ReaderDailyEdition
Latest
Sony Reader Daily Edition (PRS-950SC) now shipping for $299
Just a couple of months after Sony refreshed its longstanding Reader Daily Edition, that very product is now shipping to the masses. 'Course, you're probably laser-focused on Hanvon's new color E Ink device on tap for next March, but if you just can't wait for that bad boy -- and you're not interested in any of the LCD-based alternatives -- the PRS-950SC is now available in stores and through SonyStyle. As a refresher, this guy's got a 7-inch touchscreen, WiFi and 3G, a spartan web browser and 2GB of integrated storage space. All yours for a buck under $300.
Sony Reader Daily Edition reviewed: unworthy of cost premium or love
For all the fuss made at its launch back in August, Sony's Reader Daily Edition has all but dropped off the map in terms of interest. Remember, Sony's response to the Kindle gave us a 7-inch touchscreen device with free AT&T 3G data for a street price of $399. Now we've got a proper in-depth review of the thing. On the plus side, the interface is simple and easy to understand right out of the box with nice, oversized icons suitable for your meat digit manipulation. Unfortunately, the Daily Reader was also sluggish. According to Laptop, it was common to suffer a delay of a few seconds after tapping an icon or other interface item. Worse yet, about a third of the time the Daily Reader's touchscreen display wouldn't respond to taps or swipes at all. Conversely, page turns responded with a relatively snappy (for E-Ink) one second delay -- faster than both the Nook or the Kindle. The EPD display was also a bit "dull" compared to non-touchscreen e-readers like the Kindle and Nook thanks to the additional screen layer that enables touch -- a common issue that affects all touch-enabled e-readers, we might add. This resulted in some eye strain in medium to low light. Connectivity also proved a sore spot. AT&T's network would inexplicably drop out during testing. It was plenty fast, however, when available, capable of delivering new books to the device in just seconds. Performance still lagged both the Kindle and Nook during comparison testing though. Laptop's verdict isn't surprising then, finding the $140 premium you'll pay for the Daily Reader difficult to justify compared to the EPUB supporting Nook or Kindle 2 with its better design and superior content selection. It's worth noting that Laptop did not test the Daily Reader's library finder services that lets you check out e-books from the local branch for free for a period of up to a month. A shame; as library nerds we think that's one of the killer features compared to the competition.
Sony Reader Daily Edition starts shipping, gets more newspapers
Sony hedged its bets a bit in committing to ship date for its Reader Daily Edition when it first announced it, but it looks like it's managed to get the first ones out the door on the early end of its December 18th to January 8th estimate, with the initial batch of pre-orders shipping today. Unfortunately, anyone that didn't pre-order the e-reader is out of luck for the time being, as it's now back-ordered with a new estimated ship date of January 15th. In related news, Sony has also announced that it's signed up an additional 16 publications that will be offering wirelessly-delivered subscriptions on the Daily Edition, including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Baltimore Sun, and The Denver Post. None of those are exclusive to Sony, however, unlike the News Corp-owned publications that were announced last week.
