Sony the makers of the significantly more ascetically pleasing, yet less useful Sony Reader have finally announced their come back to the Amazon Kindle and Kindle DX.
Sony announced today their Fall lineup of e- readers. Starting with the $199 “pocket edition” which is basically their classic e-reader with new colors including navy blue, silver and rose. Available today. Sync’s via your computer or load content via SD or Memory Stick.
The next model up is the $299 Sony Reader Touch Edition, which has a 6” touch panel for reading content, something disparately needed on the Amazon Kindle. It also allows for note taking and highlighting with the use of the included stylus. (stylus not required for basic operation) Available today.
The granddaddy is the $399 Sony Reader Daily Edition which sports a 7” touch screen, free wireless access to new books and content via AT&T’s 3g wireless network. Also can sync’s via your computer or load content via SD or Memory Stick. Available in December.
All three readers support PDF, EPUB, MS Word Documents, BBeB, and other text formats.
But here is the really interesting thing they are kicking off today along with the hardware announcement.
Support for local libraries. Sony is partnered with overdrive.com to allow lending of books via your local library. You can put in your zipcode and the Sony Reader will direct you to the closest public library where you can borrow books (for free) to read on your reader.
Here is the kicker though, they are loaders and the books will “expire” in 21 days, No need to return them, and no late fees but even if the 21 days ends while you mid sentence your book may poof disappear.
Also Libraries will be required to purchase a number of licenses for each title, it’s those licenses that are actually loaned out so it’s possible that the book you want to borrow on your Sony Reader will not be available when you want it. Just like a real book.
It’s an odd concept for digital media but, it makes sense in a classic analog sort of way.
It would be interesting to see the same concept offered to consumers, where I could loan out a book I own by loaning out the license to a friend for a set amount of time. Thus allowing them to read the book, and at the same time I could not view the book because the license was in use elsewhere.
It would take a bit of doing for a central database to keep track of all that stuff, but it’s a very interesting concept for digital media in general.
I hat to say it, since I usually recoil at the thought of any Sony product but… Sony might have done something right here.
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