Originally published February 23 2006
Sony Reader makes e-books more readable
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Sony Reader uses E Ink technology, which conserves batteries and also makes the material easier to read. The display looks more like ordinary paper and has no flicker because the pixels are static.
Electronic books have traditionally gone straight from the manufacturer to the remainders bin -- but the market has never gone away entirely, despite years of tepid sales and failed predictions.
Some people are even wondering whether the Sony Reader might be just the ticket to kick the e-book market into high gear.
Scheduled to go on sale this spring for between $300 and $400, the Reader is a compact slab about the size of a small paperback book (5-by-7 inches, and a half-inch thick).
The result is a display that looks far more like ordinary paper than a liquid crystal display, because the pixels reflect ambient light rather than transmit light from behind.
The E Ink technology also conserves batteries because current is used only when pixels need to change their color -- between virtual page turns, the Reader consumes no current at all.
Its batteries will last for about 7,500 pages, according to Sony.
Even though an estimated 65 percent of new books are already available in electronic form, e-book sales still lag far behind those of printed books.
According to the trade group International Digital Publishing Forum, e-book sales in 2004 totaled $9.6 million and will probably have topped $15 million in 2005 (final figures for last year aren't yet available).
Meanwhile, overall printed book sales for 2004 were $23.7 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers.
"The problem was that the devices weren't very good, the screens were terrible, the prices were too high and there was a terrible selection of content," said Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at JupiterResearch, a market research company.
By contrast, Gartenberg said, the Sony Reader is small and readable enough to interest consumers.
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