I really doubt this will take off unless it's dirt cheap. Too many alternatives that can do the same job.

@Kobe_No_Means_No: Forgot to mention: the price will apparently remain unchanged at $300.

They have speakers that roll around and have motorized flaps, but they can't put a back light in the ebook reader.

Does that sum everything up for the Sony camp?

I read almost all my books in electronic format. I'd love an e-ink device, but I feel like the format they have chosen is wrong. I read everything off my HTC Mogul, and the screen is just about perfect, and the device fits in one hand. When you're on a bus, on the metro, etc, one handed operation is key. Otherwise you fall over. And that's not a good reading experience.

Tried it out in Costco. Screen improvement is welcome. Doesn't matter how many books it holds if my eyes get tired after the third page.

Also, Sony needs to open up its reader to allow me to read whatever I damn please, such as PDF files. I have a boatload of technical books on PDF and it would be great to have my library at my fingertips.

@Kobe_No_Means_No: Yup, price really needs to be about half.

Someone please tell me what the frack is wrong with books?

Will this EVER take off as a stand alone device?

I have one on these. I got it way back when they were offering $100 worth of coupons for the eBook store, and it was around $250.

I already had a lot of lit format books from Microsoft (also free), which I converted using the Amber Lit converter.

Basically I then had over 100 books for $250.

I have found it VERY useful, the main issue for me being the alleged page count for the battery life. They state over 6000 page turns. I get (on average) 1000 between charges.

The book prices on the store are fairly comparable to Borders (i.e. slightly less expensive than MSRP, slightly more than Amazon and Borders). In some cases, they are cheaper than all three.

Now I have used this, I have to tell you, I HATE having to hold a hardback book. The convenience for use when standing on a crowded metro is unbeatable.

@Windhawk:
It DOES support PDFs. They are not as flexible on the diplay options as the Connect format, but it handles them okay (as well as rtf and txt).

I read 300 pages on a flight without eye strain.

@Kobe_No_Means_No:

I agree, and at $300 why would I even try it? I'd rather spend a little more for a laptop or some other device that does a whole lot more, plus allowing me to read ebooks.

But when it comes down to it (unlike T1BBS) I've never enjoyed reading a book in electronic format for a lengthy period.

Does this display pictures? I'm thinking of other forms of books (ie. graphic novels, manga, kids books).

Ditto T1BBS... If you really read, then this is a God send. We still get about 3000 pages out of charge on ours, but all our books are pdf's formated for the readers resolution. That said, it will never catch on because it only does grayscale and in the light at that. I used to read on my HP Jornada, but I stare at an LCD enough during the day. The e-ink display is always welcome for us freaks that still read...

I think maybe they should introduce a line of readers, though I suppose the market doesn't justify that. Some people enjoy the readability and the low power consumption of the current model. It really is a huge bonus that it draws powers from page views and not from displaying text. But other people definitely want a device with a backlight, so they could probably expand the number of users if they did that. And lowered the price, but oh well.

I just got one of the old models for 50 bucks off of Sony's rewards site (check fatwallet) and if the price were a bit lower for them without having to sign up for a credit card, it might make a dent. It would also help if they had them on display at book stores with download kiosks for the old folks that don't know how to work a computer.

@t1bbs: From the Sony website: "Books are just the beginning for the Sony® Reader. It also displays Adobe® PDFs, personal documents, blogs, newsfeeds, and JPEGs with the same amazing readability, It even plays unsecured MP3 and AAC audio files3"

OK, I humbly eat pie.

I just recently got into reading ebooks. I love it! I tried in the past with a palm pilot. What really got me going with it was a PSP with a homebrew called BookR. It's a pdf reader and you can configure the buttons for one handed reading. It seems perfect for me. I miss the smell of pages but it is much more practical for me. Can't wait for the PSP 2k

eBook readers will never take off until they are first targeted where they're needed most: textbook replacement.

Every college student would love to have a $300 device that weighed just a couple of pounds replace their sackfull of books. Theoretically this would make textbooks a little cheaper, and in some cases make college reading a lot cheaper; in the case of public domain works whole classes, whole colleges or even whole degrees could be completely free (well, of the reading material costs, anyway).

Take law school for instance. Just about everything that is read in law school is in the public domain. There's almost no reason to pay thousands of extra dollars (not to mention the backbreaking load of books) to be prepared for law school.

And programs like the "Core Curriculum" at Columbia? That should be totally free too.

Once everyone is introduced to ebook reading in college (end eventually high school), ebook readers will be generally accepted.

One thing that I'd like to see happen is a move away from print newspapers towards formats like this. At least in Chicago your choices are the Tribune and the Sun-Times. The Times is a tabloid style one huge section read like a book where the Tribune is broken into sections. Those can both be awkward and inconvenient on the train or bus, but a daily download would be ideal. No soggy papers on rainy days, and subscribership might even go up as I could get a local paper and a hometown paper and a WSJ and whatever else I wanted. Plus, as big as recycling can be, what could be better than not using any paper at all?

@weatherman: Yeah, but can you search ebooks? It'd be great replace textbooks with an electronic replacement, but if you can't search them...that would suck.

@tarochan: You've never enjoyed it because you've never tried it on a device properly designed around eBooks.

I thought the thing was a joke when it came out. My father bought one. I laughed at it. Then I decided, "What the hell" and took it with me on a trip to Asia involving ~35,000 miles of flying this past June.

I was an immediate convert. I couldn't find EVERYTHING I wanted, but found enough to keep me happy on the eConnect site. I read about 120 pages an hour on average and had no issues with the device. I greatly prefer it to regular printed books now. The display is neigh indistinguishable from a book except that you can change the text size... GREAT for when you want to read but your eyes are tired.

IMO Sony needs to link up with Amazon to make more books available and needs to cut the price in half. Much as with the Playstations... the true revenue is in the software.

@rcarydon: Not only can you search them, they're fully annotated so that you can read footnotes with a click and instantly return to where you were...

I ordered the older model last week from Sony for $50 using their Rewards program. I don't know how long it's going to take them to ship it, but I am looking forward to it. I have been reading ebooks since using Vertical Reader on my HP200LX 14 years ago!!!

Do we know for certain that the Reader has been a flop? I remember a Sony exec saying they were surprised by the demand, but that may have meant they expected to sell 5000 but ended up selling 20k - i.e. it was a flop.

Personally, I think Buford is right: they need to drop the price and use the whole console/games, razor/blades approach. It only took them, oh, six years to develop an open, usable MP3 player... So, who thinks iReader in 2009?

One demographic that has been abandoned in the E-reader world is that of the retired near sighted elderly folks. My parents both loved their previous reader (which was the size of a large magazine, back lit, and capable of displaying huge text). It was discontinued, along with the book store from which you were forced to purchase all books.

As usual these days, Sony gets some of it right (the E-ink and incredible battery life) at the expense of a big demographic who would gladly substitute good battery life for a bright screen and a large font. I thought that's why someone invented the on off switch. Maybe V3.

does it do PDF's?? i've read that it doesn't, or it is very poor and hard to read.

if it does, i'll buy one today.

I was recently at a training exercise far, far away, with no television or internet access to speak of. My colleagues and I quickly read through the few books we had brought with us. Another trainee, however, had brought his Sony Reader and was able to read through a dozen books during our stay. We were pretty envious of him. If I have to take another such trip, I am definitely buying the gadget. The screen is very nice it uses almost no battery power.

@ISHRED, it does display PDFs.

I've said it before, and I will say it again: I want NOTHING more (electronic-wise) than a real eBook of some kind but, sadly, Sony's isn't it. I've fiddled with it and it is cheap piece of junk.

Why, oh why, can't your average designer just say "What would Steve Jobs Do?" and come up with one of these things? Will it take Apple to save the eBook market like they did MP3 players?

I don't say this as an Apple fanboy, I say this from the usability/design perspective: look at the iPhone/iTouch (though I have no idea who that is for) and imagine if those guys designed an eBook.

what they still make these things? breaking news the newton has not been dead all these years i repeat the newton is not dead after all.

@ComicDork:

Your talking about a huge touch screen. Sorry, but i don't want to spend $700+ because i'm too lazy to push a button.

I saw someone on the train with the sony reader and it looked great for what it does.

I just bought the sony reader (prs-500) through a credit card offer where it cost me $60 and they gave me 100 connect classics free. So far, I am loving the reader, and it is definitely much easier on the eyes than reading off a computer screen. In fact, I would go as far as to say the text on the reader mirrors that of a real paperback.

In addition, as a grad student, I am able to put all my lectures on the reader and use them as references for the class.

The reader does have limitations, especially with files not formatted specifically for it. For example it can not handle PDFs that are bitmap based very well (i.e. a PDF of a scanned article).

There is a pretty big community out there that shows you how to format text for the reader, and even has e-books for free (that are legal to own free).

I basically have already got more than $60 value out of the device, so I am very happy

I think SONY needs to realize they need to lower the initial price point to where people will buy the device to "just try it out." Once that happens, they will have a better market base to whom they can sell their Connect offerings. Right now people look at it as "I need to shell out $300 for the device and on top of that buy books at $2-$20 a pop -- it's going to take a long time for me to recoup my iniitial investment"

These devices are amazing, but they don't fit my needs. eBooks are great, and I love the format, but it only works for me when I can read them on my Windows Mobile device, since I always carry that anyway. I really don't have the luxury of carrying physical books with me everywhere. If I did, that's where this eBook would be perfect.

Speaking from personal experience, this is a cool device, does not feel cheap, does have great battery life, does enable you to read PDF's and thus books from about any download site, and it does support playing sound files though it's tiny speaker of head phones. It supports hyperlinks, graphics for graphical novels, and thus it is great for folks who like to read, and it's about the same size and weight as a paper back book.

So there is a lot of upside. Just missing a light to read by which prevents it from being great, IMO.

I've been drooling over these for a while. I actually went out of my way an hour to see one of these, with sample docs on an SD cards to see the output without having the prepeped docs as samples.

For reading Novels, this is amazing. I was hoping to use it as a reference library. where I can create my own PDFs from web sites and technical material. A search feature would be nice but if its reference material you already have read once before (network diagrams, configuration lists etc.) it not really necessary. For use as a reference library I found the time it takes to change pages a little slow. Please note that was for the first version.

I really hope they speed up the refresh rate. For PDF files that are premade by a vendor to be letter size. the reducing of the doc to see the entire page is little hard to read. If they in crease the size by an inch I would pick it up.

I have one, and they are great for reading eBooks. I don't know what everyone's complaints are, the thing reads like a book and has a one touch page turning capability as well as bookmark functions. I agree the extra memory is useless, since they already have an SD card slot, and an eBook is like 1 MB. Also, it DOES do PDFs. I'd prefer ppl not flame the product if they haven't used it before.

when these have wi-fi and can also read my email and bring up a web site (or obtain the daily paper in the morning before i wake up) i might be interested.

Let's see, no support for MacBooks means no purchase from me! is there a reason as to why sony would not support OSX?

I own a Sony e-Reader and rather enjoy it. It's a great device for traveling. It does support PDFs but as mentioned before not as well as other formats. It supports RTF and plain text too. I have converted ton of word docs to RTF and load them up on an external memory card. It doesn't have a light built in and that is fine. The eInk material is just like paper. The books I buy at the book store don't have lights built in. I use a lamp or my mini book light. I prefer it that way since it uses now power while reading. It is after all a passive electronic device until you turn the page. I wish it didn't have MP3 support. It's just a feature I don't need. I'm glad it doesn't have wi-fi or anything like that. It's a simple device that does what it is supposed to do very well.

My only big complaint with it is that I'm asked to turn it off while on a plane flight until they say it is okay to use electronic devices. I wish someone would lobby to get that rule changed for e-readers that use eInk technology.

I've purchased books from the Connect store and found the experience to be pretty good. It's not even close to as good as iTunes, but I can understand why Sony hasn't invested that much in it yet with a smaller user base.

I'm looking forward to trying out the new model. I wish they had some sort of upgrade program.

I have a 500 and I'm happy with it, I like being able to load it up with a ton of books, and it taking up less space and weight as the real books would.

I have one of the PRS-500s. It does handle PDFs, BUT does not readably display an 8.5x11 PDF. If you have access to the original material, or if the PDF is unlocked, you may be able to reformat it to fit the Reader's screen. If not, the PDF will show up, but the text will be too small to read. As to the textbook idea...you can't annotate or highlight text on the reader (no user input ability, so no word search, either). That said, carrying around a small library is great for travel. I'd buy more electronic editions...if they came with a hard-copy edition I could also put on my shelf. When forced to choose, for a book I really want, the hard-copy wins.

@himself:

so a pdf file is useless on it? I need it for my school texts. Right now I converted them all to jpg and am viewing them on my psp.

Maybe i'll just go to sony store and test drive it.

I'm not sure how many times some of you have to be told, but back-lighting is the reason your eyes feel strained after reading a book on a PDA for hours and hours. Sony did not include back-lighting, not because they were being cheap, but because they want to simulate a paper book using e-ink technology and to reduce eye strain.

I have the "old" version and everyone always comments on how neat it looks when I whip it out to read one of the dozens of books I have on it. The only negative comment I received was from a group of old men who were wearing nasty flannel. "What's wrong with a real book?" they whispered amongst themselves.

I muttered under my breath, "Nothing, but I can cary more than 2 books in my relatively small man-bag using an electronic gadget that does not cause eye strain." Go me!!

as a graduate student, i'd *love* to have this. but, uh, yeah . . i'm a grad student. :-(

@berribrand: I disagree. Try reading a book in a poorly lit room or train for a few hours. Then use a back lit E-book and try again. I'm not saying the backlight is essential or even helpful in all lighting conditions, but it should be an option.

Have you ever play hours of games on the original Gameboy Advance with no backlight? How about the original Nintendo DS? What about the DS lite? Would you say the original caused the least eye strain, the new DS a bit more, and the DS lite the worst eye strain because it had the most intense backlight? That doesn't match up with my personal experiences.

@Ishred -- PDFs are NOT useless on it. It's just that a PDF formatted for an 8.5x11 page displays in very very tiny letters. Maybe your eyes are better than mine. If you have a document, and you want to make a PDF that is (roughly) 4x6 and 12-14 point type, it works just fine. I've done this with several Project Gutenburg books. I haven't tried it with RTF, but I would imagine that RTF needs the same screen aspect ratio for the page (4x6) for the text to come out readable. No more problem with eyestrain than you'd get from a book-book. There is no flicker. It is "electronic paper."

What's the resolution on these things? I saw one once and it looked quite high res.

My wife absolutely LOVES her e-reader. It's PDF support is the fault of the letter sized pdf pages. But if you get a program like PDF ripper that coverts pdfs to text they'll display just fine. As for the eye strain comments, my wife has lousy eyesight and she suffers no ill effects after reading for hours on end. I do have to say the battery life is less than expected, and the lack of a back light (can e-ink be back lit?) are truly downfalls. Other than that, it's an excellent gadget.

Someone should release textbooks for them, that'd boost their sales immensely.

I read Neil Stephenson's entire Baroque Cycle on my T1 Palm Pilot. I love ebooks & readers. I would buy Sony's reader in a heartbeat save for only one thing: Price.

The price is too dear. It should be $150, tops. It's not like I can run a spreadsheet on it, Sony, & other $300 devices can. And read books, too.