Looks like Amazon‘s Kindle has got some competition.
Sony announced two new e-readers today, The Reader Pocket Edition and The Reader Touch Edition. The Pocket is small (5-inch screen) and lightweight, whereas the Touch has a (surprise!) touch screen, an onboard Oxford American English Dictionary, multiple font sizes to choose from, and the ability to save notes that you make while reading.
The readers are priced at $199 and $299 respectively, making The Pocket the most inexpensive e-reader on the market.
Sweetening the pot is a deal that grants Sony’s users access to Google’s public domain library for free. “Add it up and Sony will have access to more than 1 million books.”
Downsides? Unlike the Kindle these devices do not have wireless capability, though Sony says they “will have an answer [for that] shortly.” Also, exactly like the Kindle, they haven’t come up with a way to capture that new book smell so many of us hold dear.
5 responses
E-readers are the scourge of the earth! How can anyone who truely appreciates books for being more than just a collection of words on paper justify their use! Ugh!!! I have nightmares where there are bookcases with nothing on them but e-readers and I wake up with the sweats! I despise e-readers as much as I do CGI in film (but that’s another story altogether)!
I don’t have an e-reader outside of my iPhone, but I can justify e-readers in my line of work. If I have a choice between lugging 30 pounds of books across my south Florida campus in September, when the summer has cooled to 90 degrees and 85% humidity and slipping an e-reader into my bag, well, the e-reader will likely win that contest. And if I’m a student, that becomes even more of an argument for it, since I have fewer options for dumping books over the course of a day. There are lots of utilitarian arguments for e-readers–that’s just one–but that doesn’t mean the print book is going to disappear, at least not anytime soon.
You are right, there are SOME instances where e-readers may be practical but for everyday reading and enjoyment? No!!! You are also right in saying that the print book is not likely to disappear anytime soon but I still think that the e-reader is a slippery slope! Why would publishing companies continue to front the cost of printed books when it will be multitudes cheaper to sell an e-book? Books will go the way of stamped mail and handwitten letters only it will be a bigger loss and on a deeper level (for me anyway)! In short, I feel the same way about e-readers as you feel about Perez Hilton! 🙂
Here’s another thought! If more and more publishers choose to publish e-books instead of paper books they will inevitable save lots of money, right? So because it will be cheaper to publish a book, will the publishing industry turn to publishing mediocre to poor (more than usual that is) material? In cases like this, even if the e-material weren’t to sell very well, the publisher still stands to make a considerable profit. Also, why even have a publisher at all if we get to the point where it is possible to sell your own material electronically? Provided you can find a decent editor and do your own publicity! Just curious what other people think about these prospects?
The other side of that, JS–and we’ve seen this already in terms of literary journals–is that by lowering the cost of entry, more experimental work is seeing the light of day. Publishing, after all, is generally a risk-averse business. Copycatting is the order of the day, everyone is out looking for the next blockbuster, and stars from other entertainment fields (and I include politics in there) get deals for warmed over anecdotes and spin on their lives. If e-readers make it more likely that artists can get their stuff out there, then I’m all for it.
The Rumpus wouldn’t have existed ten years ago, but because of lower entry costs, we’re here, getting our shit stolen by the lies of The Sun and anal wart Perez Hilton. The downside is that while we’re here, so is Perez Hilton (though the real crime is that he’s making boatloads of money doing what he does). So will it be with e-books. Some good stuff will get out there, and a whole lot of crap will too. But the good that makes it through will make the crap worth it, at least to me.
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