Torn Between Two Lovers: the Red Sony Reader PRS-505 and the New PRS-700

Posted on 09 October 2008, at 7:08 pm, by Judie Lipsett

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Last week Mike Cane attended the Sony Reader PRS-700 unveil in New York; while there he saw Dave Farrow, the world renowned speed reader who is also a Guinness World Record holder. Mike had the opportunity to get some face time with a few of the very Sony people he has criticized in his past blog posts.

Before I mention Mike’s impressions of the PRS-700, I have to tell you about one of the brief meetings he had with the Sony execs, because it was epic:

Then someone entered our proximity and was told it was Me. And that person was none other than Steve Haber, He Who Is Now eBooks At Sony:

Haber made it a point to tell me he had read the post in which I called for his firing(!). I stood my ground. He stood his. ~~Malcolm summoned Security to eject me.~~

I can honestly say that I laughed out loud while reading that. You have to understand that not very many people even know what Mike looks like; he is more secretive than a secret agent! That these Sony guys saw Mike – and lived to tell about it – means he must have liked them – or at least the product they were introducing, which turns out to be exactly what happened.

Mike has been writing about the elusive red Reader he’s been lusting over for some time, but now that 505 has competition: the PRS-700. As he writes about the unveiling:

I have to say at this point I felt like I had slipped into an alternate universe. When the first image of the new PRS-700 was shown on-screen, my immediate reaction was, Where are the buttons?!

And then Haber mentioned the touchscreen. What?! Touchscreen?! Where did that come from?! And a Sony representative demonstrated paging through an ebook by swiping her finger on the screen itself!

Mike has broken the evening and his Reader impressions into several parts, all worth reading. At the end, he has to decide whether he will stay with his original choice of the red PRS-500, or if he will go with the sexy new lady in black – the PRS-700.

Will I buy one? I want a Sony Reader. But my head is all bollixed now. I love the red 505. But if I were to buy it and strangely discover that I want to read in the dark or in lighting too dim to bring out the eInk contrast, I’d have to spring some $60.00 or so more for the light wedge cover. That puts the total price within exhaling distance of the 700! And the 700 offers not just the built-in sidelighting but the giant leap in software too!

Mike almost makes me want the Reader…almost. What would it take to make me pull the trigger? For Sony to do the same thing that the iPhone has done…provide eReader support. Give me that – and the ability to download over the air, and then you can consider me SOLD.

Link: Sony Reader PRS-700 Part One
Link: Sony Reader PRS-700 Part Two
Link: Sony Reader PRS-700 Part Three

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