PRS-500 ‘E-Reader’ (Sony @ CES 2006)
(click here to view inital video)
We’re a little late with this summation, but some technical difficulties arose with the video and it was necessary to shop around to find the best way to distribute it without killing our bandwidth. Nonetheless, during Sony’s expo at CES ‘06, the new E-Reader was in major focus as well as the new Connect Reader service we covered that will coincide with it when the product rolls out in March. Read further for some new specifications, pictures, and more video.
We have recieved word that the final MSRP of this device, when it debuts in March, will be $349.99USD.(click here to view additional video)
(6 inch SVGA 800×600; approx. 170 Pixels Per Inch; 4 level grey scale)
The PRS-500 is an extremely impressive device that is just the right size and has interesting features with an incredible half inch thick formfactor with only 9 ounces of weight. With the ability to display 7,500 pages on a single battery charge it will be quite revolutionary. How does it have the ability to display so many pages? With the E Ink® Display technology, the battery is only utilized when it changes a page; the unit is actually off when you are viewing content. Those who may have problems reading smallish text can employ up to 200% magnification as well.
You can see here that it features a slot for removeable media, specifically MemoryStick (MS + Pro) and it also surprisingly accepts Standard Digital (SD). Sony was very keen on voicing that 2006 will be a signal to the world that the company is aggressively moving forward to accept open standards to avoid any further alienation with the consumer. Nonetheless, one can store about 80 e-books on the internal memory (which is 64mb). It can facilitate the following standards: BBeB Book, PDF, JPEG and MP3. Yes, we said MP3 and no ATRAC; it’s confusing where Sony is going with this, but when I tested Connect Reader it did have the ability to load music onto the unit. Whether this will be for podcasts via RSS, audiobooks, or something else it is definitely a contradiction with Connect Player, the music management software program for the new Walkmans.
It can charge via USB, which takes approximately 6 hours but a regular AC adapter can do it in 4.
It’s going to be a nice experience; imagine waking up and grabbing your E-Reader from the usb connection via the computer and catching up on the RSS feeds that were automatically updated whilst you sip on morning coffee. There are many possibilities..
It looks very nice, but I think it would be a much bigger success if Sony had some sort of touch screen that could make this a replacement for school books. Imagine not having to carry big books to school and being able to write your notes directly on the screen?
Now I also think Sony is stupidly killing Atrac and alienating their customers. Why don’t they just add support for it? It can’t be so difficult. Why don’t they open the codec, let everybody use it, keep the DRM only for Connect Store downloads? Why do they make their most faithful customers feel like idiots for supporting a format that the company itself doesn’t support across their products? Why?
I’m sure they could always add ATRAC via a firmware update.
Well I have to say that device looks really sad, and boring. The design looks like it is 10 years old, at least. Now look at those numbers under the screen, really old school, it looks like a car radio… WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS THINKING, why not including a touch screen like those found on PDAs or some mobile phones, I wonder if that would kill the battery life…
It doesn’t seem Sony is willing to add Atrac support via firmware update to any of its newer devices, otherwise they would’ve done it with the Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. It just shows a disregard for the customers (buy our music downloads, copy your CDs in our format and we’ll give you the opportunity to do it all over again when we stop supporting our format).
Rant aside, I like this device, though it doesn’t seem as modern as the original Librié (and Librié was a better name). But I think they should target more heavily the educational market, and for that they should have a touch screen.
I think a touch screen would make this device the perfect replacement for the good old book. However I suspect that the reason why there isn’t a touch screen is because of the why the device was designed. A touch screen would necessitate that the device be powered when the pages are displayed otherwise there is no why to register the “touches”. However this device is switched off most of the time and is only switched on when changing pages since E-ink is utilised. To add a touch screen to it would probaby negate all the benefits which E-ink brings.
[...] - PRS-500 ‘E-Reader’ [...]
Sony still hasn’t figured it out: Readers like paper. No one is going to sit and read “Wuthering Heights” on one of these things. E-readers are hard on the eyes, uncomfortable to hold, and offer little besides useless features. Definitely a flop.
This is Sony’s United States updated release of the Librie reader, which has been available in Japan for years and hasn’t flopped whatsoever.
E-paper is not hard on the eyes.
“Sony still hasn’t figured it out: Readers like paper. ”
E-ink is a /reflective/ display, unlike lcd and crt wich are /emissive/. This is an e-ink device, NOT lcd.
Basicly e-ink is same as paper aside from tactile issues. As a voracious reader myself, I find that the ability to carry several hundred books in one device that works on AA batteries is a tremendous feature.
I can’t wait! Having owned other eBooks, such as the RCA RocketBook, and read most magazines with Zinio, I can tell you the I am one of those people that likes electronic books over paper.
Using eInk will be great, since the one thing that has always been hard to do on LCD based readers is the ability to read in the daylight.
In regards to other posts, the RCA RocketBook had a touch screen, which I found I almost never used while reading books, so this will not be a muched missed feature. I think the most important feature while reading is having buttons to turn the page forwards and backwards while holding it with one hand. Remember, this is a book not a PDA.
And to concure with DW about having many books, my mind constantly changes focus, so having many books available to switch between has been one of the driving forces for me in having an eBook.
The thing that all of the eBook providers have failed to see is that they tend to charge hardcover prices for books that are in paperback already. Why would anyone pay $15-$35 for a book that you can get in paperback for $3.50? This is what kept sales down for many of the titles, and continues to. It’s not really the providers fault, but more of the publishers fault, who sets the price typically. Hopefully Sony will do the same thing Apple has done, which is to dictate the price structure, PERIOD.
I’ve been using my Sony Clie to read e-books for a couple of years now and this new E-Ink technology is going to make the whole thing sooo much nicer. My only gripe for this device is the $350 price tag! If they could somehow get it under $200 I think this could be a huge hit.
About time for someone to finally bring e-ink to market! I applaud sony for this, and hope the rumors of the search and highlight features are true. (That, and I hope there will be a utility to transfer existing .rtf, lit, pdf, txt, etc files to the sony format.)
Great product. A touch screen would be useless. The only design flaw I see is it should have a foward and back botton on each side so you could operate it with one hand.
I want it NOW? Isn’t it spring now?
This is a great device, can’t wait to buy it!!! Sony is the best mobile electronics company!
sony world and import…
is it possible for any sony world to import sony products from abroad on order(which may not have been released in india but are available at other places eg hongkong)? i heard sometime back that they……
I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these.
What I’m really hoping for is that the prices of the books will be fairly low - they don’t need to be printed, bound, shipped and stored in wharehouses and on shelves, so I’m hoping for similar prices to downloaded CD Albums. It would be great to be able to take my library away with me (2GB SD cards are relatively cheap), my suitcase will be a lot lighter when I go away on holiday
So long as the download prices are similar to CD Albums I’d have no qualms about re-purchasing a lot of my existing books, never mind buying new titles.
I think this item is a phantom, doesn’t meant to be, some kind of a fiction. It will never be, it doesn’t exist, it will never be available…
I have heard about this device for more than a year now. However, no more news have been released from Sony regarding this device or the so called Connect bookstore. What is going on. Also, does anyone know whether this device has a “resident loaded” dictionary. This is the primary purpose for me to get a protable ereader.
E-Ink is a revolutionary technology. Its about time this is getting out into the market. With the number of e-books already available through project gutenberg and google’s book scanning efforts… the publishing industry is about to be turned upside down. It might take longer than 10 years for books to go out of fashion but they eventually will. Its going to be so much easier when all of my books are digital.
There is also another product called iRex but it has an 800$ price tag which I wouldn’t go for at the moment.
The reason there is no touch screen is cause this isn’t a normal screen. It should be possible to add something like that since touch screens are actually a film that covers the screen. I don’t know how delicate the eink display is though. The next innovations in E-Ink will be better resoultion, color display, and faster refresh rate. When these barriers break down, we won’t be far from technology as seen in Minority Report, readers that are capable of autoupdate via wireless connection and can display video.
Hey guys,
I’m soo curious about the Sony Reader. Cos’ Sony released it the other day, so you guys in US can buy it, does anyone has purchased it and give us some feedback?
If you got it… could you please tell something about this:
- I dont trust Sony and the PDF. Can you display each PDF on this device like the examples?
- Whats the difference between the Sony file standard and PDF?
- Is it true? Can the device really grab the newset RSS News Feeds automatically?? This would be fantastic!
Well… I didnt find any other reseller than Sony yet and Sony dont offer to ship outside the US and I need this device in Germany… has anybody a suggestion about this?
Thanks.
1. pcmag.com has a review, although it’s totally skewed — it is definitely not the very best reader made. I can think of the Iliad as having a higher resolution screen, etc. as other examples. But at least it’s the first published review out.
2. nmag is your ebook friend.
Here’s the best review I’ve seen of it.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=7713
Would you anyone tell me how many languages are being applicable in this
book viewer ? I think it fantastic if the machine will provide all the languages
including Asian and European ones. By the way, is it capable to read the downloed file from Standard PDF internet files (All languages applied in PDF
Format) ?
Well I saw one of these things first hand at Boarders Books Store, and I was really impressed. E-ink screen looks like a page in a book, and the whole thing was really light in the hands, but at 350$ a pop, thats a lot of paperbacks. Then again if your an avid reader it’s well worth the investment.