Here at the Canadian Reviewer we are big believers in the possibilities of E-ink technology and eBook and eReader devices like Sony’s Personal Reader System and Amazon’s infuriatingly Insular and unavailable Kindle. These devices do one thing simply and well, they allow you to carry and read hundreds of books in electronic format – saving entire forests of tress and cutting down substantially on packaging, transport and storage resources. We’re happy to report that Sony is taking this initiative seriously – slowly adding more content to its eReader store (still limited to US and Canada based users with stores in France and England opening up soon) and it continues to launch new devices.
More on the Sony Reader after the jump.
The latest Sony Reader, named the PRS-700, integrates touch controls for navigating pages, the ability to highlight text as well as make notes with a stylus. It also comes with a built in reading light which illuminates the surface in those less-than optimal lighting situations. At US $399, it is a hundred dollars more expensive than the current model, the PRS-505, which we have in our labs and have been using extensively.
In other news, Amazon’s next Kindle device has been leaked in a series of pictures. The new Kindle seems to have improved on certain aspects like the built-in keyboard but is still awkward. Amazon’s big win is that its device works wirelessly so you can buy books without a computer, its biggest failure is that it is only enabled for US users so even if it has access to more books it still serves a limited amount of users and does not have a global presence.
We advocate electronic books, their portability, reduced footprint and cheaper prices. We only hope this movement gains ground as people begin to see the value of eco-friendly book production.
