CES pits thousands of exhibitors with tens of thousands of products against each other — each vying for your limited attention. The cavernous exhibit halls are crowded with flashy displays, loud music and lots of tongue-wagging. But amid the hype I stumbled across an unassuming display at Sony’s booth that I nearly overlooked: the new Sony Reader.
In the simplest terms, Sony Reader is a digital book about the size of a paperback (or a DVD case, for those youngsters unfamiliar with the concept of books). It can store hundreds of books using a Memory Stick or SD flash card. What makes Reader so interesting is the display technology. Instead of LCD, it uses high-resolution “electronic paper” technology. It’s not backlit, but produces flicker-free, readable text even in sunlight. It’s something you have to see to believe, but it’s really remarkable. Interestingly, displaying a page doesn’t draw battery power; only refreshing (“turning”) the page does. So instead of measuring battery life in terms of hours, it’s measured by page turns. How many can you get? About 7,500 page turns on a single charge — equivalent to a dozen novels plus War and Peace.
Sony will be selling Reader compatible e-books via their Connect website. Books will typically retail for less than their physical counterpart. You’ll use your PC to manage your library, and transfer books you want to carry with you to your Reader via the included USB dock (which doubles as a charging station).
Sony Reader isn’t available yet. Sony claims it will be available around the end of the first quarter 2006, with a retail price between $299 and $349.
In addition to their own e-book format, Sony Reader can display Adobe Acrobat PDF files, JPG images and RSS feeds. You can also use it as an MP3 player, although that would obviously drain the battery faster.
Sony Reader was one of the few products at CES that really amazed me, but it’s not without concerns. I’ve yet to see what sort of digital rights management scheme they’ve used. Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson from the CD-Audio root-kit debacle, but judging by what I’m hearing about “unauthorized” games on the PSP, I’m not entirely sure. If they can produce something that protects the digital rights without getting in the way, I think they’ve got a winner.
Web site: Sony Reader
My son (and I) are the same way. I like my walls lined with bookcases full of books. Looking at the books themselves is like a walk through time. Not only do you have the memory of the book itself, but where you were (time and space) when you read it.
I still think the Sony Reader is cool though. Especially for things that aren’t necessarily books you’d want to keep on your shelf — computer books, for example. I could have an entire library of PHP, ASP.NET, DHTML and XML references at my fingertips, and if it ever grew out of date, I could just download the latest. I’m not so fussy about displaying all my technical books (and I’ve got quite a few!).
It’s funny though… I don’t like reading books on my computer. There is something nice about the portability and readability of a book that a PC cannot reproduce. Until Sony Reader, that is.