Sony schedules UK e-book store opening
Ready for new e-readers, tablets
Sony is to open its own e-book shop in the UK.
The Reader Store will allow owners of Sony's lastest Reader e-book viewer to buy content on the device itself.
The new Reader, the PRS-T1, was announced at the IFA consumer electronics show last week, and has Wi-Fi on board - the first time Sony has made an wirelessly connected Reader available over here.
The 6in, 600 x 800 E Ink screen device also sports a touchscreen and will retail for £120.
And the Reader Store will undoubtedly feature on the upcoming Tablet S, and both Mac and PC owners can access it too. We suspect it won't be long before it's running on Android on Sony Ericsson smartphones.
The Store will open in October with 100,000 titles, Sony claimed. It will also offer a selection of UK newspapers such as The Guardian and The Observer. It will also offer the Daily Mail. ®
COMMENTS
Not on my street!
Every day on the train, the carriage is full of Kindles. Far from being a dying technology, eInk is very much in demand thanks to Amazon. Their screens are far better than any OLED offering for reading books, and that's not likely to change any time soon.
If you've ever read books, there's no way you'd opt for a backlit screen on an e-Reader over an eInk one. It's just a silly choice. They are two completely different technologies designed to address vastly different problems.
Not so sure
The MEMS screens I've seen don't look as nice as e-ink and anybody who's ever used an e-ink based screen on a sunny beach will understand how much better the technology is than an LCD screen for this kind of application.
Last of a dying breed
I suspect that e-ink is on its last legs. Tech like Mirasol is likely to make e-ink look antiquated and it can't be long either before something appears to use it. Failing that I suspect most people would prefer OLED / LCD over e-ink even if the latter is more readable outdoors and uses less power.
On the subject of this device, I have a previous gen PRS-350 and it's amazing how much difference touch makes to e-readers. Most ereaders are festooned with buttons to speed up the sluggish UI, but IR touch works remarkably well and accurately. I don't know if wifi would do much except for people who want stuff delivered to their device automatically but it might allow Sony to make enough coin to subsidize the device to Amazon levels.
