Sony Reader Digital Book Review

Sony Reader Digital Book Review Mike Agerbo: We’re always looking at the advanced business technology and the next one is coming in batch. You have seen and heard a lot of about E-book readers. Sony actually has a couple of different ones. We got Brent De Waal from Sony here to help us understand the new technology. Thanks for coming on the show. Brent: No problem! Mike Agerbo: People are going to be buying books electronically now. Is there market for this right now? Brent: Well, it is something that is emerging. I have one of these readers as soon as it came out I absolutely had to have it. I read a lot of books and what is great about the E-book readers is the instant gratification. You hear about a book on TV or you friend tells about it. You go online. You buy it and you have that book like five minutes later. Mike Agerbo: And that is a great question like are all the bestseller books available like right away or you have to wait a few weeks? Brent: There is really excellent catalogue. All the bestsellers come out at the same time. You're usually looking at a better price than even the best discounted book price and you give that price all the time even on older catalogue titles. Usually you know if you go to a store that does not carry that much but they’re quite inexpensive. You can always get a better price in that for your books. Mike Agerbo: Well, we have a couple of different models here. This one is PRS-505. Brent: Right, that is our original model very nice and thin. It uses the E-ink technology, fantastic battery life because it has display called E-ink. There is actually a tiny little ball in there that makes the pixel that is filled with little tiny black balls and as you change the page so if we advance the page here you can see how it will flash and once it does that it’s not using any power anymore to keep the display going. So the battery life is down in terms of H-turns. So on a full charge you would be able to turn the page 75,000 times. So really this makes like three or four weeks. I have taken this on vacation if you're away for a week. You’ve got 10 bucks and you never have to worry about it. Mike Agerbo: Well, that is the thing because you can put multiple books on this if you wanted to take 10 books with you on vacation or when you're traveling that is a lot of storage space for I mean they’re all this one little unit here. Brent: That is right. They have just a memory six slot and a security digital SD card slots so you can use those as well. Actually I have 400 books on mine and it is one-gig memory stick. Mike Agerbo: Wow! And what price range are you looking for this particular one? Brent: That is about 350 and we also have our 700 model which is a little more expensive, but it improves upon in, in a number of ways. One being a built-in backlight and touch screen. Mike Agerbo: Well, this one seems thicker and that’s obviously because of the backlight? Brent: That is right! The surface on the top here gives your touch screen with E-ink underneath and it is a little easier interface for a lot of people. You just touch it and you move around to the books as well you have got multiple fun sizes so if you press the magnification you get the line to make everything a large print. Mike Agerbo: Oh I see! Brent: So if you have someone who is eye sights going and this is a great way for them to get the latest bestseller without having to wait for special edition. Mike Agerbo: And this one again touch screen you could just kind of flick the pages. Brent: That is right, which is a really nice feature. Mike Agerbo: And just hitting the home button takes you back to the screen here so how many books can hold in this? How much memory they have in here? Brent: Generally, it is not that much memory. It is just under a couple 100 megs but you are looking at a book being less than a meg. So even with the built-in memory it is hundreds of books. Mike Agerbo: So this one here coming in around 500 dollars. Brent: That is right! Mike Agerbo: And you think people are ready to pay 500 dollars for? Brent: Well, the person who needs it has got to have it. Well if you travel, a lot or you like to read a lot series of authors you just want to be able to have more convenience around your reading. It is something that you know it is a little bit of investment out front but long term that you are really going to that pay dividends there. Mike Agerbo: And the two ways to get books in here that has got a USB connection or you can use the memory cards. Brent: That is right, and it does read all kinds of formats. It can read PDF, RTF’s, word file so anything you have in a book format. You can read on this as well like you have that Google it on the web that has all the public domain books, you have kids or an English Lit major. You can get all your books for free and just put them on directly through either those ways. Mike Agerbo: And people can find more information about this at Sony style? Brent: That is right! Mike Agerbo: Great! Brent de Waal from Sony talking about the latest in e-book readers.