If you’re lucky enough to live in the U.S. then you have plenty of options when it comes to a dedicated eBook reader. For those of us from Europe however, the pickings are much slimmer. That is until now!
In case you’ve been living under a log – come this Thursday we in the UK will have our very own Sony Reader Digital Book (PRS-505)!!
According to the SonyStyle.co.uk website; they will start shipping the new Readers on the 4th September 2008. The regular shipping takes 5 working days but pay an extra £13 and you’ll receive it within 24 hours. Just think, you could be reading on your very own Sony Reader this weekend!
What do you get for your £199 (+ shipping)
I’m sure you all know the details by now so I’ll be very brief;
- 6″ E-Ink paper like reading screen
- Space enough for 160 books (10,000+ if you use the memory slots)
- 6,800 continuous pages turns (avg. users may charge just once every 2 weeks!)
And What About Books?
- Tens of thousands of bestsellers from the Sony Book Store and Waterstones (plus many others websites.)
- 100,000+ Free public domain books via sites like Project Gutenberg (H.G. Wells, Jane Austin, Alexandre Dumas, etc.)
Now, if you’re thinking about ordering a Reader from the Sony website why not use my link below. By clicking on this link I will get a chance to win my very own PRS-505! Yep, those great people at SonyStyle.co.uk are running a competition and for me to be in with a chance of winning, I just need to place their link on my website and hope some of you lovely people will click it before ordering.
If I do win, I will however be putting the Reader to good use – I am currently developing tools to convert the Project Gutenberg txt eBooks to the ePub format and expect to start releasing them for free on ePubBooks.com before the end of the year. Having a Reader to test them on will be a big benefit! So…[link removed]
What About Other European Countries?
As the title of this post indicated, it seems the UK is not the only country that will be receiving a Reader release this year. MobileRead.com user doctorow posted on the site that perhaps Germany will also be getting their own Reader before the year is out. According to Spiegal.de (written in German) they have spoken with Sony Germany and there are plans for a release there. Perhaps an announcement will be made during this year Frankfurt Book Fair.
There is also speculation that France will follow suite before the year is out.
UPDATE: We’re now hearing that Waterstones book shops in Amsterdam and Brussels will be stocking the Sony Reader.
This could be an interesting year for us Europeans.
There is a clue in the design of the box that the Sony Reader arrives in as sold in Exeter UK Waterstones. Equal display space for English, French and German.
Also there is some French on the back, something about the danger of listening to music at loud volume I think. Why this is not in English and German as well is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps they have health and safety legislation in France that companies believe in.