Sony said that it will start selling two new electronic readers by the end of this month, which are expected to compete with Amazon’s Kindle device. The Reader Pocket Edition is priced at $199, while the Reader Touch Edition is priced at $299.
According to Sony, the Reader Pocket Edition sports a five-inch electronic paper display and comes with a choice of different colours, including navy blue, rose and silver. It can store about 350 standard eBooks and provides for up to two weeks of reading on a single battery charge.
The Reader Touch Edition features a menu-driven six-inch touch screen panel that enables intuitive navigation, page turning, highlighting and note taking with the swipe of a finger or by using the stylus pen. It comes with a choice of red, black or silver colours and has expansion slots for both Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD card. It also includes an onboard Oxford American English Dictionary.
Sony said, its eBook Library software 3.0, which now includes support for many Apple Macintosh computers as well as PCs, allows users to transfer and read any Adobe PDF (with reflow capability), Microsoft Word, BBeB files, or other text file formats on the Reader.
Steve Haber, president of digital reading business division at Sony, said: We firmly believe consumers should have choice in every aspect of their digital reading experience. Our goal is to expand the market and provide greater access to what consumers want to read when they want to read it – whether they buy, borrow or get it for free.
Reportedly, through The eBook Store from Sony, users can also access more than one million free public domain books from Google. The company is also planning to reduce the price it charges for downloading new releases and best-sellers from $11.99 to $9.99.
