Sony has recently released their Reader (original name) ebook device. Ebooks are not new. A few years ago RocketBook was a ebook hopeful, that while it was well designed using the technology available at the time, it disappeared because of costs of the hardware and the ebooks. In addition weight, battery life and legibility of the screen were lacking. However, I like the concept.
Sony's new product looks very promising from a technology point of view. It uses eInk technology that provides a high contrast sharp display viewable in direct sunlight at a 180 degree angle. It weighs 9 ounces. The battery last 4 hours or 7,500 page turns. It is smaller than many paperbacks measuring at 7x5 inches and is only half an inch thick. Unfortunately it only comes with 64 MB of RAM. With the price of RAM being so low Sony could have easily included at least a gigabyte of RAM. I recently bought some 512 MB flash drives for $11.50 each. It does have a memory card slot and supposedly the 64 MB can hold 80 average size books. Since the display is black and white, you'll really only looking at text, not graphics or video. The device can view Jpegs and Adobe PDF's, as well as, playback non-DRM MP3 and ACC audio files (headphones not included).
Sony has a very iTunes like online store called CONNECT eBooks (who comes up with these lame names) that allows you to easily shop for thousands of books and download them to the Reader. I wonder if Apple will sue over look and feel of the store interface?
The big negative about the product is that it costs $350. The eInk technology is new and hopefully the price will come down when it is adopted by more manufacturers. But for $300 you can buy a Palm TX handheld with 128 MB and a 320 x 480 color screen that not can an display ebooks but also videos and photos, as well as web sites and your email via it's WiFi or Bluetooth network connections. For ebooks to catch on and become more wide spread, the reader needs to either do more or be a lot cheaper, say $300 cheaper. Better, bundle it with a online book club subscription or other promotion. For $350 I could buy a 80 GB Video iPod and purchase audio books and be able to store all of my music many times over.
(Disclaimer: I worked for Sony Electronics for 5 years as a techincal support specialist and then as a knowledgebase developer. I left on good terms and generally like Sony products, especially their digital cameras. However, I do feel that they often charge a premium price for their products and that they really missed the boat in the MP3 player market years ago by charging too much and trying to push their own ATRAC audo file format.)