prs-500
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Sony offering ePub upgrade / trade-in program for PRS-500 e-reader
Sony's already made its commitment to the ePub e-book format fairly clear, but it does still have a lingering problem with some older e-book readers that don't support the format. While some of those are beyond hope, the company does now have an upgrade available for the PRS-500, although it's not quite as simple as you may hope. Turns out you actually have to send your reader in to Sony to receive the firmware update, which is completely free of charge and should take less than 14 days. For those looking to make a clean break with the past, however, Sony is also offering a trade-in program for the PRS-500, which will give you either $50 or $75 off the new Reader Pocket or Touch editions. Hit up the link below for complete details on both options.
Amazon's Kindle gets display transplant, Sony Reader acts as donor
Oh sure, we've seen a limited number of hacks surface for the hotly selling (but still unsightly) Amazon Kindle, but we've yet to see a hardware mod of this magnitude. We've always heard that desperate times call for desperate measures, and evidently said mantra is very true. After having the display in his Kindle smashed around 8 months ago (thanks, kid sister...), blakebevin set out to perform an unprecedented surgery. With an unwanted Sony Reader LCD in hand and a badly broken Kindle on the operating table, he attempted to give the latter unit new life with a few pixels from a cross-town rival. We'll warn you -- this one's not for the rookies in attendance, and even Mr. Bevin (it is Mr. Bevin, right?) had some "nagging button issues" once the thing was sewn back up. Give the read link a look if you ever find yourself in this admittedly peculiar situation.
The 2006 Engadget Awards: Vote for Handheld of the Year
Now's your chance to cast your ballot for the 2006 Handheld of the Year! (For reference: yeah, we're including UMPCs in the Handhelds category.) Our Engadget Awards nominees are listed below, and you've got until 11.59PM EST on Sunday, April 15th to file your vote. You can only vote once, so make it count, and may the best tech win! The nominees: Asus R2H, Pepper Pad 3, Samsung Q1P, Sony Mylo, Sony Reader PRS-500, and Sony VAIO UX280P. %Poll-305%
STAReBOOK e-book reader to hit China, US next month
We're still not sure exactly how successful this whole eBook thing will be. That said, if you believe Sony, "overwhelming demand" delayed the release of the PRS-500 until November, meaning that surely people will be rushing the streets to get their paws on an eBook. However if you don't want to wait until Sony gets its act together, you may want to check out Staretek's "STAReBOOK e-book reader," which is slated to be released for $440 in November, with two Chinese versions and one in English. MobileRead tells us that this new e-reader will bring a 6-inch SVGA 800 x 600 four-color grayscale e-ink display, 250MHz Samsung processor, 64MB SDRAM, USB 2.0, mono speaker, and it all runs on Linux 2.4.1 (including an MP3 player, apparently). If Staretek plays its cards right, it may just be able to stave off some of Sony's frustrated masses before they turn into an unruly mob.
Sony Portable Reader delayed (again) due to "overwhelming demand"
When you're looking forward to a new product from our old friend Sony these days, unfortunately, it seems that you can't really depend on playing around with said device until it's actually in your hands and you've verified that it's not some cheap knockoff. After the PS3, BDP-S1, and PRS-500 delays, you can't blame us for being a little jaded when it comes to the stated release dates from this venerable Japanese consumer electronics firm, and now it looks like the company's highly-anticipated (by us, anyway) e-book reader will once again miss its targeted shipping window. As we reported last week, the six-inch PRS-500 was set to hit stores "on or before" October 31st, yet the device's page on SonyStyle now claims that "due to overwhelming demand, new Sony Portable Reader orders will ship mid November." Translation: "You'll be lucky if you get yours in time for the holidays, even though we've had ten months to gauge demand and manufacture enough Readers for everyone." C'mon Sony, we like to spread our gadget allowance out over the whole year, but it seems that you'd rather have us blow our whole wad in November and be done with it -- well, we'll still buy all the shiny new toys that you shove in front of us, although we'll be a lot less smiley about it from now on.[Thanks, Joshua H.]
Sony Reader PRS-500 gets launch date, price
We told you it wasn't too far off from release this morning when we showed you our hands-on shots of the device, and now Sony has made good on our promise by finally giving us a price and launch date for their Sony Reader PRS-500. Sony is bringing this one in "on or before" October 31st for $350, and is currently accepting pre-orders at their online store. It sure took them long enough, but we're glad they didn't slip on that $350 pricepoint. As for specs -- in case you haven't managed to pick them up by now -- the E Ink unit sports a 6-inch display with 170 pixels per inch of 4-level grayscale action. There's also 7,500 page turns of battery life, and while we're not quite sure we're ready to get locked into Sony's latest proprietary DRM in the form of BBeB, we're sure we can find plenty of use for unit between the other document formats supported and the repeated self-congratulating viewings of our own RSS feeds.
Sony's PRS-500 e-book reader in the wild
Speaking of the future, we always thought that by the 21st century we'd all have digital pads to read stuff on, instead of these old-fashioned analog "books." Well, that's what Sony's betting on with its PRS-500, anyway, which has just been spotted in the wild for the first time -- in the hands of none other than Phillip Torrone of MAKE magazine (and Engadget) fame. We'd previously reported that this $350-ish e-book reader was going to be delayed (again), but that somehow it would be shipping in time for "the holidays." Given Sony's other problems of late, though, we wouldn't be surprised if the company was referring to our next summer holiday. Remember, regular ol' books may be low-tech, but at least they don't explode. Keep reading for another snap, and then head over to MAKE for the full lowdown...
Sony's PRS-500 eBook reader subject to another delay
First off, contrary to the beliefs of certain commenters, we absolutely do not hate Sony -- we just think that after the infamous PS3 and BDP-S1 Blu-ray delays, the company would want to do everything possible to make sure that another highly-anticipated product doesn't fall into the same cycle. Yet that's exactly what we're seeing with the upcoming PRS-500 eBook reader first announced at CES -- originally scheduled for a spring release before slipping to a summer time frame -- whose launch has now been pushed back once again to sometime this fall. According to an email Sony sent out to potential customers -- wisely thanking them for their patience -- the e-ink-based Reader will now be shipping "in time for the holidays," which hopefully doesn't refer to December 24th. Sample launch titles include Freakanomics and The Da Vinci Code, although by the time you can actually get your hands on the hardware, you'll probably have already read those books along with many of the other initial offerings. As much as we'd like to own one of these handy ~$350 devices -- and despite having no need whatsoever for a bunch of aviation documents -- we're pretty close to just biting the bullet and shelling out $900 for the eFlyBook version of iRex's iLiad that went on sale yesterday.[Thanks, Curt C. and Riley P.]
Sony's PRS-500 Portable Reader slips to Summer
Ahh, the site of burning man-pelts in the park, a sharp increase in aimlessness along 42nd street, and the volatilization of sidewalk excretions exhumed by the subway heat below... Spring in New York and and the unmistakable sign that Sony's PRS-500 Portable Reader is set to launch. Er, or so we were thought until we took another peep at the SonyStyle site which now features a "late Summer 2006" availability for the 6-inch, E Ink reader. Ah well, by then we may have lost our Reader jones after spending the summer in the Engadget Hamptons' hideaway listening to interns whisper verse from ancient texts.
