Sony Reader pre-order now live in the UK, shipping in September

We Americans have had the opportunity to pick up Sony's Reader for what seems like eons, but you poor bookworms holed up in the UK have been neglected unjustly. No more, as Sony has just opened up the phone lines for folks eager to claim their spot in line the queue. No need in rehashing the specifications you already know -- it's still the same ole PRS-505, just way more expensive in US dollars.

[Via MobileRead, thanks Alex]

[Zeth Ethereal @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:01PM]

When will eBooks become affordable?

[Itsuru @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:20PM]

When they stop using up so much damn paper.

Wait...

[Zeth Ethereal @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:23PM]

.....so much toilet paper......... >_>

[Anthony @ Jul 23rd 2008 6:04PM]

How affordable do you want them? They have hundreds for just $5 & many more for less. New releases are generally reasonable (less than hardcover). If you mean free then you're SOL. Most of the cost of a book has nothing to do w/ the paper it's printed on- it's the royalties that it contains.

[weg @ Jul 24th 2008 5:59AM]

@Anthony: Not quite true. I just checked the WHSmith eBookShop. The book they announce on the first page, "Rogue" by Danielle Steel, costs GBP 12.54 as an eBook, but GBP 9.00 as a hardcover on Amazon.co.uk. And that's not the only example...
So, the current proposed business model seems to be that customers are supposed to pay a premium for their eBook reader, pay a price for the eBooks that's higher than the price for the corresponding paperback, and that customer's will have to accept DRM, i.e., at some point in the not so far future they won't be able to access the books they bought anymore. Great. The only reason why this clever model might not work is that the technology isn't good enough, yet, isn't it?

[rodman @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:07PM]

direct link for pre order please?

[kjb434 @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:13PM]

sheesh, learn to use google.

[Joe @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:31PM]

@kjb434: You wasted your breath telling people what to do instead of just giving the information requested. I Googled (on your suggestion) and still can't find out where to pre-order or what the price will be.

Anyone else care to be more helpful?

[rodman @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:49PM]

http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/id/1216130668486

[hugoliva @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:08PM]

Just wait for spetember's esquire and some hacking, and you should get this for hundreds less.

[EricR @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:15PM]

My wife got this at Christmas last year. She loves it-- uses it all the time.

[retro77 @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:37PM]

Did she get the complimentary time travel device too?

[Jamma @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:21PM]

What is the US price? Since, (knowing Sony) it'll be the same number in £, and therefore double the US price

[rodman @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:45PM]

$299

[Alex @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:44PM]

I'm pretty sure I saw one of those on display in the Charing Cross Borders in London like, six months ago. I know I saw an e-reader, and I'm pretty sure it was the Sony. Weird.

[newmiyamoto @ Jul 24th 2008 6:33AM]

Borders carry the irex iliad

[Tronski @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:47PM]

Why single out Sony - besides which you part of the cost is made up of Import Duty for goods made outside the UK and VAT. So you can add a single digit import duty and then 17.5% on top of that. Whereas the US prices quoted never include sales tax which add between 0 and 7%. So whilst it doesn't exactly match up, it certainly accounts for a large chunk of the difference.

[Unknown @ Jul 23rd 2008 7:04PM]

How do you manage to stand *in* a line when a line is one dimensional?
You stand on a line.

[qrius @ Jul 23rd 2008 8:04PM]

I tested this out at a borders. Usability stinks. The page back/forward lags (perhaps a big book?) and overall the response time of the buttons were sluggish, so I found myself pressing all these buttons to no avail. ebook readers should be a lot simpler. Why can't I just tap a corner to make it go to the next page? (yes, I did try that).

anyways, I see market for this only for older folks who are not into mobile phones. I believe mobile phones will act as an ebook reader for the younger ones.

[Derigo @ Jul 23rd 2008 8:24PM]

I'm not sold on the looks. Man it looks ugly.

Though I'm not an Apple fanboi (Zune owner here), with the iPod Touch / iPhone now getting support from eReader, will it bite into this market?

[Phoenix @ Jul 23rd 2008 9:52PM]

Tiny sceen, tiny screen.

Well comparatively.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jul 23rd 2008 10:48PM]

Wait until the Apple iTablet gets announced. The Kindle and Sony Reader will immediately become redundant. eBooks and eMagazines will probably be offered on iTMS by then.

[Ayrkain @ Jul 24th 2008 1:58AM]

To a limited degree, they do compete, but it depends on your priorities. For instance, I can read a book on the iPhone, but after awhile I either have to deal with battery life or eye strain. e Ink readers look like paper, so they don't strain your eyes, and they only use electricity when turning pages, so their battery life is pretty long (measured in days/weeks, not hours). For me, if I want to read email or an article on the go, it'd be on the iPhone, no doubt. But if I want to read a novel after I get home, it'd be on the Reader.

[Phoenix @ Jul 24th 2008 10:26AM]

@Steffen Jobs

If apple release an iTablet, it'll be a tablet computer. Read the comment above this to see why computer/phone screens are not suited to ebook reading.

Some kind of iReader might be a different kettle of fish, but I doubt that will happen.

[Chris @ Jul 24th 2008 1:32AM]

@qruis: The lag is a known issue with the way the device displays the print. It has to do a screen wipe before building the page. The next generation readers will be better. The Kindle, which uses a similar process is already faster than the Sony but the Kindle suffers (IMO) from fewer supported document options (Sony includes PDF support!).

[Tagbert @ Jul 26th 2008 12:06PM]

While it is true that the Kindle only supports direct reading of azw, mobi, prc, txt, jpg, gif, & mp3 files, Amazon provides both free manual and low-cost automatic conversion and delivery of pdf, doc, rtf, htm, and other formats.

[Nystagmos @ Jul 24th 2008 4:49AM]

Pre-order is at Waterstones, £199. http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=6337796

[Josh @ Jul 24th 2008 11:41AM]

One of the problems with Kindle, according to this article: http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id=139702&f_src=flffour are the lack of an extensive library, the cost and the inability to access web content like weblogs.

[Tagbert @ Jul 26th 2008 12:16PM]

Josh,

That article is from a few days after the Kindle came out. There was a lot of incomplete and inaccurate information posted then and much of what was true then has changed in the mean time.

As of today, the Amazon Kindle store offers 146,393 Kindle books for sale. That is up about 20K over last month. In addition there are many other sites out that that offer lots of ebooks, many free. These are often available in formats suitable for both the Kindle and the Sony Reader.

The price is now down to $360. The Kindle can read most blogs using its web browser. Amazon does offer a fee-based service to deliver blog articles directly to your Kindle as new entries are published. The advantage is this kind of push delivery that is faster to access. Probably not the most compelling feature for most people, but some will appreciate the convenience.