I have finally decided to dive into eReader world and see if this kind of reading is for me. I have been following Sony Reader evolution since Librie was introduced in Japan, however back then I did not feel like messing with Japanese menus and flashing the firmware for English language use. Sony tends to release some products way ahead of its time of public acceptance or market readiness and I believe Librie among other similar products (VAIO Pentablet PCV-LX900, etc) suffered and did not have much success because of that. However Sony decided to re-launch eReader development and as most of you know introduced a number of readers with each generation getting better and better. Becoming open to ePub and other widely acceptable formats make Sony eReader competitive among the sea of readers flooding consumers left and right. There are a number of readers out there from other manufacturers, each offering some unique features and it is important for Sony to stay on top of this business and continue to innovate.
Strategically latest Reader from Sony PRS900 model pretty much has it all:
- Awesome build
- Japanese quality in manufacturing
- Free 3G wireless access to the online library (introduced though a little bit late in the game)
- Nice 7″ eInk screen
- Touch screen
- Better levels (16) of gray scale
- The Library books initiative is in conjunction with OverDrive
- Landscape Mode
I can also see a few negative sides: it’s price is definitely challenging, missing WiFi option is something that can be dealt with, however people living in areas with no AT&T coverage would have benefited having 802.11 b/g option and being able to access the content at numerous hot spots. I would love to see a future Reader offer an OLED color screen (color to be used for textbooks), and be essentially a tablet with options to access not only Reader Library but other Sony Network Services, sort of a multi-functional computing device (here I said it).
Anyways, these are just my initial comments in regards to this product, as I just started messing with it. If Sony misses this opportunity in this market (and depending on tomorrow’s Apple’s announcement, there maybe a slight chance of it, as their iDevice is targeting eReader market big time and if so it maybe just another revolution), like they did in music with its Walkman, I’d be pretty disappointed… Hint for Sony: hit hard the edu sector with your Readers, work with publishers, and students as well as professors would be your biggest clientele and profitability will speak for itself (meanwhile students would be very thankful for lighter bag packs); make your devices to be easy note takers, and I could go on and on. It is all going to come down to GUI and content providers and if Sony’s future readers will have intuitively innovative user interface backed up by great content (including newspapers and magazines), volumes of sales will speak for themselves.
For those of you who like to view the process of unboxing, check out pics below and feel free to post your comments!
