The New Sony Reader and the Toshiba Flepia

When Sony finally released its updated Reader, the PRS-505 a few weeks ago (pictured at right), Peter N. Glaskowsky from CNet was one of the first happy reviewers to take a look at the new edition of this famous ebook device. He bought the new model to replace his old 1st generation Sony Reader (the PRS-500), and his write-up of the new version, which I recommend you read, shows he's pleased with the improvements. The new Reader boasts more onboard memory, a new interface button layout, and comes in one of two colors (silver or dark blue). What many people aren't aware of is that it's capable of MP3 playback (yes, both music and audiobooks!) and that you can mount it as a read/write drive by USB to either your Mac or PC, to drag folders of RTFs, PDFs, and other supported ebook formats onto the device. It also has both a Sony Memory Stick slot and a standard SD slot, giving you as much as 10GB of storage space. Sony Connect sells E-Reads titles for the Reader at just $8.99 a pop, or you can purchase our non-DRM Sony ebooks from Fictionwise. This Christmas, the Sony Reader is probably the best device deal, for under $300 at Best Buy.

Meanwhile, Toshiba has readied 2 new color ebook readers that represent an effort to break away from standard grayscale sooner rather than later. The Flepia, in either an A4 or an A5 size, is WiFi enabled and can display 4096 colors on its screen, but there are limitations... it takes about 10 seconds to redraw a screen (aka. flip a page) and bleeding edge technology doesn't come cheap. The problem stems from e-ink panel technology, which is based on creating a static image that does not refresh until you request it to do so, in order to conserve energy, and color technology in this realm is still percolating and expensive. When Toshiba showed a demo version of this technology over a year ago, it didn't blow many people away as much as it delivered a proof-of-concept device. The final versions Toshiba announced as Flepia models won't be available in North America, probably because color e-ink like this is still considered too expensive for our market. However, you can expect future ebook readers for the mass market to eventually incorporate color like the Flepia does.

- Michael