebook, I'm not going to buy them all over again every time technology changes.

If Calibre actually works, the Sony may be viable, however the Sony "Connect" software is the most unstable piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune of using.

While the Sony *does* view pdf's natively, it scales them to the screen size, making that feature nearly worthless. I have sent some pdf's to my Kindle, and that worked reasonably well for the few I've done, but I suspect it's very document dependent. I do hope the Kindle adds epub support though; it does do mp3 already, though not as well as the Sony.

Re:DRM

[mysidia]

Yes, Sony can tend to be very open, as long as the BMG part of Sony doesn't find out about the move.

You see, Sony suffers from a certain dissonance: part of their company manufactures electronics, people want to buy things that are open and don't impose undue restrictions on them, they prefer gadgets they can do what they want with, that allow them to take their media and use it however they like.

The other part of Sony is one of the largest recording companies, a member of the RIAA.

The other half of Sony doesn't want you to be able to do anything with your media at all, except play it once, and then pay them every time you want a copy on a new device of yours. DRM is a must and non-negotiable as far as people with that type of thinking are concerned.

There would be a lot of benefit to consumers, and probably to Sony, if the two parts of Sony would just split and become separate companies...

In the mean time, it's anyone's guess what they'll do as far as DRM for eBooks; politically speaking, I don't see how Sony Music Entertainment could ever be happy with Sony encouraging DRM-free content, even if it's not music...

Re:DRM

[pvera]

For those of you that already have the Kindle, the Calibre application works extremely nice with it. While it is ugly as sin, it is a very nice book manager and it works with both of our K2s just fine. I see it as a rudimentary iTunes for ebooks.

Re:DRM

[initdeep]

not all pdf's are scaled to the screen.

if it's created for the sony screen size it works perfectly, and iirc there is a wat to make a pdf that does not have hard page breaks and line breaks but will actually reflow when opened in the sony reader.

Re:DRM

[vanyel]

adobe reader for the palm converts pdf's into that format, but few pdf's are built that way. That's probably what I would have done if their utility was more general purpose (it generates palm document files specifically). pdf's are still a proprietary format, albeit relatively open and commonplace. epub is most likely the right answer; I'm downloading all my ebooks in that format as well as the proprietary ones for the time when I have something that can read them.

Re:DRM

[Steve001]

initdeep wrote:

not all pdf's are scaled to the screen.

if it's created for the sony screen size it works perfectly, and iirc there is a wat to make a pdf that does not have hard page breaks and line breaks but will actually reflow when opened in the sony reader.

I agree that PDFs are terrific on the Sony Reader as long as they are sized for the screen. When it comes for formatting my e-books, I prefer to take care of it myself (setting page size and margins, and having it set the page breaks via styles) rather than making the e-book reader do the work.

When it comes to the new e-book readers, one feature I hope Sony (and other e-book reader makers if they haven't already added the feature) adds to their readers is the ability for the user to choose a typeface when displaying RTF files and plain text files. I prefer to read my e-books in a serif typeface, and often the reader displays them in a sans serif typeface regardless of the actual font in the original document. I searched online for help and wasn't able to find any.

This is the main reason that I choose to format my e-books as PDFs. With RTF and plain text files I couldn't control the typeface the text would be shown in. With RTF files, sometimes they would display in the typeface that I chose, and at other times they would display in a different typeface.

When I was using my Palm T/X as an ebook reader, one of the features I liked about the ereader program was I could choose the specific font that I wanted my ebooks to displayed in. I had the option of several different fonts that I could use.

Re:DRM

[ErikZ]

However, if you want an e-reader that doesn't require a computer, buy a Kindle.

Re:DRM

[iocat]

I refuse to buy a device with a screen unless I know the resolution. 5", 6" -- who gives a fuck. How many pixels does it have? (I know, I know, I can research this, but I RTFA and it didn't say, so I'm irritated.)

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Get enough devices out there capable of using some form of DRM, and that DRM will become the defacto standard for ebooks. Then the manufacturer issues an update killing functionality, and you can no longer buy non-DRMed content or use it.

I know, I know, tin foil hat material. But I don't trust Sony not to do it. Not with their past reliance on proprietary formats and customer lock-in.

Re:DRM

[Desler]

Then the manufacturer issues an update killing functionality, and you can no longer buy non-DRMed content or use it.

Since Sony can't in anyway force to install such an update all you would have to do is ignore it and live just fine with pdfs and epub books.

Re:DRM

[Sobrique]

Sony PRS-505 is 170dpi, which is 800x600 ish. Can't easily directly compare though with 'resolution' though, simply because of the way it appears.

Re:DRM

[91degrees]

Sony doesn't have a print publishing arm though does it? This has been the cause of many of Sony's problems - too much concern about upsetting or promoting other segments of Sony, apparently in an attempt to get a stranglehold on the entire industry. If they decided to make a product that was simply better than the competition (and this looks nicer than, and supports more formats than the Kindle) then they're likely to do pretty well.

Re:DRM

[mrbill1234]

I can absolutely guarantee you that almost all Sony consumer products run some sort of embedded Linux - from their flat screen TV's to their digital cameras.

Re:DRM

[Opportunist]

Sometimes it seems they already split up. I've had more than one Sony medium that didn't want to be read in the corresponding Sony playback device.

Re:DRM

[Alsee]

The fact that it is capable of accessing DRM-restricted media doesn't make the device inherently evil.

Yes it does, because they expect to put innocent people in PRISON if you unscrew the case of the product you bought and touch the hardware or software.

So NO, the fact that someone never touches DRM-restricted media does not make any difference. They still expect to put you in prison even if you never touch a single piece of DRM content.

-

Re:DRM

[Wowsers]

The fact that it is capable of accessing DRM-restricted media doesn't make the device inherently evil.

No, but you do have to pay extra in a license cost for the device to be able to access DRM'd content.

Re:DRM

[mcgrew]

Lots of slashdotters have kindles, despite last week's news that they erased everybody's copies of 1984. I'd only buy an ebook reader if the ebooks also came with a paper copy.

Re:DRM

[SputnikPanic]

Get enough devices out there capable of using some form of DRM, and that DRM will become the defacto standard for ebooks

How many iPods and iPhones are out there? They're capable of some form of DRM, yet the defacto standard for purchased music is now DRM-free. It wasn't always that way, of course, but consumer sentiment forced the retail digital music market to change. Amazon saw that folks just didn't like DRM on their music and recognized an opportunity. So when they started selling MP3, they were DRM free from the beginning. That put pressure on Apple's store and eventually they went DRM-free on music too.

If enough people grumble for long enough, someone will come by and try to tap into that frustration. I'm confident that eventually retail e-books will open up. All you need is one crack in the dam.

Re:DRM

[jecblackpepper]

But having PDF that has its page size the same size of the screen still defeats one of the major advantages of an ebook. That is, the ability to change font size and re-flow the text accordingly.

I often change font size to fit the conditions in which I'm reading on my Cybook. Typically I use a single font-size that I'm comfortable with, but there are times when I like it to be larger: in dim light when I don't want to strain my eyes reading it; when its on the book stand on my exercise bike and thus further away than I would normally hold it, when I'm on a train and I need to compensate for my hand shaking etc.

Re:DRM

[Steve001]

jecblackpepper wrote:

But having PDF that has its page size the same size of the screen still defeats one of the major advantages of an ebook. That is, the ability to change font size and re-flow the text accordingly.

I often change font size to fit the conditions in which I'm reading on my Cybook. Typically I use a single font-size that I'm comfortable with, but there are times when I like it to be larger: in dim light when I don't want to strain my eyes reading it; when its on the book stand on my exercise bike and thus further away than I would normally hold it, when I'm on a train and I need to compensate for my hand shaking etc.

I agree that being able to resize the text on the fly is a strong advantage of e-books. With my Sony Reader, even though the text is sized to the screen, I do have the ability to increase the size of the text (it basically just makes the text as large as possible while still fitting the entire page on one screen).

One thing I'd like to see on all e-book readers is the ability to use basic HTML as a format, while using an internal (maintained in the reader) Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to control the formatting of the text. For instance, the user can set the CSS to render paragraphs in Georgia 14pt with 12pt of blank space after the paragraph, while H1 would rendered in Helvetica 18pt, centered, with a page break before the heading.

Re:DRM

[sznupi]

Or built in LaTeX for extra points? (even e-book readers should be fast enough nowadays for it...)

Re:DRM

[Steve001]

sznupi wrote:

Or built in LaTeX for extra points? (even e-book readers should be fast enough nowadays for it...)

For me, it isn't important which format is chosen as long as: (1) it renders consistently (as an example, if I choose a font that is supported by the reader, it should reliably render on my reader in that font), and (2) formatting and editing tools are commonly available for users to make their own e-books.

Using the Palm Reader format as an example, Palm provides a guide on how to markup your text files as e-books using a text editor (the markup language is similar to HTML and can be picked up in a few minutes), a free program that allows you to convert the formatted text files into e-books, and a paid program that allows you to convert text, RTF, and HTML files into its markup language, and convert them into e-books. It makes it very easy to create and consistently format your e-books. Based on my own experience, I've found Palm Reader format (.pdb) to be a very good e-book format, and one designed specifically for e-books.

For me, the main advantage of using HTML and RTF as ebook formats is that they are already well established, and if you have a Windows or Mac you already have the tools needed to create and edit these files. I've heard of LaTex, but I'm not sure if it as available and usable for the average user (if I'm wrong please correct me).

What I want

[Toonol]

I'm waiting for something with a reasonably decent screen, a decent flash drive, a few buttons. No subscription services, no wireless, no connectivity at all, no note taking or annotation features, no voice or recording... Just a thumbdrive hooked to a screen. That hardware should be WELL under $100. The extra features turn me off more than incentivize me.

Currently, I'm using my DS, and it's adequate. It can scroll text, html, and pdf. Good return on a $7 cartridge, since I already had a DS.

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I'm sorry, would you like a pony with that?

Re:What I want

[Digital_Quartz]

You've pretty much described the Sony 505, although it's around $300 (although assumedly it will come down when the new 600 is released).

What you're paying for with the e-ink readers is the very-nice-screen, which looks like a printed page. If you're willing to suffer reading from an LCD screen, then check out the eBookwise reader, which is again pretty much exactly what you're describing. Although, very weird proprietary file formats.

Re:What I want

[Darkness404]

Wait for the Chinese clones to come out with what you want. As soon as e-ink displays become cheaper and e-books become more popular, you can expect to see exactly what you are looking for at a dodgy mall booth or wholesaler website.

Re:What I want

[BlueF]

Been using my eBay'ed $115 Sony eReader 505 for the last year. Aside from price being a little more, sounds exactly like what you describe.

I literally don't leave home without it.

Love being able to keep up on my reading on my lunch break or any other downtime that comes along.

I have been tempted to switch to a Kindle, for it's syncing ability with my iPhone (for those times when I may have a few minutes and have left my eReader in my desk/car), but can't justify the added cost and presumably closed format. Haven't done enough research to see if one can import txt/rtf into the kindle.

With my eReader, I have downloaded all the books I physically own, re-reading my library. Formatting downloaded books can be a pain, but when in txt/rtf format it's a no brainer. I feel bad for a half-second. Then I remember I'm not interested in paying twice for content I already have purchased in a different format (unless the added cost is going directly to the author rather than a middleman). There may be a time when I buy an eBook before owning the hardcopy, but with out the ability to turn around a sell/easily give someone a DRMed eBook, there's little motivation to go that route.

Re:What I want

[karl75771]

I'm waiting for something with a reasonably decent screen, a decent flash drive, a few buttons. No subscription services, no wireless, no connectivity at all, no note taking or annotation features, no voice or recording... Just a thumbdrive hooked to a screen. That hardware should be WELL under $100. The extra features turn me off more than incentivize me. Currently, I'm using my DS, and it's adequate. It can scroll text, html, and pdf. Good return on a $7 cartridge, since I already had a DS.

Instead of buying this crap, you could just buy a netbook for $299.

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he will only take it if the pony is excluded.

Re:What I want

[Sobrique]

Netbooks have active screens. They're therefore much less pleasant to use 'as a book'

Re:What I want

[DavidD_CA]

I hear those can play games, too.

Re:What I want

[xtracto]

Currently, I'm using my DS, and it's adequate. It can scroll text, html, and pdf. Good return on a $7 cartridge, since I already had a DS.

I second that.

DSLibris + project guttenberg (or Office xhtml exporter) is all I need :)

Re:What I want

[xtracto]

(or Office xhtml exporter)

Of course, I meant OpenOffice xhtml exporter!! *that* other expensive ("why is it so expensive?") propietary office application does not even export to xhtml!

Re:What I want

[squoozer]

I considered this but if you want to read books a dedicated e-paper reader is better. For example: I can read my 505 in full sunlight, a netbooks LCD display would be essentially unviewable. I can read a book for many hours, with the ebook I can do this untethered (for several days at least) with the netbook I would probably need to have the power plugged in after a couple of hours. Where a netbook does win though is viewing PDFs - all the ebook readers I've viewed suck at PDF so I'll grant you there is scope for improvement.

Re:What I want

[bkpark]

I'm waiting for something with a reasonably decent screen, a decent flash drive, a few buttons. No subscription services, no wireless, no connectivity at all, no note taking or annotation features, no voice or recording... Just a thumbdrive hooked to a screen. That hardware should be WELL under $100. The extra features turn me off more than incentivize me.

That's funny. I wouldn't have bought the Kindle at any price, if it didn't have wireless. Without wireless, using Kindle would've been relatively inconvenient, not to mention that wherever I carried it, I would need to have my computer with me, unless I was absolutely sure whatever was on Kindle was all that I would want to read while I don't have the computer with me.

'Kinda defeats (some of) the purpose of a small, light ebook reader, does it not?

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

The pleasentness depends on whether you read fiction or reference books. Active screens are much more suited for flipping through pages, since they update instantaneously.

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

Add me to that. 100$ maybe, if battery is serviceable.

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

Already have one, thanks.

Re:What I want

[steveg]

I *have* a netbook (with which I am posting this message.) My Sony 500 is sitting here on the hotel bed next to me. If I plan on reading a book, I'll use the Sony. It's *much* more conducive to just reading than the netbook.

The screen is better. I can read it in the sunlight, it doesn't have the flicker that the netbook screen has, and the text is far sharper. True, I can't read it in the dark, but all I have to do is turn on a light.

It's more portable. It fits in the cargo pocket of my pants. No way the netbook can do that.

I can finish a book and go on to the next one without looking for a charger. The netbook would be good for a dozen chapters, *maybe*.

There's really no comparison. The netbook isn't a viable book reader -- the Sony (and Kindle) compete with dead tree, not with netbooks.

Re:What I want

[mcgrew]

He SAID he didn't want any extra features.

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

You just described the older Sony book reader - the PRS-500 which I picked up at the Sony outlet store for $150 two years ago.
Not sure if they still have them, but if they do there you go.

Unfortunately the 500 doesn't support ePub and doesn't support DRM encumbered PDF files so the online libraries (Boston, NYC, etc) so you can't get free content from there. Thankfully my reading taste tends toward the classics and Project Gutenberg has been my primary source of content.

Re:What I want

[j_snare]

Just to clear up your questions... Please keep in mind that I've got a Kindle 1, not a newer one however.

Yes, you can use Amazon's format, mobi format, or standard text. rtf has not been directly accessible, but you can convert it using the free Mobipocket program (or Calibre). Both of which have their advantages and disadvantages, but they're both free and work fine. Additionally, you can just email Amazon your file and they'll convert it to the mobi format (with a azw extension). That file will either come back to you or will go to your device, depending on which method you use. There could be a small cost involved in sending it to the Kindle directly.

I've had the Kindle for a bit over a year now, and have yet to purchase any books from Amazon. My books have so far come from other sources using the mobi format, or from html/rtf/doc/pdf/etc. conversions.

I will say, I'm a bit disappointed that Amazon isn't pushing this conversion utility more. There's a strong impression among people that the Kindle is closed, but I've never felt that way. It's been far too easy to get everything I've wanted onto the device.

I also will use the MP3 capability to play music while I read, though it can handle audiobooks too. The battery drain on using the MP3 player came as a bit of a shock however... After using the device for a week of reading, MP3 playback drained the battery down over a heavy reading day on a trans-Atlantic flight...

Personally, I'm glad that Sony is taking aim at the Kindle. I've got a soft spot for my Kindle, it's revitalized my reading habits, but it has it's issues too. Any competition here should only help us in the long run.

Re:What I want

[Anonymous Coward]

... Sony already makes this. It's the PRS-505. 512 MB internal memory, expandable with Memory Stick and SD Card, and able to load books by placing them in the right folder on the filesystem. AFAIK, there is no real way to delete books straight off the reader, even if you sync with the supplied sync software.

Good article in the new yorker...

[citylivin]

There was a good article in the New Yorker which brings one up to date with the genesis and current state of the kindle, and e-books in general. The author orders one and then proceeds to write an article about his experience. He compares it to paper books, discusses amazons choice of a non free and closed format, and generally reviews it quite well. Having an ad blocker and hating all that is spamazon has kept me out of the loop with these new e-book readers so it was a nice intro to the current scene.

The article is available online at the following link: Kindle and the Future of Reading

Beating Kindle is easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make a reader with a great native PDF renderer. Done.

This is going to be the first question on every geek's mind here; "so how does it handle PDF?".

So far, invariably, the answer has been "like a turd".

Re:Beating Kindle is easy.

[mark-t]

Maybe Foxit's ebook reader is what you want

Re:Beating Kindle is easy.

[Paaskonijn]

Why is this rated off topic? It's actually very interesting and exactly what the GP asked for.

Apple might want to get into ebooks

[rolfwind]

and via iTunes. Music, movies.... books are just another story telling medium. And figuring digital distribution IS the future, why not?

Too bad about their break with Google over some stupid voice apps... because Google may have been a great partner (ie Google Books) for Apple to catch up to Amazon.

And the upgrade cycle would/is tremendous like the iPods were. Black/white small screen -> B/W big screen -> color screen -> flexible (?) screen -> ???

Right after the 1st generation Kindle, with it's fugly looks, probably would have been the best time to get in. Even now, it wouldn't be bad... the kindle isn't a computer, doesn't have speed, etc. All things Apple could one up for those people that want a book reader and something to browse with and that's it.

Re:Apple might want to get into ebooks

[Darkness404]

I think the rumored Apple tablet would be great for e-books but there are a few problems with the books. For one, its not perfect. Apple strives for perfection, for example, the iPod wasn't the first MP3 player but it was the first small one with a decent capacity hard drive. And it also doesn't have the simplicity in prices that Apple wants, Apple only wants a few main price points, and books open up a huge gap, while I would easily pay 99 cents for a 4 minute song as I would an 8 minute song, I'm not going to pay the same amount for a 200 page book as a 400 page book. Not to mention that a lot of books are in the public domain. Plus, there is the issue of rights. While a well-known song might only have 1-2 licensed distributors, other books may have many more.

Re:Apple might want to get into ebooks

[mugnyte]

  They don't need to. They already provide a platform (iPod/iPhone) that is the marketplace for content. They don't need to compete for "eReaders" because there are already dozens of them available on the Apple store.

Re:Apple might want to get into ebooks

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't solve the price issue. Based off most of the comments, the user wants something simple that works. The minute Apple gets involved this start getting pretty complex. True the quality would be much higher than the kindle, but so would the price.

Re:Yeah, right

[Grishnakh]

It'll probably be tied to some other proprietary Sony technology too, like Memory Stick.

Someone mod me up!

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG Rootkit!!!!1!!1!~ Sony SUXX lol!

Can you mod me up now?

Re:Someone mod me up!

[Toonol]

If you had used decent grammar, sure. Your points are quite insightful.

Sony is the "open" reader

[Digital_Quartz]

Or at least, it is compared to the Kindle. Sony will read PDF files and EPUB files. (EPUB is an open standard; an EPUB file is really a zip file, containing a few XML documents that describe where everything is, and then either XHTML or DAISY/DTBook content).

It's VERY easy to copy content to the Sony readers (shows up like a USB hard drive, or copy content to an SD card and insert). There's no remote-kill like the Kindle.

If you're worried about finding DRM free content, check out Baen's Webscriptions or Fictionwise (look for the "multiformat" books; all DRM free).

Finally, if you REALLY don't want to go with Sony, there are lots of other good readers out there, some of which run Linux, and give you source for the software.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[Fizzol]

It's just as easy to copy content to the Kindle, easier actually since it also has the wireless option. And honestly the Sony isn't any more open than the Kindle, you can't even strip the DRM from Sony's LRF format.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[am 2k]

Uh, how should they be able to delete something on a device that's not connected to the Internet in any way, not even indirectly?

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[Aladrin]

I'm not sure why you linked to ipdf.org ... I think you meant http://www.webscription.net/

I definitely recommend them, and they have a few different DRM-free formats to choose from. (And no DRM'd formats at all.)

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[mysidia]

That depends. If your eBook format is proprietary, every eBook _could_ contain a digitally signed "black list" of old eBooks that are no longer to be readable, which devices could covertly read and record in a flash memory area dedicated to the blacklist.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[initdeep]

then simply get open source format epub books only.
problem solved.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[selven]

If Sony wanted to they could (at least start to) make up for their BMG rootkit debacle by fully embracing open formats and the consumer's right to tinker with his own property. Will they? Only time can tell

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[Desler]

They are embracing fully open formats. Did you miss the part where they have epub support?

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[squoozer]

I have to agree with the parent the Sony Reader is probably the more open of the two big players offerings and long may it last (I have a 505 BTW). All the EPUB format books I've read have been well laid out. Adobes Digital Editions also uses EPUB but with a good helping of DRM thrown in. Fortunately it's generally possible to strip the DRM from your purchases. All in all I would buy another Sony Reader which is saying something as I normally steer well clear of Sony products because they always screw it up in some way.

The only reason I wouldn't buy another Sony Reader is if they move to an all touch interface. I _want_ a button to turn the page. The button location on the 505 is perfect I really hope they don't completely do away with them.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[Opportunist]

Sony and ease to use, non-DRMified...

Sorry, but "fool me once" and all that.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[selven]

It's a start.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[bkpark]

then simply get open source format epub books only.
problem solved.

The same solution happens to solve Kindle's "remote deletion" capability (Amazon hasn't demonstrated that it can delete contents not tied to Amazon's DRM). So that brings you back to the level, except that Kindle can access Wikipedia (in U.S., for free) and the Reader cannot.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the iRex iLiad is the open reader. Sony are just peddling their shit, as always.

And why in the name of all that is holy won't they give the fuck up with their stupid Memory Dicks? Face it Sony, you've LOST. Everything uses SD now, EVERYTHING. Even all your new laptops and your CrabStation3 have SD. Just jam your shit, proprietary format where it belongs and suck it up.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[SputnikPanic]

No argument on the Sony's PDF and EPUB support, however, just to clarify:

Copying content to the Kindle works exactly the same way. It shows up like a USB drive just like the Sony does.

You can read DRM-free Baen and Fictionwise content on Kindle as well. Essentially all of Fictionwise's multiformat books work on Kindle.

Really, DRM-free is the key here. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but with DRM-free books, it's not just a matter of "I own this collection of bytes and I can move it around as I choose." It's also means a much greater likelihood that you'll be able to find that book in whatever format you want. And if for some reason you can't find it in format X, chances are you can convert it yourself.

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[geminidomino]

No, the iRex iLiad is the open reader. Sony are just peddling their shit, as always.

And why in the name of all that is holy won't they give the fuck up with their stupid Memory Dicks? Face it Sony, you've LOST. Everything uses SD now, EVERYTHING. Even all your new laptops and your CrabStation3 have SD. Just jam your shit, proprietary format where it belongs and suck it up.

Not to get in the way of a good frothing rant or anything, but my 505 reader includes both MSPro and SD[HC] support

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[shutdown -p now]

The same solution happens to solve Kindle's "remote deletion" capability (Amazon hasn't demonstrated that it can delete contents not tied to Amazon's DRM).

Amazon has demonstrated that it can delete content from your Kindle - that alone is reason enough to worry. Do you really want to bet that the piece of code responsible for remote killswitch has a huge if(has_drm(file)) block around it? In fact, why would they even bother putting it there?

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[Richy_T]

Well, of course, Amazon is /technically/ capable of anything with the device being tethered. But I suspect the process was less likely "Delete content X from Kindle" and more like "Delete available content X from server, sync server and kindle device". It's fairly unlikely that Amazon is going to reach into your kindle and remove stuff explicitly (though not impossible I'll grant you).

Re:Sony is the "open" reader

[sznupi]

They are giving up - SE phones are transitioning to microSD now.

And the DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without some information on that, it is still a roll of the dice whether you'll ever be able to re-read those books in a few years, or if you'll be able to have them read aloud electronically. If I buy books I'd like to know the terms of sale, since the fashion these days for ebooks seems to be "screw the consumer as much as we're able to get away with". What's the point of pretty hardware if you can't use it?

Re:And the DRM?

[Dravik]

Sony's readers support multiple non-DRM formats. PDFs are included in that.

No

[mark-t]

I don't need one to fit in my pocket, I need one that will fit in my briefcase or backpack, and is suitable for showing letter-sized pages at full scale without having to scroll all over the place, not seeing the whole page at any one time. Oh, and it absolutely *HAS* to be able to display user content (pdf's, in particular), not just content that some manufacturer or publisher thinks I might want to use it to read.

Re:No

[oodaloop]

I think I saw one of those on ST:TNG. Usually someone is holding one and walking fast like it's a clipboard.

Re:No

[moonka]

That sounds exactly like the Kindle DX (http://amazon.com/kindledx). While the ebooks Amazon sells have DRM, it reads all sorts of formats, and DX reads pdfs (I don't believe the kindle 2 has one). I have a kindle one and the majority of my reading material is things I have put on it, be it from feedbooks.com, mobileread.com, or other sources.

Re:No

[shellbeach]

Well, there's the iRex Illiad with an 8.1" diagonal screen ... but they're pretty expensive ...

Re:No

[gnalre]

I have high hopes for this http://www.plasticlogic.com/. Although initially it will be aimed for business use (i.e expensive) hopefully the technology price will come down

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's the IRex Iliad then http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/specs fantastic bit of kit. Of course you have to pay for that wonder.

It's horses for courses - the sonys are to replace the ratty paperback you read on the tube - not you binder full of Uni notes.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the iLiad Ebook Readers. They're larger, they support all kinds of content including PDFs, they have notetaking and stylus entry as well. Nice little ebook readers, starting around $600.

Re:No

[Locklin]

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix#Larger_Devices

Re:Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll probably be tied to some other proprietary Sony technology too, like Memory Stick.
MSPro and SDHC cards. It also supports ePub, an open ebook format which is quickly becoming the industry standard.

The sony experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing sony, they'll lock this down, make arbitrary restrictions on its usage and generally make the whole experience frustrating (I'm looking at you Location Free)

it is not the hardware, it is the content

[xzvf]

You might be joking about the hardware, but ebook readers need more and cheaper content to become popular. People want books where they only pay for the content and delivery costs. Not publishers setting artificially high prices to not compete with paper based books. Not to mention that we need significantly more books in the catalog. Only a small percentage of the books available on Amazon have ebook peers.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[Enderandrew]

I just installed the Stanza app on my iPhone, and I can pull all the classics from Project Gutenberg for free. And when the new Star Wars novels come out, my wife downloads them on her Kindle app on her iPhone. Paid content and free content both accessible via free apps on the iPhone, and no $400 reader required.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[schnikies79]

I've tried reading ebooks on my desktop, my netbook and my iphone. I haven't been able to do it yet. Backlit screens just suck ass for reading for any length of time.

I tried stanza.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[DAldredge]

You make it sound like the iphone is free.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[magarity]

...on the iPhone, and no $400 reader required.

I read ebooks on my netbook, no $400 reader required. I just had to buy the netbook; did you have to buy your phone first? And a netbook costs less than an iphone if you shop around. Netbooks have FAR larger screens than readers and readers even have larger screens than the little iphone so what's your point?

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[Enderandrew]

If you're the kind of gadget freak who is considering dropping $400 on an eReader, there is a decent chance you have an iPhone.

The iPhone has its faults, but one of the best aspects of the iPhone is that it replaces several other gadgets. It is one less thing to carry, charge, or worry about. It is also one less thing to purchase.

You're definitely going to carry a cell phone. Are you going to carry a Kindle?

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[initdeep]

no they aren't.
not when you consider the rather high monthly fees that go along with that just to make it function......

for two years.......

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[Enderandrew]

Every smartphone comes with those fees. If you want to download ebooks to a device, you have to pay for internet access.

People are already paying a cell phone bill. So it isn't like they're adding a monthly fee they don't already have.

A Kindle is an additional $400 purchase, and an additional gadget to carry.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[Anonymous Coward]

$99 iPhones that come with no commitment? [citation needed]

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[gnupun]

no commitment = iPod Touch, but it's not a phone and it costs $229.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[fullgandoo]

There are people out there who actually read novels on an iphone sized screen?

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[nabsltd]

If you want to download ebooks to a device, you have to pay for internet access.

Not really.

It takes a long time to read one book, so occasional visits to free Wi-Fi hotspots should keep you in as many books as you want. For that, the iPod Touch does far better than the iPhone, as you don't have any monthly fees.

But, the 32GB iPod Touch costs over $350 and has a very small screen. You can get a decent netbook with as much storage and a much larger screen for about the same size, and that would be far better for eBook reading.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[shakey_deal]

Using a netbook for reading ebooks isn't good. I've read a few things on my 9 inch eee using fbreader and a netbook is just too big to be comfortable, especially reading in bed and the battery time is crap. It is a lot easier to get a comfortable position using an iphoned size gadget. My ebook readers over years have been Palm V, Nokia E61, Nokia N95 and now a HTC Magic (fbreader FTW!).

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[shellbeach]

There are people out there who actually read novels on an iphone sized screen?

Yep. I backpacked through Europe for seven weeks recently, and my iPod touch (using Stanza) was my library. I'd considered buying a dedicated e-ink device, but I found the dirty-newsprint and slow refresh of those displays deal-breakers; an iPhone screen has the same resolution, more shades of grey, and in landscape mode is nearly as wide as an e-ink in portrait. It was also considerably more pocketable, and the backlight worked great when I wanted to read in a dorm room late at night. I found it all worked incredibly well, and didn't experience any discomfort reading multiple novels on my trip. (In fact, the worst part was stripping the DRM from Amazon's ebooks before I left, so that I could read them on Stanza rather than on Amazon's shockingly bad Kindle app ...)

Obviously, though, YMMV. For some people the font size on an iPhone screen will be too small, whereas for others like myself it's fine. That said, if e-ink readers get more screen contrast and become a lot cheaper, I'd definitely buy one -- I'd rather have a 6" solution than a 3.5" solution, as the bishop said. But I don't think the e-ink technology or the price point is there, yet, and for me the iPhone seems the best compromise.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[DJProtoss]

Problem with using netbooks, its the clamshell. Its just awkward to open up and hold up in the places you would pull out a reader / phone.

Now a tablet form-factor netbook would be another story.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[Sobrique]

Given my ebooks are pretty much all under a meg, not much bandwidth is needed. A meg a week (and that's a good week, where I get a lot of reading in) when I can pre-load 160meg internally, and ... many gigs on a memory card.
Only reason I have to plug it in is to charge it, and it's good for a couple of weeks of fairly steady use. Oh, and when there's a new book out that I want.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[bemymonkey]

I read all my eBooks on my years-old HTC Prophet. 2.8 tiny inches (talking about the phone!) of low-resolution horror, but it's perfectly fine for eBooks with a reader that reflows the text properly. PDFs without reflow, on the other hand, are obviously not an option.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[xtracto]

a $1 netbook?

I saw that offer from a quick search in Google. However, here in Germany those offers are really common ($1 netbook w/contract) and a similar contract with an iPhone is considerably more expensive.

So, using your same logic, a netbook is almost a hundred times cheaper than an iPhone.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[bami]

Rotate it 90 degrees, so you can hold it like a book, with your thumb on the arrow keys for scrolling. Works fine with me. The intel chipset drivers on XP (in the EEE series) can rotate the screen at driver level, and I'm sure most linux distro's support that option aswell.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[AmiMoJo]

It is the hardware. Reading PDFs for technical books is not really practical on current eBook readers, because it takes a couple of seconds to refresh the screen.

It's fine for novels where you read from cover to cover, but if you need to flip back and forth, skim or scroll then two seconds is too much.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[umghhh]

I know this is OT but when I read what 'ebook readers' need I thought - how could reader be cheaper - it is a human beeing for f. sake. This I suppose means that I am a fart old enough to still remember that we actually read books. Now we have a tool that does it for us :)

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[Matthew Bafford]

(In fact, the worst part was stripping the DRM from Amazon's ebooks before I left, so that I could read them on Stanza rather than on Amazon's shockingly bad Kindle app ...)

I find that interesting. I went the opposite way when I downloaded some books through Stanza and didn't like the interface at all (I found it to be rather laggy), so I converted them to a format the Kindle app could read.

What do you dislike about the Kindle app? For me, it's focused, quick loading, and very legible.

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[WuphonsReach]

Things I want in a cell phone... small size, features, phone type stuff. Things I want in an ereader... modest size, long long battery life, legible in bright lights. While not exact opposites, I prefer the reader to be a separate device.

Back when the Sony PRS-505 came out and went below $300 (I paid about $275) I sprung for it. I've been extremely happy with a device that I only have to charge every 2-3 weeks, holds lots of books, and has a nice sized screen. My cell phone, OTOH, has to be charged nearly daily and is a lot less readable. (I probably read for 8-12 hours per week on the Sony.)

(The large screen on a book reader will matter more as you get older. The ability to bump the text size up is great for when I'm tired and my eyes have trouble focusing.)

Re:it is not the hardware, it is the content

[WiiVault]

Why would you get the 32GB touch for eBook reading?

Touch?

[webdog314]

You would think that a company the size of Sony could come up with a name that wasn't already out there in the market with a product that is so close in specification and function that it might actually be confused as their competitor with the same name. Or, maybe that was their intent...

The execs at Apple have got to be shaking their heads, and the lawyers are salivating.

THIS is why it is better than kindle

[greymond]

"The software also is compatible with both PCs and Apple computers and enable the user to read PDF, Word, BBeB and other text files on the Reader."

- that right there.

When I first made my paperback book available in paperback format in early 2007 Amazon offered to convert it (it was in PDF format) to their kindle format for me, I said sure, and almost immediately found out that the formatting didn't work out. I pulled it from the kindle store and asked if I could do the conversion on my own. They said sure, but their format was html. Because of the charts and imagery and the way the text was done in the book there wasn't any easy way of converting the 162 page PDF into essentially a big ass website. I opted to ignore the kindle and since then haven't suffered for it in anyway.

Now my books are available in PDF format and I'm converting many of the stories into RTF versions for mobile devices. The fact that Sony now has a reader that can view html formated ebooks as well as RTF, Word and PDF files means I soon will have another outlet for my products without me having to do any type of special conversion on my end, which for me means I get another revenue stream, a potentially larger client base and no additional time cost. Win Win.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[Anonymous Coward]

paperback book available in paperback format

lol I meant: "PDF book available in paperback format"

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[Late Adopter]

If your book isn't page-size agnostic, you're going to get crappy results from PDF support on ANY reader. Nobody has a screen size that's 8.5x11 (maybe your PDF is smaller? paperback sized?). Sony does offer a full-page zoomed-out view (I believe), but that's almost impossible to read. As soon as you start to zoom in and reflow text, you worry about things like charts breaking.

Bottom line, you should be writing your books in some sort of open semantic mark-up format like EPUB, which was designed for this purpose.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[forand]

You do realize that is the software on the PC which has been criticized in the past for doing a very poor job of converting PDFs to Sony eReader format?

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[AaronW]

The problem is that the ebook readers don't like page formatted documents because they need to resize them to fit their screens and the font size selected. PDFs are crappy for this. I believe Amazon accepts other formats like doc and will convert them. If your book requires specific page formatting then it doesn't lend itself to most ebook readers.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[lucas teh geek]

I interpret that statement (with knowledge of the shit sony typically spins) that their windows and mac software will "enable the user to read PDF, Word, BBeB and other text files on the Reader". in other words, it's going to do a conversion and look just as shitty as the kindle version amazon did for you. perhaps it's poorly worded and the device actually supports those formats natively... but this is sony we are talking about so I doubt it

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[bkpark]

If your book isn't page-size agnostic, you're going to get crappy results from PDF support on ANY reader. Nobody has a screen size that's 8.5x11 (maybe your PDF is smaller? paperback sized?). Sony does offer a full-page zoomed-out view (I believe), but that's almost impossible to read. As soon as you start to zoom in and reflow text, you worry about things like charts breaking.

I guess that's why Amazon's supporting PDF natively only on DX (its screen size is almost equivalent of letter page, if you remove the margins ... not that Amazon's PDF reader is doing that).

But then, when the ebook reader is that large, I think it gets a bit too unwieldy and inconvenient, at least until they come up with a display that can be rolled up or folded up to fit in smaller places (like printed pages), maybe.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[langelgjm]

I guess that's why Amazon's supporting PDF natively only on DX (its screen size is almost equivalent of letter page, if you remove the margins ... not that Amazon's PDF reader is doing that).

You don't have a Kindle DX, do you? I do, and it actually does do something to reduce blank margins. I know, because I've converted documents to PDF with large margins, only to have the DX enlarge the document to exclude the margins.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[zaq1xsw2cde9]

I am not criticizing you, lucas, you are correct, but it doesn't really matter if the PDF is rendered natively on the device, or converted before hand. The device has a screen size and a user selected font size. PDF is a format that sets a specific page size, which cannot be followed on a device like this except for zooming out to fit, which will typically make the text unreadabe. The bottom line is, PDF is a terrible format to use if you expect to use it on ANY ebook reader. PDF is designed for PRINTING. This author you are replying to is really giving the Kindle grief for his/her own poor formatting choice. They will have the same issues regardless of which ebook reader they try to use.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[geminidomino]

I run into this every semester with my lecture notes (generally made available in HTML which, was annoying but not so bad as the one who used word docs and not nearly so horrible as those few classes which the professor insisted on using powerpoint...). I like to convert to PDF to use on my 505, but... yeah..

I looked at a few of the X-to-pdf converters and scripts, but I could never seem to get one that could gracefully convert X (whether it was text or HTML or .doc) with anything other than the default 8.5x11 size without going through and marking it up in latex manually (NOT worth it).

Anyone have any recommendations, especially for linux? I aint afraid of the command line, tool chaining, etc...

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[greymond]

Resizing a PDF, or rather in my case - resizing the native documents to a different size other than 8.5x11 is a couple clicks of irrelevancy. Recreating a an entire book into html format can be a tedious task.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[greymond]

I think you're belief that I'd somehow be converting the finished 8.5x11 formatted PDF into the reader format is throwing you off.

The fact is I use InDesign for my book creations and I have a number of options/methods for converting the document easily and quickly into a reduced ebook size and exporting as a smaller sized PDF, all of which would be automated with scripts and able to be done quickly. It's part of the reason I can create "on-the-fly" versions for different printers like 8.5x11, A4, Single Pages, Spreads, etc...

Oh and the html export from InDesign is utter garbage for what I require.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[zaq1xsw2cde9]

It doesn't matter what "paper size" you choose for your PDF. Many EBook readers will change their font size as their eyes get tired to make books easier to read. This by definition changes the page size on the display. What if they move to a different device with a different screen size? You will have to produce hundreds of PDFs and get your user to choose the correct one among them.
You can probably spend a lot of effort and come up with some scheme to shoe-horn PDFs to make them work like this, but it would be much easier for you to figure out how to use one of the many open formats like HTML RTF, or EPUB. Those have been designed for this purpose.

Re:THIS is why it is better than kindle

[bkpark]

You don't have a Kindle DX, do you? I do, and it actually does do something to reduce blank margins. I know, because I've converted documents to PDF with large margins, only to have the DX enlarge the document to exclude the margins.

You guessed correctly. I only have a Kindle 2, and that's good information to have (in case I give the DX a serious look again in the future). From what I heard, the PDF support on Kindle DX seemed still a bit primitive (i.e. full page view only, no zooming capabilities?), so I just assumed that it was treating the page like an image or something.

I just hope they bring the PDF compatibility to Kindle 2, when they get everything worked out.

What about the DX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know if Sony has any plans to compete with the Kindle DX in the near future?

I intend to use an ebook reader for scanned textbooks in grad school next year and from what I understand a larger screen is absolutely necessary as the zooming on these devices is cumbersome at best.

Thanks.

Color Display?

[lymond01]

Do either the Kindle or Sony ebooks have color displays?

Re:Color Display?

[_KiTA_]

Do either the Kindle or Sony ebooks have color displays?

Not yet. Color eInk is very new. The Kindle 3 (2011, probably) will probably have it.

Re:Color Display?

[Sobrique]

I'm still not sure it's necessary, either. I mean, if you accept your ebook reader is for reading, then... actually, I don't mind the text in all my books being 'just' black and white.

I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

It's a Sony Clie SJ22.

Yes, I know it's like six years old.

Yes, I know it's only 320x320.

Don't care. It works better as an eBook reader than anything bigger could, because it's small enough I can take it anywhere.

Plus it plays Alchemy and Bejeweled and Collapse and Seven Seas, and holds all my names and addresses and magic numbers.

And I can use it as an IR remote to freak people out in bars by surreptitiously turning the TV off and on.

Do that on your Kindle.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[Late Adopter]

I loved my Clie... it was so small and handy to have around. But that's a niche that's happily filled by my Pre now. For books I'm extraordinarily pleased with my PRS-505 with the e-ink display. It really is a step up.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[abigor]

Try reading it outside in bright, direct sunlight (ie the beach).

Readers like these Sony ones and the Kindle are all about the e-ink displays, full stop. They are awesome, and the charge life is measured in weeks. LCDs are shit for reading books, honestly.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my girlfriend has a Clit that I like to play with in bars, too.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[Rozine]

Sorry, but you're wrong. I've been reading on my Palm Vx/TX for *years* and it's certainly not "excrement". Sure, in bright sunlight it can be non-optimal, but I'm never *in* bright sunlight when I want to read... Seriously - I've read hundreds of books on my Palm - tone down the hyperbole.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lame. Dude your Clie is nothing compared to my Newton.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

Try reading it outside in bright, direct sunlight (ie the beach).

Works fine, it's got a transflective display like just about every color PDA since around 2000.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

You got a spare stylus? I lost the stylus for my Newt in a move.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[ErikZ]

Are you kidding? I've yet to see any kind of LCD screen stand up to direct sunlight. I read e-paper in direct sunlight all the time.

It's whole purpose for existing is to be able to be read in direct sunlight.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[abigor]

It doesn't compare to a real printed page or e-ink. And I read outside all the time, like nearly every single day. "Non-optimal" doesn't cut it, sorry.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[abigor]

I guess E-Ink should close up shop then, because they clearly have no product, right? You should pick up the phone and let them know your old Sony's display beats the pants off their e-ink nonsense. You should probably let Amazon know too. Sony sure will be relieved to know they can fall back on this old product! You've just saved them a bundle.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[macshit]

Readers like these Sony ones and the Kindle are all about the e-ink displays, full stop. They are awesome...

I think "awesome" is overstating it quite a bit.

Even for their intended use, books, I've found E-Ink displays quite underwhelming. They are a good step forward, but they conspicuously fail to live up to the hype that's preceded them. The main thought I get when actually seeing one of these products in real life (after hearing ad-nauseum how great it is) is "this is it?!"

Sure they have great battery life, a very important property for relatively static uses like books, but they also have annoyingly low contrast, low resolution, in many cases a slightly unpleasant display color, and distracting reflections from the glass. They've been hyped up to be almost as good as paper, but really they're not even close.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[shellbeach]

It doesn't compare to a real printed page or e-ink. And I read outside all the time, like nearly every single day. "Non-optimal" doesn't cut it, sorry.

Unfortunately, e-ink doesn't compare to a real printed page either. It's a lot better than an LCD screen in bright sunlight, definitely, but the contrast ratio is so incredibly poor at the moment. I really wanted to like the e-ink displays, but when it came down to it I just couldn't buy one. Way too much like smudged, dirty newsprint for my liking!

Hopefully the nextgen e-ink screens (post-Viziplex) will be better ...

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

your old Sony's display beats the pants off their e-ink nonsense

I'm sorry, where did I say that? Why, look, I didn't say any such thing.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

No, I'm not kidding, and I guess you've never seen a transflective display.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[langelgjm]

I think "awesome" is overstating it quite a bit.

I have one, and I disagree. Compared to any other electronic reading mechanism, they are a hands-down winner.

Sure they have great battery life, a very important property for relatively static uses like books, but they also have annoyingly low contrast, low resolution, in many cases a slightly unpleasant display color, and distracting reflections from the glass

Battery life? Check. Low contrast? Check (someone compared it to dirty newspaper, which is probably about right). But it gets the job done. Low resolution? Not really... I think my Kindle is somewhere around 200 DPI, which is a hell of a lot better than an LCD, and very readable. Also, reflection from glass? Never seen it.

They've been hyped up to be almost as good as paper, but really they're not even close.

They're not paper, but they also mean I don't have to lug around thousands of pages with me.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[WuphonsReach]

I've used a PRS-505 for about 18 months now.

For leisure, cover-to-cover, reading it's absolutely top notch and easy to use. Light enough to carry around, lasts for weeks on a single charge, and I can change the size of the text. The Sony does a very good job of getting out of your way and letting you get down to focusing on the content of the book.

Do I wish that it was faster, or that I could search using a keypad? Sometimes. But I really don't like the Kindle's design choices in that regard. And faster page flipping will come with time, along with a higher resolution.

If the book is not available in electronic format, and it's something I'll read from cover to cover, I will often simply choose to not read it and will instead go to the next book on my list. That even holds true for books where I already own a paper copy.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

I think my Kindle is somewhere around 200 DPI, which is a hell of a lot better than an LCD

My 6 year old Clie has a screen that's about 2" across, 320x320, so that's around 160 dpi. Your kindle is either 150 dpi or 167 dpi, depending on the model.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[sznupi]

The difference between normal LCD and transflective is just unusable vs. passable/you can read if you really want to; don't kid yourself it's not.

I've seen transflective displays - Nokia uses them quite a bit (plus theirs are considered better than from other manufacturers), and I still wouldn't enjoy reading a book from one.

E-ink otoh is...good.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

I've seen transflective displays - Nokia uses them quite a bit (plus theirs are considered better than from other manufacturers), and I still wouldn't enjoy reading a book from one.

I've been reading books on a transflective display for six years, so... let's see. You've "seen" transflective displays, I've been using them for years. I think I'll stick to believing my own experience, OK with you?

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[sznupi]

Heh, I see you've missed something - I've been also using them for many years, on large part of mobiles that I've owned. (actually...I somehow require good transflective screen in a mobile now)

But...I would still never seriously attempt to read a book from such screen, they are only ok-ish as passive screens. Note: they can be, they weren't meant for longer reading sessions, but for relative legibility in direct sunlight while having fast refresh rates for UI; ultimately that it's all about, each tech having it's specific applications (for example...check Motofone F3 (mobile phone with E-ink); I can readily admit that it's absolutely horrible - the advantages of E-ink don't mean that much in this case, while it's disadvantages hamper the UI seriously)

Pixel Qi screen might be a bit more than passable, since it doesn't waste space for areas which can be only active...but still it's background color/characteristics mean it will be behind E-ink (though the difference might be small enough this time; and it will find its niche anyway, it's not only good for text)

Anyway, let's see...same cognitive mechanism as in conspiracy theorists? You are convinced that you've discovered something better that nobody knows about? (nothing horrible in that per se, because a) we all have helluva brain farts on regular basis (well, we aren't living in environment in which our minds evolved...) b) you can personally do as you please...) Hey, and you can shake head at all those stupid e-book reader manufacturers that ALL abandoned LCDs as soon as E-ink was available; you're smarter then them after all.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

Well, you know, I wouldn't try and read a book on my Nokia either. Even if it had an E-Ink display. And it's got nothing to do with the display technology.

You are convinced that you've discovered something better that nobody knows about?

No, I'm convinced that I've already bought something good enough that means I don't have to pay 2-3 times as much *again* for a dedicated e-Book reader. I'm convinced that having to carry an extra piece of electronic kit around that's four times the size of my Clie and doesn't fit into my pocket wouldn't improve my lifestyle. I'm convinced that a slight further improvement in the display quality in sunlight (and only in sunlight) isn't worth locking myself in to a proprietary platform run by a bunch of fascist technocrats who think disabling people's copies of 1984 is all in fun.

As for the rest of your frank exchange of views, neither of us is Neal Stephenson so I'm not going to bother trying for (and failing to achieve) that kind of dry wit, no matter how amusing I might think the results are.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[sznupi]

Nokia e61, plus many other from N-series, have screensizes comparable to your Clie...in some newer ones probably bigger. They are sill not good for reading books.

And that's not how you put things; sure, transflective might be good enough for you, but you've painted the picture that e-paper isn't really better. It is. It's as close as we can get to paper, comparable to cheap newspaper...which is still much better than any LCD (one poster said "it's purpose is to read in direct sunlight", which perhaps made you to point out transflective; it's not better only in sunlight, that's a side effect of being as similar to paper as we can get - completely passive in any lightning conditions, ideally just smooth surface with text, no polarizers/etc.)

Also, the Pocket Edition Sony Reader will cost approximately the same as your Clie did in its heyday, and supports open formats, so it's not exactly a rip-off or lock-in. Sure, it does less, but, what it does do, it does it quite well. Which is also @the convergence you mention - sure, it's nice, but it doesn't really work well in some cases (jack of all trades and all that...I wouldn't trade a DSLR for cameraphone, however nice it would be)

It's fun, you should try it sometimes.

Re:I already have a Sony eBook reader.

[argent]

And that's not how you put things; sure, transflective might be good enough for you, but you've painted the picture that e-paper isn't really better.

It's not better *enough*. It's certainly not good enough to make it worth my putting up with a single-use device for.

Which is the only picture I'm painting. If you're seeing things in the inkblots I haven't put in there, that's your problem.

Older, more established?

[michael1221988]

By jaysonelliot on Aug 6, 2009 (on TFA) "Older, more established Kindle?" The Kindle was released in Nov. 2007 - the Sony Reader was released in September 2006, and was based on the nearly identical Sony Libre which had been on sale in Japan since early 2004. As of December, the Reader had sold 300,000 units in the US alone, while the Kindle was trailing behind at 240,000. I believe you meant to say "â¦the newer, less established Kindle."

Re:Older, more established?

[Repossessed]

trying to fight Amazon's PR ability is a losing battle, seriously, don't even bother.

Re:Older, more established?

[bkpark]

As of December, the Reader had sold 300,000 units in the US alone, while the Kindle was trailing behind at 240,000. I believe you meant to say "â¦the newer, less established Kindle."

So, the Reader sold about less than 150,000 units per year, while the Kindle sold 240,000 units in a year? I guess that's why one is easily led to believe that Kindle is "more established".

iPod wasn't the first MP3 player and iPhone isn't the first smartphone: it's just the most popular and that's what matters to most people.

Wake me up when it has a bigger screen

[CuteSteveJobs]

The SONY readers can show PDF files which is great, but those screens are too damned small. You might as well carry around a Netbook. The good news is Amazon have finally backed off their proprietary+DRM stupidity and allowed PDF on Kindles' too:

http://www.labnol.org/gadgets/amazon-kindle-dx-for-pdf-documents/8455/

Now they should go the next step and give you an oyster fork so you can pry out their BigBrotheresque Wireless connection which from the 1984 debacle we've seen has more cons than pros.

Re:Wake me up when it has a bigger screen

[Anonymous Coward]

The PDF support is only on the DX. It doesnt' reflow text at all (which is the case for pretty much all PDF renderers). You still have to render to images to read PDFs on the regular Kindle, and it's still damn annoying to read what is now a tiny little font.

I wouldn't mind PDF support either, but the format has real issues when it comes to small screens.

Re:Wake me up when it has a bigger screen

[Repossessed]

The Sonys have a zoom feature that scales very well with most PDF files, letting you read them easily on the small screen. (Some scanned PDFs will not work, some will, anything thats not scanned will work every time).

Awesome...

[Xenious]

So I will just turn it on and go to a big book store wirelessly to buy a book and... oh damn, never mind.

Awesome news

[_KiTA_]

Awesome news for us Kindle fans, we'll be seeing a price drop AND a Kindle Touch soon.

Sony? Who the hell cares about Sony?

Touch vs PRS 700

[Repossessed]

Can anybody tell the difference between the touch edition and the PRS 700? As far as I can see its the exact same device (just cheaper).

Re:Touch vs PRS 700

[Anonymous Coward]

The 700 has/had an embedded light wedge. It didn't do nice things to the readability and it made the reader much thicker.

Re:Touch vs PRS 700

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anybody tell the difference between the touch edition and the PRS 700? As far as I can see its the exact same device (just cheaper).

One of the big differences between the two is that the PRS-700 had an integrated booklight as well as the touch screen. There were numerous complaints about the viewing quality through the booklight surface though (caused some fuzziness/blurriness to the text), so in the new Touch (PRS-600) they've left the booklight off. For those who want a booklight, you can buy a cover with a booklight wedge like they have for the PRS-505 (which I have and love).

The 600 also has note-taking capability via handwriting(using the stylus) or virtual keyboard, and dictionary support which I don't remember the 700 having (I could be wrong though).

Re:Touch vs PRS 700

[Repossessed]

note-taking capability via handwriting

Ding ding ding, we have a winning feature, the note taking on the 700 is painful.

My understanding is that the glare was caused by the protective coating for the touchscreen (similar complaints were made about the kindle 2), and the 700 does have dictionary support, or at least, you can load a dictionary and then search it, properly designed dictionary support might be nicer.

All in all it sounds like a proper replacement for the 505, instead of the trade offs like the 700 ended up with. Wish I had the money. Ah well, next gen may have a better page turn speed too. :)

Journal Articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I'm starting to get interested in the idea of an eBook reader. One question I have that I can't find an answer to - are these any good for journal articles? I download a hell of a lot of engineering type articles in PDF form, and it'd be great to be able to read these on an eBook reader. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

Re:Journal Articles

[mark-t]

You can't find an answer because the answer isn't the one that you want. At least for the time being.

Re:Journal Articles

[Sobrique]

I've downloaded a bunch of PDF documentation for various IT products we use, onto my PRS-505. It works quite nicely - eminently readable, thanks to it's ability to reflow the text. About the only thing I have found it having a hard time with is some diagrams and pictures - partly because of the lack of colour rendering, and partly because ... well, it seems to take some processing time to display complicated images.

Re:Journal Articles

[geminidomino]

I second this. The reflow is very nice. The only downsides are the aforementioned slowdown for images (which I find livable) and that, using the zoom (which is necessary for me, as my eyesight sucks), when reflowing the text, images/diagrams are moved to the top of the "page" (often a few pages up when zooming) instead of in their right locations.

Good luck with that...

[__aailob1448]

Sony doesn't have Amazon's catalog and their software and net-fu are inferior.

The kindle will be buried either by either:

1- revolutionary advances in battery technology that'll make netbooks and tablets into book readers

2- Or by a company that has UI know-how, enough money and savvy to build a triple-A network and a willingness to lose money to gain a foothold on the market. (IE: Microsoft)

Re:Good luck with that...

[Big Hairy Ian]

2- Or by a company that has UI know-how, enough money and savvy to build a triple-A network and a willingness to lose money to gain a foothold on the market. (IE: Microsoft)

I'd find the white text on a blue background very off-putting.

screen scratch resistance?

[sitkill]

Anyone know how hardy (or not) these ink screens are? I really have been looking for a decent reader, but I'd probably use it as any reference doc I carry around (ie. throw it in my laptop case at the end of the day). I'd be pretty peeved paying 300 or so for a reader and have it scratch....

Apple is not allowing e-books on iphone/touch

[Shivetya]

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/05/app-store-rejections-tied-to-third-party-rights-infringements/

Apple recently invited a great deal of criticism after it rejected Google's Google Voice application from App Store. At the same time, it pulled third party GV apps leaving their developers without recourse and forced to swallow refund costs that exceeded their initial per-sale earnings. Today Engadget notes Daring Fireball's story of a simple dictionary being censored. Now it looks as if Apple may be targeting the e-book section of App Store.

I only cut part of the article, feel free to read the rest, but Apple is up to something or maybe not. Considering you can "Kindle" on it through Amazon I am trying to work out why their stance has changed even for people with unquestionable rights to the material they publish

Re:Apple is not allowing e-books on iphone/touch

[tepples]

I am trying to work out why their stance has changed even for people with unquestionable rights to the material they publish

No rights are unquestionable. Just ask (the estate of) George Harrison, who lost a million-dollar lawsuit for accidentally copying Ronald Mack's "He's So Fine" into Harrison's "My Sweet Lord".

Cheap Chinese Clones

[nurb432]

Ok, where are they?

Re:Cheap Chinese Clones

[tepples]

Ok, where are they?

Being held up in developed countries' customs until the patents expire.

Free Wikipedia access

[Nazmun]

Actually the only thing the kindle has going for it (as far as I am concerned) is the free wireless wikipedia access. I think that is pretty damn cool. Without that feature I'd buy it for $150.

1 "standard eBook" = 0.00000003125 LoC

[Hurricane78]

(According to their about page)

Which means that the reader holds only 0.0000109375 LoC. ...just so you have a value that you can relate to something.

$9.99 for an eBook?

[Rix]

What are they smoking? Paperbacks cost less than that, and I'd expect something with zero production cost to be an order of magnitude cheaper.

This is just begging for piracy.

Re:$9.99 for an eBook?

[initdeep]

because they are releasing the ebooks at the same time as the hard back editions of new books, not a year later in paperback.

so it is significantly cheaper than the $25-40 price range of a hardback book.

there are also cheaper older books available as well.

and over 500,000 free classics.

and of course there's always calibre and torrent sites with LIT format books.

Re:$9.99 for an eBook?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they smoking? Paperbacks cost less than that, and I'd expect something with zero production cost to be an order of magnitude cheaper.

This is just begging for piracy.

Why is everything about rationalizing piracy??? Too expensive don't buy it. The responder below explains the price but I doubt it'll make any difference. Most people that pirate would still pirate if it was a $1. Okay let's say it's that holly grail price I always hear, a $1. A normal first run for a novel is 10,000 so lets say they sell 10,000 copies at a $1. Let's say in a perfect world they split the $1 so the author sees $5,000. A fair price you say? Well let's say the author spent 6 months writing it and only manages to get one book a year published. How long can you live on $5,000? Now that's assuming they get half and 10,000 actually sell. Authors are like bands and filmmakers. The bulk of them barely make a living. For every JK Rowling and Stephen King there are tens of thousands that barely make a living and tens of thousands more that don't do that well. Take away 90% of the profit and 99% of the books would disappear. Writing is harder than it looks and writers deserve to be paid. Get rid of the publishing companies? Trust me you wouldn't know who Stephen King and JK Rowlings even were. Part of their purpose and a lot of the expense is picking through the ramble to find the gems. Reading a 100, more like a 1000, books to find one worth publishing takes time and money. Publishing has a long history going back before even the first printing press. It predates the founding of America and it will likely outlive what we call computers today and probably the things that come after that. I hope a thousand years from now they are still publishing dead tree editions because a thousand years after that some of them will still be around. How many ebooks do you think will be around in two thousand years? Fantasies of endlessly copying data are just that. File formats are measured in years not thousands of years. Already most of my early work can't be accessed except in printed for and that's after 20 years. Ebooks aren't like songs. People like boasting about having tens of thousands of songs in their collections. The difference with books is having a thousand books in your collection isn't impressive, reading a thousand books "IS" impressive. It isn't about status it's about knowledge.

Re:Yeah, right

[initdeep]

amd it recently had 500,000 epub books added to it's library from Google.
All of which are available for the grand total of nothing.

that's right, free.

there was even a /. article on it.

but why let facts get in the way of the slashtard mentality.

I'm a cell phone tightwad

[tepples]

You're definitely going to carry a cell phone.

True, but I carry an el-cheapo Audiovox phone from Virgin Mobile and I only use about $6 per month worth of airtime because I only make calls that I can't make from a land line, such as arranging rides. Until smartphone service becomes nearly this affordable, I'll stick with a separate phone and PDA.

Re:I'm a cell phone tightwad

[Unoti]

Until smartphone service becomes nearly this affordable, I'll stick with a separate phone and PDA.

Here's a man that doesn't have deep pockets, but does have big pockets with lots of stuff in them!

Re:I'm a cell phone tightwad

[wsanders]

The extra $70 - $90 per mo or so he's not spending on iPhone service buys a lot of pockets.

iPhone w/ data plan vs. Aspire one w/ data plan

[tepples]

iPhones are $99 right now.

With a data plan. If you try to buy one without a data plan and without the GSM/UMTS radio, it's $214.99 plus tax.

What netbook costs less than that?

I was in a RadioShack store, and I seem to remember one of the wireless carriers selling an Acer Aspire one subnotebook PC with Windows XP for less than $100 with the purchase of a 2-year data plan for $60 per month.

Re:iPhone w/ data plan vs. Aspire one w/ data plan

[Enderandrew]

So you're saying it is fair to try and price the iPhone without the dataplan, but you should compare it to a netbook that is being subsidized with a data plan?

What is especially troubling is the iPhone data plan is $30 a month, and you're suggesting the netbook with the $60 a month data plan is cheaper.

Re:iPhone w/ data plan vs. Aspire one w/ data plan

[tepples]

So you're saying it is fair to try and price the iPhone without the dataplan, but you should compare it to a netbook that is being subsidized with a data plan?

I was comparing iPhone ($99 with contract) to Acer Aspire one ($79 with contract), and I was comparing iPod Touch ($220) to Acer Aspire one ($300). I apologize for not making this clearer.

the iPhone data plan is $30 a month

Combined with a required minimum voice plan at how much per month? I'm currently on a $6 per month voice plan with Virgin Mobile.

That was a Tablet PC

[tepples]

Usually someone is holding one and walking fast like it's a clipboard.

The prop in TNG is probably supposed to represent the successor to the Tablet PC.

When I can lend a Kindle book to a Sony owner...

[dpbsmith]

I'll consider getting another eBook device when they make it possible to lend an eBook the way I can lend a physical book.

I want to be able to lend Kindle books... commercial, protected, bestseller-type books... to a person with a Sony reader. I want to be able to replace my Sony reader three years down the road with whatever eBook reading device appeals to me and move all my books to the new device.

And I want to be able to make the transfers just as I can today with a physical book.

I have $300 worth of ebooks I purchased for my Rocket eBook. When I bought them I was assured that if I ever needed to replace the device, I could just give them the new serial number and re-download the books re-coded for the new device. Well, I my eBook device finally bit the dust. I now have $300 worth of eBooks that can be read only on a device that no longer exists, unless I buy a replacement device that doesn't exist, contact a customer service department that no longer exists, and re-download them from a server that no longer exists, operated by a company that no longer exists.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

How about an iPod Touch?

[hoarier]

Toward the end of a long and witty demolition job on the Kindle 2, Nicholson Baker describes the pleasure of reading kindling and much else on his iPod Touch. Going back from that to the Kindle 2 "was like going from a Mini Cooper to a white 1982 Impala with blown shocks". Baker's article is as informative as you'd expect from the poet of the card catalogue and miscellaneous lumber; it discusses Sony products too.

(Me, I don't own any of these devices. I read books, which long outgrew available shelving and are now stacked on the floor.)

Oops. Copy and paste error.

[Digital_Quartz]

Thanks for the fixed link. :P

some of which run Linux,

[wiredog]

The Kindle runs on Linux. Just because a device runs on Linux doesn't mean it's DRM free.

Re:When I can lend a Kindle book to a Sony owner..

[Anonymous Coward]

So... You *want* DRM, then. You're welcoming it with open arms.

Boy, is the Slashdot crowd difficult to follow, or what?

Re:When I can lend a Kindle book to a Sony owner..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Why did you ever believe them? Were you high? Shame on you for buying $300 worth of Ebooks. Sucker and his money ....

Solar Panel

[AmigaHeretic]

How effective would a solar cell be on an ebook reader like this? A little larger version of the kind found on cheap/free calculators since 1985. I know calc batteries last for like a year vs an eBook reader being 2 weeks, so the power is higher. I'd think, however, in the last 25 years solar has become a little more efficient. Just a thought.

Re:Solar Panel

[WuphonsReach]

At 2-4 weeks between charges, recharging the Sony PRS-505 has never been a problem. I'm usually, after that period, looking to load up another book or two onto the device anyway, so I hook it up to the laptop's USB port overnight after loading the new books.

Plus, my PRS-505 sits in a leather case that protects it (when not in use), so there's really no exposed surface large enough to fit a solar cell.

Basically, the battery life on the ebook is good enough that it doesn't interfere with normal use. I usually let mine get down to about 25% battery before I make sure to hook it up after I finish reading for the evening. Then I'm good to go for another 2-4 weeks.

Re:When I can lend a Kindle book to a Sony owner..

[ahecht]

Technically, the company does exist. Nuvomedia, the maker of the Rocket, was purchased by Gemstar, who merged with TV Guide to become Gemstar TV Guide, who then merged with Macrovision Corp to become Macrovision Solutions Corp, and finally, just this past month, changed its name to Rovi Corp ( http://www.rovicorp.com/ ).

High quality content, easily distributed format =

[Anonymous Coward]

piracy nightmare. It is great that more companies are trying to capture the market which will hopefully mean cheaper ebook readers to come. What does worry me though is that book publishers have all the reason to be hesitant to release high quality materials on such an easily distributed format. Sound like the music industry? I just hope someone gets the distribution model right so that they will encourage ebook readers to allow file transfer. Otherwise, what's the point of having an ebook reader when the content is confined to it when you could also use it on your laptop, desktop, etc.

I guess this may get hit by the iTablet..

[cheros]

If there is any truth to the rumours, there is IMHO a good chance that the upcoming new gadget from Apple is going to hit that market, and hard. iTunes works, so setting up a book stream is going to be a simple upgrade, and Apple can do good things with design, although I'm not always convinced about their usability, it's occasionally too much surface and no depth (no multitasking on the iPhone, for instance).

I'll wait until I've seen what Apple is up to before I'd buy any of them, and only if I can use open content. I can lend a book to a friend, I should be able to do that electronically - and I should be able to load my own content (for me mainly TXT, PDF and ODF).

DRM is optional

[krischik]

No one forces you to use DRM documents on any eBook reader. All eBook reader will display DRM free eBooks as well.

If at all DRM need to be dumped by the shops and the publishers. And some did already:

http://www.beam-ebooks.de/
https://www.smashwords.com/

Don't buy LRX then

[krischik]

Buy ePUB without DRM then. Or even ePUB with DRM as ADE has been hacked. Don't mix device and shop - unlike Amazon's Kindle they are different things - there are dozens of shops where you can buy books for the Sony.

And: the protected format is LRX - LRF is the DRM free version ;-) .

Re:When I can lend a Kindle book to a Sony owner..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll consider getting another eBook device when they make it possible to lend an eBook the way I can lend a physical book.

I want to be able to lend Kindle books... commercial, protected, bestseller-type books... to a person with a Sony reader. I want to be able to replace my Sony reader three years down the road with whatever eBook reading device appeals to me and move all my books to the new device.

Well, you can quite easily strip the DRM out of most kindle books (not the topaz formatted ones, but there aren't too many of those, thankfully). A google for "mobidedrm" would probably be a place to start ... :)

just buy without DRM

[krischik]

nothing wrong in buying $300 worth of eBooks - just make sure they come without DRM. Or at least with a DRM which has been cracked.

Fragile

[Sobrique]

I certainly hope these are less fragile than the PRS-505. I've had that flake out on me twice with the screen going 'a bit mental'. Not actively trying to abuse it or anything, but just ... carrying it around, much like I would a paperback, and presumably clonked it on something. (At least, that's what they said when I tried to get it under a warranty repair).
Repair costs thanks to the price of the screen are somewhat absurd too. I'm quite annoyed with Sony that they ended up charging me more than a brand new one would have cost for a repair. They charged £50 'examination' and then another £170 to repair it - after the guy in the shop rejected their original quote (£220). Net result is that it ended up _marginally_ more expensive than if I'd just bought a new one - an then the prices dropped to £180 or so if I looked around.
To add insult to injury though, they ended up replacing it instead of repairing it anyway.

there is more to a book then production cost

[krischik]

So you want the Author, the Lector, the Layouter, the Publisher, the Web-Designer, the Server Operator, etc pp to start begging on the street corner?

There was once a report on the production cost of ice cream for a café. The material (milk, fuit, cream) was the smallest part - something around 10% or so and profit the 2nd smallest. Then came the the rent for the outlet and the largest part where staff salaries.

Re:there is more to a book then production cost

[xtracto]

So you want the Author, the Lector, the Layouter, the Publisher, the Web-Designer, the Server Operator, etc pp to start begging on the street corner?

There was once a report on the production cost of ice cream for a café. The material (milk, fuit, cream) was the smallest part - something around 10% or so and profit the 2nd smallest. Then came the the rent for the outlet and the largest part where staff salaries.

That depends where you produce it. In Mexico, ice cream makers usually do not expect to get rich with their trade. And the most difficult thing for them is to buy the fresh fruit and the "cooked water"

Who the heck is the target audience?

[Opportunist]

Who will buy this?

The "fad crowd"? No, they're firmly with Amazon now.
The people who didn't get a Kindle because of the DRM? Yeah, they will certainly go to Sony and their flawless DRM-free record.

So who?

Re:Who the heck is the target audience?

[AmigaMMC]

hmmm Sony fanboys? They are in the millions, you know. People in the market for that will buy it just for the fact that it's called "Sony" (my father among them). Without counting the fact that Sony has a much larger reach than Amazon. Even in Europe there are countries where Amazon is totally unknown. Sony isn't.

Re:When I can lend a Kindle book to a Sony owner..

[bkpark]

I'll consider getting another eBook device when they make it possible to lend an eBook the way I can lend a physical book.

This was actually what won me over: Amazon's DRMs are strippable (search for "mobidedrm"; of course, it's "illegal", but who's going to prosecute me for keeping personal backups?), and once DRMs are gone, it's just one of the common Mobipocket book format. There are softwares that'll do conversion, e.g. from that book format to HTML.

I guess this may not be good enough for the, er, legally scrupulous, but well, that's the best you can get until we get DMCA repealed—I don't think any publisher will agree to publish its golden eggs in a format that doesn't have DRM, at least not without the kind of pushback we have seen with music.

Re:Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? Insightful??

Read the specs - I've owned both the 505 and the 700. Both have both internal memory, memory sticks, and plain SD cards. It takes open format books and really does last the 2 weeks it says.

Sure, Sony aren't always knights in shining armour - but their ebook readers are absolutely fantastic, they let me carry around a whole library, in non-DRM format, to read by the pool, on the tube.

This is a GOOD product

fresh ice cream

[krischik]

Well I live in Germany and here Italian expatriates make the ice cream - and they use milk and cream instead of water - and still the cost of the materials is tiny compared to all over price.

And this is what I wanted to transport to OP: That paper and ink might not the largest cost in the producing a book.

Re:fresh ice cream

[xtracto]

Well I live in Germany and here Italian expatriates make the ice cream - and they use milk and cream instead of water - and still the cost of the materials is tiny compared to all over price.

And this is what I wanted to transport to OP: That paper and ink might not the largest cost in the producing a book.

Funny that I am living in Germany nowadays. And the Italian expats you talk about really make a great business of selling icecream. Fortunately some of the icecream they make is made of just wather (ohne milch).

But, returning to the main point. In Germany, people can expect to make at least 700 Euro from making icecream. Otherwise, they can opt for government's payment. Whereas in other countires the price of the labour must be priced cheaper and thus, ice-cream maker can only *dream* of getting 700 Euro a month (shit, even when I was working as a full time software developer in Mexico I got only about 400 euro).

Nice try.

[zifferent]

Outside of political science textbooks, the term is so broad of meaning as to be useless, and your right-wing rant on liberal meaning "love government programs and regulation ("tax and spend" and "big government")" proves it. Liberal, simply put, is the opposite of conservative. A person with liberal views is more likely to embrace a change. A conservative on the other hand, by definition, is someone who prefers things to stay as they are, or even pines for a "simpler" time in the past.

In common usage the term liberal has a wide degree of latitude in its definition depending who is using it and where. It usually denotes someone who is a hippie or is in favor of social justice programs and is in favor of taxing the rich and big business.

Re:Nice try.

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberal, simply put, is the opposite of conservative.

"Liberal" means embracing civil liberties; opposite would be "oppressive".

"Conservative" means opposed to risky actions; opposite would be "radical".

One can be both liberal and conservative. Maybe you intended to contrast "leftist" and "rightist".

Re:Nice try.

[bkpark]

Outside of political science textbooks, the term is so broad of meaning as to be useless, and your right-wing rant on liberal meaning "love government programs and regulation ("tax and spend" and "big government")" proves it.

That's why I qualified it as "in the U.S." Although apparently "liberal" and "conservative" means approximately the same thing in the U.S. and U.K., what "liberal" and "conservative" stands for, e.g., in Europe or Asia is vastly different from our ideas of "liberal" and "conservative". Also, some of the liberal-vs.-conservative positions have switched on a few issues over the last couple centuries or so as well.

Liberal, simply put, is the opposite of conservative. A person with liberal views is more likely to embrace a change. A conservative on the other hand, by definition, is someone who prefers things to stay as they are, or even pines for a "simpler" time in the past.

I am a bit wary of people characterizing "liberal" and "conservative" this way. As you guess correctly, I am a conservative (more precisely, a fiscal conservative—I lead a socially conservative lifestyle, but as long as they aren't hurting anyone else, I couldn't care less what others do). By the definition you have, Reagan would have been considered a "liberal" by wanting to change the tax code with tax cuts and what-not (of course, if you go back far enough, i.e. to the time before income tax, he would be a "conservative", but with history repeating itself, it becomes only a matter of how far back you go). Also, one could consider Obama "conservative" because he wants to bring income taxes to pre-Reagan levels.

Yes, I agree that the dictionary definition of "liberal" is someone who wants to change things and "conservative" is someone who wants to conserve things as they are. But, that's, as you correctly say, is a meaningless statement detached from any political reality—and that's why I qualify "liberals in U.S." or "conservatives in U.S." (today) because then they have some definite mainstream positions that you can either agree with or disagree with. A lot of people want "change" until they find out exactly what the change involves.

In common usage the term liberal has a wide degree of latitude in its definition depending who is using it and where. It usually denotes someone who is a hippie or is in favor of social justice programs and is in favor of taxing the rich and big business.

So you agree with me. "Social justice programs" mean government programs, whether you agree with the goal or not. As a conservative, I happen to disagree with the goals of those programs, but even the advocates of these programs cannot deny that it's, for the most part, taxpayer-funded government programs. And if "taxing the rich and big business" isn't taxation, well, war is peace.

Only those who want to trick others into agreeing with him, rather than generating genuine agreement and consensus would use words as what they mean in "uncommon usage" rather than "common usage", without clearly saying out loud that your usage of word is different from nearly everyone else. This is a sin that liberals who quote this favorably are guilty of, because this guy is saying that he agrees with all the things conservatives in U.S. say, except that he wants to call himself "liberal" instead of "conservative".

Re:Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Buy a Memory Stick
2) Plug Memory Stick into $3us universal card reader
3) Copy your warezed e-books onto Memory Stick
4) Plug Memory Stick into eReader
5) Buy an SD card
6) Plug SD card into $3us universal card reader
7) Copy more warezed e-books onto SD card
8) Plug SD card into eReader
9) Read warezed e-books
a) STFU . "Proprietary" doesn't mean "my brain shuts down and I can't figure out how to use the thing."

Kindle DX has an extra perk

[Anonymous Coward]

I currently Have 2 Kindle Dx units and being able to have one where I work and the other at home sync together without any user action required makes the Kindles much more valuable then any Sony unit. I can start reading one book on the Kindle at home then when I have some down time at work pick up that kindle and take right off from the spot I stopped at from home and even have all my notes, hightlights transfered. By the way Amazon changed the policy so they will no longer remove content from your kindle.

Price

[AmigaMMC]

Let me know when the price drops to $49.99 I have no intentions of spending a lot of money for the hardware to read books that I also have to pay for. I'm not opposed to paying for books, but just don't want to pay $200 or $300 for being able to buy books.

What I have said all along...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is something I have been saying for some time Ebooks need to be in an open, NON_DRMed format. ALL OF THEM! The maximum price for an ebook should be $3.00 with most going for $1.00 Ebook readers need be be priced at no more than $50 or so. The current system is a big ripoff. I will not be buying an ebook reader until the above conditions are met.

Re:What I have said all along...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and Cars are a rip-off too. I will not buy one until they are $25. Don't talk to me about houses! They should be $0.99!

Why I Won't Buy Any Ebook Reader

[pandrijeczko]

1. No-one is going to steal a paperback book from my bag when I'm not looking.

2. I can't read more than one book at once and don't need to unless I'm computing or programming - in which case I will have all the books I need on a flash stick or portable drive to plug into that computer.

3. I buy most books I read secondhand from charity shops and take them back there when I've finished - so there's a whole heap of recycling going on and money going to good causes.

4. I can take any book from my bookshelves and lend it to a friend or family, just like I can with a music CD.

5. A paper book that I buy today will still be readable in 5 years time.

6. I don't have the constant need to seek the approval from my peers or impress strangers by openly displaying the type and amount of gadgets that I own.

Re:Why I Won't Buy Any Ebook Reader

[WuphonsReach]

(shrugs) You're not the target market.

The e-ink readers are not going to go away, they're definitely here to stay at this point. And if society collapses, I'll probably have more on my mind then worrying about my electronic books.

(I've had a PRS-505 for about 18 months. It still ranks up there as one of the most useful devices that I own and I read about 8-12 hours per week on it. And I'm one of those people who have multiple large bookshelves in their residence, filled with paper books.)

Re:Yeah, right

[WuphonsReach]

As others have posted, it supports either SD cards or the Sony memory stick duo cards. And you can have both inserted at the same time on the PRS-505 model.

However, what you'll find is that SD cards use up a lot more battery then the Memory Stick cards do. At least that holds true for the PRS-505.

So I went and bought a 512MB Memory Stick card off of eBay, tossed it in, and haven't worried about it since. For books that I want to not keep on the device, I'll use a SD card and insert the card when I need it.

(I'm not sure why SD cards don't do a good job on power consumption. Either the Sony memory card is better about power usage when idle, or the firmware doesn't interact as well with the SD cards. There's a long standing discussion over at MobileRead's forums on the issue.)

Re:Yeah, right

[Grishnakh]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Sony intentionally screwed it up, or maybe just didn't devote any time to fixing the issue when it was found because they only care about MemoryStick.

As for everyone else, Sony has a long history of making poor-quality products with giant price tags, and screwing over their customers with things like the rootkitted CDs. Why would I want to support a company that has done those things in the recent past?

Actual specs: Clie vs Kindle.

[argent]

OK, here's the actual specs:

Kindle, $399 in 2008: 4 bit greyscale (16 shades of grey), 167 dpi, 3.6" x 4.8".

Clie SJ22, $199 in 2003: 16 bit color (65536 colors, or 32 shades of true grey), 152 dpi, 2.1" x 2.1".

Both are easily readable in full sunlight down to full darkness. The Clie has better display quality... almost the same linear resolution, higher contrast, color, and even more shades of grey for antialiasing. The smaller display means it's pocketable, but if you don't like clicking the jog-dial after 20 lines you'll prefer the kindle.

Re:Actual specs: Clie vs Kindle.

[langelgjm]

I was talking about the DX, which is the one I have. I don't think there's really any comparison to be made between a Clie (I had one a long time ago, grayscale model) and a Kindle DX.

Reading PDF journal articles on a Clie is not practical. The DX is the first device (that's not priced stratospherically, like iRex's products) that makes that practical.

Re:Actual specs: Clie vs Kindle.

[argent]

Ah, well, the DX is only 150 dpi.

Anyway, man, I already said that if the small size of the screen is a critical problem for you, get a Kindle. I'm just correcting the record about the quality of the display... the Clie's display technology is at least as good as the Kindle's, despite being five years older and cheaper.

Though... holy mother of Turing... for $500 I can get a netbook or even a refurbished tablet.

Amazon could be given more support to PDF files

[meketrefi]

What pisses me off is that Amazon is gradually adding simple features to the Kindle DX when it could have provided it all from the start.

Things like highlighting, adding notes, browsing bookmarks, reading out-loud... wait until Kindle DX 2nd generation and you will understand! Just add those features and I won't need printed editions anymore (except for reference books)!

Of course not

[Rix]

But I expect not to be gouged.

You can't seriously argue that the cost of production, and transport and storage and losses from returns is not the majority of the cost of a book.

Printing: 10.125%

[krischik]

Yes I can:

http://ireaderreview.com/2009/05/03/book-cost-analysis-cost-of-physical-book-publishing

May I quote for you:

"For larger print runs, the cost of printing a book comes to just 10% of a bookâ(TM)s price. So the perception that ebooks should be a lot cheaper than physical books because thereâ(TM)s no printing or binding is inaccurate."

Martin

Read your own link

[Rix]

50% of the price goes to distributers/retailers. As those are unnecessary for ebooks, we can cross that right out.

That leaves 50% for the publisher, 10% of which is for printing, so 40%. Ebooks cannot be resold, so that should be halved.

So our final fair price is a maximum of 20% of paperback price, or $1-2.

Where to buy without a distributor

[krischik]

But eBooks need distribution as well only it is called a Web-Shop. No one runs one of those for free. Apple, Handango, etc. pp. they all take a 30% or more cut + credit card fees that is. I know, I sell mobile phone applications.

While I agree that they should be cheaper 20% of paperback price is not realistic.

And one more thing: True eBooks can't be resold - however I buy DRM free if at all possible (my apps are DRM free as well) - and those can be copied as often as one likes and without loss of quality.

Mobile phone apps are expensive due to monopolies

[Rix]

Apple can charge whatever they want, because they've locked any possible competition out of the iPhone. Handango et al, well, they sell to fringe platforms like WinCE.

There's no reason publishers can't sell directly at a negligible cost. It certainly makes sense for them to also offer things through Amazon, but I'm not going to pay a premium for that. It can come out of their end.

Apple can charge whatever they want...

[krischik]

... but they don't - they charge industry average. Apple does enough questionable things there is no need to invent potential bad stuff they could also do. Also read my posting on My-Symbian on the merits of apples shop monopoly:

http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40017&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105

And Handango also sells Symbian and Symbian is not yet a fringe platform. It will be soon of course.

As for you other argument. If a publisher also becomes a distributor then he also has the cost of distribution. Web-Shops are not free - but more importantly marketing - making sure that you get the top spot on Google does not come for free either.

And practical example: I also sell directly from my webside. and it's the lowest price available (and Handango, having the shitiest conditions being highest price.).

You think I sell more for the lower price? Not alt all! I sell about 10 times at Handango, and about 10 times on Mobile2day. Yes that's approx. 19 of 20 sales via distributors. The point is marketing. Everybody (as in potential customers) knows about Handango, most about Mobile2Day - who knows about my website?

If it was not a hobby project, if I had to pay employees to keep the website and send the download links I would turn the website into an information only buy at our distributors only site. It is not worth it.

And for eBooks it must be the same. For example Randolph Lalonde a an independent SciFy author has webside, blog, Paypal account and still sells using distributors only. The Paypal is for donations only.

Martin

Symbian is not a smartphone OS

[Rix]

Handango does support WinCE, which while fringe is still at least somewhat viable.

Symbian is dead. Very dead. It's still shambling along as a zombie on old phones, but there isn't anything new there.

There certainly is value in publishing/aggregation. More in software, as it's an ongoing process with ongoing development. With books it's minimal, as a book is "done" at some point.

Symbian and Handango

[krischik]

From the Handango website:: Androidâ, BlackBerry®, Palm®, Windows Mobileâ, Symbian OSâ - I don't see Windows CE in the list. In fact: theses are all the smart phone operating systems which are currently available (Apart from iPhone OS X that is).

I agree with you that future is bleak for Symbian. But still:

http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n97
http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/overview/satio
http://omniahd.samsungmobile.com/

None of which are older then 6 month. The reason that I think Symbian is on a demise is not that there are no new devices - it is that the available new devices are missing the "wow - cool" factor.

And last not least: How do you define SmartPhone OS so that the N97 is not included? My definitions is Keyboard and/or Touchscreen and native user installable applications. The N97 qualifies for all three points.

Martin

Windows Mobile is WinCE

[Rix]

I don't bother keeping up with the various brand changes Microsoft goes through.

You're missing two smartphone OSes on that list; Android and webOS.

The N97 could be a smartphone with a decent OS, but not with Symbian. Part of my definition of smartphone includes an OS with a viable development community.

We can debate over whether Symbian is dead now or just will be shortly, but do you really think it'll be around in 5 years?