Sony announces PRS-700 Reader with touchscreen

Sony's plan to launch an updated Reader today wasn't exactly a secret, but there are still some surprises to the new PRS-700 -- particularly the new six-inch touchscreen E-Ink display. Page turning is now accomplished by a swipe motion with faster refreshes, and there's a stylus and on-screen keyboard for searching and note-taking -- plus an LED reading light (not a backlight) for reading in the dark. Apart from that, it's basically the same deal as the PRS-505 -- internal storage for about 350 ebooks with SD and MS-Duo expansion and a 7500 page-turn battery life round out the package, as well as an updated online store. Of course, there's no Kindle-killing integrated wireless for the $400 price tag, but it'll be interesting to see how they stack up when the PRS-700 hits shelves next month.

[AaronCamp Posted Oct 3rd 2008 8:42AM]

Am I the only one reading on my cell phone?
I have been 99% exclusive to ebook reading for going on 5 years now. I read 5-6 novels a month on average, mainly scifi and fantasy, but some best sellers as well. I read them on my TREO. Have since the 600.....650....700....800. I can scale the font up so its easily readable and it goes EVERYWHERE with me. Stuck in line....read a book, business meeting putting me to sleep, pull out the phone and it looks like I am responding to an urgent email while....I read a book.

I like the idea of a kindle or sony reader, but I dont want to carry it everywhere all the time, and I already do that with my phone. Maybe I am just odd......For me its about convenience, and I carry my phone on my hip all the time already, so the drawbacks (small screen) are FAR outweighed by that fact alone.

Someone please speak up and tell me I am not alone!

[Plothole Posted Oct 3rd 2008 2:04PM]

I tried reading on my Smartphone, but the small screen was enough to make it unbearable for me.

Then there's also the fact that I sometimes like to read on my deck, which I can't really do with an LCD device. EInk on the other hand shows up brilliantly in sunlight.

[Jay Evans Posted Oct 3rd 2008 9:45AM]

"Search, annotation, and highlighting capabilities
The Reader Digital Book features annotation, highlighting, and search applications that heighten your reading experience. You can easily make annotations in your digital book with the virtual keyboard or highlight text you want to remember by selecting it with a stylus pen or with the touch of your finger. You can even search for text on your Reader with the virtual keyboard or by highlighting text."

Sounds to me like Sony wants to break into the college text book market.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 3rd 2008 9:46AM]

Awesome - built in light, that gets recharged, will definetly help my bills as well... I love it.

I also love my PRS-505, it will be hard to part with it.

p.s. you can get many books on other ebook sites that reader is compatible with and sony store has been improved as well.

Not to mention that you can get Calibre and load anything you want to the reader...

[weg Posted Oct 3rd 2008 9:57AM]

I'm not sure whether there are other people reading ebooks on the Treo, but there are certainly some people who've the same kind of spirit as you, e.g., this guy crossing the ocean in a bathtub: http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20080813174358ymnews.html

[TMC Posted Oct 3rd 2008 10:26AM]

Ship it to Europe. Christ! whats taking them so long... sony readers have been awailable in the US for what... 2 years now?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 3rd 2008 4:03PM]

Got a PRS-505 last week, in the UK they just came out. Made all the comparisons with other devices as you'd expect, and I love it. Definitely get Calibre software to transfer most format to the thing, a a 2Gb SD card and you have a great product. I love books, but I also love reading. I know that sounds weird, but I bought Anathem by Neal Stephenson when it came out, and that was the final straw, too damn heavy to read in bed or on the train. So I just went out and bought the PRS (for 40% of the UK price from a US ebook retailer I might add) I still own some fantastic books, but I do all my reading on this now.

Also, for those of you who don't know, Project Gutenberg has thousands of free, out of copyright books to download.

Another also is the current trend for writers (like Charles Stross and Neil Gaiman, to mention but two) to put their books online for a limited time, or even permanently, to stimulate interest. And it works.

I wish I'd waited a couple of weeks until this announcement came out, but the 505 was only released in the UK 3 weeks ago. Who knew they'd be throwing a new one out so soon? Looks like Europe is the clearance house for old US tech. Damn you Sony!!!!

still w00t though :)

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 3rd 2008 11:35PM]

I want the best e-reader available that will do .pdf files. I've got a ton of stuff, but it's hard on the eyes reading on the PC monitor. Guess I'll check this thing out. Hopefully it will come with an AC adapter. Maybe Santa Claus'll be good to me this year. :)

[TMC Posted Oct 4th 2008 4:08AM]

Go for http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000
Or wait for http://www.plasticlogic.com/product.html

[linuxamp Posted Oct 6th 2008 2:48AM]

FTA "you can easily transfer Adobe PDF documents with reflow capability" Does this mean PDF documents without reflow won't work or will be truncated?

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 24th 2008 6:37AM]

PDF's viewed without reflowing will display, but how they'll look will depend as to what display/page size they were designed for. If for a 6" display, then they'll be fine, else the text will appear rather small - like printing 2-up - whether it's too small depends on the PDF. The reflow support resizes the text to a more normal size, but will loose formatting much of the formatting, which may or may not matter.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 21st 2008 10:19AM]

It's nice, but totally worthless to me because it doesn't work with a Mac.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 24th 2008 6:26AM]

Actually, it appears as a generic USB device, so has no problems with a Mac. Again, see Calibre (third-party, cross-platform open-source app) if you want an app to manage your books, although you can just copy them across.

The Sony software to buy from their store is Windows-specific, but there are a /lot/ of other places to get books for it from - personally I get more from Baen, but either way, the device is OS-neutral.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 30th 2008 4:09PM]

prs-700 and russian fonts

http://reader-sony.ru/

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 9:39PM]

I spent so long to get an ebook reader that fits in my pocket so I can carry them around and read whenever I want. For novels only, of course. Sadly, all ebook readers I can find on the net try to emulate a paperback size. If I don't mind carrying something the size of a paperback, I'd probably carry the paperback itself - with the paper smell and all, that'd be better. So this is what I am confused about: are all these readers built for portability, or for carrying a lot of books?
I guess I will have to keep on with my old 3.6" PDA (the newer PDAs have tiny screens) and that's already at its end of life. Maybe when that expires, I'd have to move entirely to the PSP for reading (pocketable). I wish Sony would come up with a reader app for that instead of having to go to homebrew... sigh.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 9:40PM]

Ah! As I was writing the comment just now, I realized the keyword is "pocket". Wow, I think I've found my answer: http://www.readius.com/ Rollable display! Just like the one I was day-dreaming of designing (yeah... daydreaming...)