Amazon Kindle reader vs the Sony Reader. Battle of the readers
The battle of the giants, Sony eBook Reader and Amazon Kindle is fierce. As they are the biggest players on the eBook readers market, I was wondering which one is better? Why do i care? Because I’ve wanted one for so long, but they are not available in my country yet. Perhaps i should order them from Amazon, were the Amazon Kindle is $359 (now just $299) and the Sony eBook Reader costs $279.
Click the image above to find out more about the latest Kindle, with pics, reviews and the option to easily buy one of you want to
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UPDATE: In the mean time Amazon launched new and way improved products, the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. Also, Sony has new products too. Here you can read about the Kindle 2. Here you can read about the Kindle DX . And in this article you can find a comparison between the best readers at the moment (summer of 2009) .
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First Look : Sony Reader 1 – 0 Amazon Kindle
Amazon's first Kindle
From the beginning, there are two obvious advantages of the Sony Reader. The first one, is the price: Amazon Kindle is a hole $100 more expensive. And second, the design: Sony eBook Reader looks way better. It is more compact and really resembles a book, while the odd shape of the Kindle and it’s keyboard are just hideous. Now, it is true i am kind of a Sony fan (as a commenter noticed in my post with Christmas gadgets for men), but I’ll do my best to be impartial here.
Technical details: Sony Reader 1 - 1 Amazon Kindle
Both gadgets use the epaper technology for their displays. That means we’re talking about a high-resolution screen that looks like real paper and are economical and safe for the eye. Also, the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, both have the same size screen: 6 inches. So, from this point of view, these things are similar.
The Sony eBook reader has an internal storage space of 192 MB and can use Memory stick/ SD cards. The Amazon Kindle can use SD cards too, but there’s no mention about an internal ROM memory (there has to be one though)…
Amazon are trying to beat Sony by introducing wireless Internet connectivity on their ebook reader. The Kindle does not use Wi/fi, but EVDO, the high-speed data network also used by cell phones. That means you’ll have a great Internet coverage, as long as you don’t go somewhere in no man’s land… Sony eBook Reader on the other side has no Internet connectivity yet. Perhaps on the 3rd generation…
Daily usage: Sony Reader 2 - 1 Amazon Kindle
Sony Reader was better then the Kindle
It seems to me Amazon stuffed some interesting technology inside their Kindle but forgot about its main function: it’s an ebook reader, not else. So, what will you say when you’ll find out the gadget does not support Adobe PDF files, RTF and DOCs. That’s because it uses a specific file format. Of course, you might be able to convert your DOCs and PDFs with the help of a PC (you can’t with Macs), but that’s just a lot of wasted time, right? On the other side, Sony Reader supports PDFs, DOCs, TXTs, etc.
Also, with the Kindle, Amazon is attempting to turn books into a service. That’s why you get the wireless connectivity: so you could buy books from the vast collection (90.000 titles) in their Kindle Store. You might have been expecting to be able to read you favourite RSS feeds and blogs for free, since you have integrated EVDO module? Well, guess again, you can’t. You have to pay: 1$ for every feed, 1$ for every blog. Of course, Sony eBook Reader offers these for free, but you have to sync your gadget with a computer/laptop connected to Internet…
It’s true Amazon Kindle offers some other features, like Wikipedia access and dictionaries, but what’s the point since the main functions are neglected?
Which one would i buy? Sony Reader 3 - 1 Amazon Kindle
The conclusion is pretty simple. The main functions of both gadgets are ilustrated in the above picture taken from Gizmodo.com. You are asked to choose between the great looking, cheaper and the more functional (supports all the important text formats) Sony Reader or the big, ugly and money hungry Amazon Kindle, with its EVDO wireless connection and the big Book collection. Personally I’ll go for Sony eBook Reader. How about you?
Remember, you can easily get both of them: the Amazon Kindle for $359 (now just $299) and the Sony eBook Reader for $279
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As you might have noticed, this article is from 2007 and lots of things changed since then. Both Amazon and Sony launched new readers, but they still continue to dominate the market, their devices being the best. You can read this recent review of the best ebook readers on the market or you can just click the boxes bellow for more details about the current best readers: the Kindle 2, the Kindle DX and the Sony Reader PRS-505.
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Click the image above to find out more about the latest Kindle, with pics, reviews and the option to easily buy one of you want to
Both of these units are rip offs. Let me tell you why!
You can buy a 7″ LCD picture frame that can display your digital pictures for $75. Then why should someone pay for the Sony or Amazon readers $300 or $400?
If some one could add to a picture frame the necessary hardware/software combination that could display ebooks in ANY format, and could market it for $99 there would be a sure winner. If they could also add a wireless radio in to it, with a built in web browser like the Kindle, it would replace the lap top for many travelers.
Irrespective of the format of the ebook, I should be able to read any book on any format, that I don’t have to convert to LIT or PDF! I will not pay money to read the books ONLY in the Sony format or Microsoft format.
Come on Chinese manufacturers, it is time to design and dump millions of these gadgets for under $99!
I have the Sony Reader and think it’s great. I was quite suprised SONY supported so many formats, not typical for SONY. However SONY does have some short comings. First the software that comes with the product is garbage.
I’ve read many reviews and I think many of the reviews miss 1 HUGE point. In the long run Amazon is MUCH cheaper than the sony device. Amazon might be $100 more but buy 10 books and soon you will break even. (Most of the books I’m interested in cost $20 or more on paperback). SONY tends to give a little discount for the eBooks but Amazon caps all books at $9.99. While both suffer from a lack of supply I tend to find SONY has much less support than Amazon. This has been a real fustration for me. Personally I would like to take full advantage of my reader and purchase or re-purchase books so that I may store them on my reader. But this is a vent on just ebooks alone.
Where SONY does shine is that there are a lot of good 3rd party tools (free) that allow one to convert HTML/Text/MS Word files to SONY’s format, which is optimized for their display.
I’m very happy with my SONY Reader and think it looks very slick, batter life is amazing. But if I could redo the purchase I think I would go with Amazon for the reasons mentioned above. Having the ability to immediately(EVDO) go online a buy a book very cheap ($10) is really the heart of what makes the eBooks reader so attractive.
I have a sony ebook and am not happy with it at all. I have had nothing but problems. I purchased the extended warranty and have nothing but problems getting them to honor it. It freezes and I have to push the reset button to recharge it. Then it won’t remember my bookmark. I would not recommend it to anyone until they get the issues addressed.
I own the Sony ebook reader and am real happy with it. Not only will it work with many formats, but 3rd party software exists that will allow you to make ebooks from even more, including Microsoft’s Ebook format (LIT) so you can buy almost any format (except kindle or Mobi) and read them on sony.
I have the Sony Reader and for the purpose of reading a book, it is great. (getting it form Sony and viewing it on the device).
I noticed it would freeze when I tried reading pdfs with links embedded into the file, but would get it to work by turning off the device. There was no need to re-size the file but when zooming into the file, there were some strange display issues but still legible.
It is great for taking to the gym or other places since the battery life lasts practically forever and it is sleek and small enough to fit in a small purse.
I have read that kindle offers a user the ability to buy books directly from amazon, but in reality, how many books can you really read at one time and is there an urgency to get a book then and there? Waiting to get to a PC isn’t that big of a deal. And if you are purchasing a reader, chances are you have PC connectivity, so it is not a big deal whether you have to connect to a PC…thinking about it, I have a iphone, where I could purchase widgets directly to it and sure it is nice to have, but I noticed it really isn’t’ necessary over time but just made it just too easy to spend my money. I figure it is the same idea for Sony reader verses the Kindle.
I haven’t tested the kindle, but if you are torn, I hope this helps.
I have the Sony reader. There are many books posted on the internet in the newsgroups and using available programs to convert them to the LRF format of the reader is straightforward.
There is also websites that show hacks to change the function of the various buttons on the reader to make it function better.
For instance the numbered buttons on the reader step you thru a percentage of the book. A hack changes them to go to a particular page number. The readers will only improve but right now I prefer the Sony reader.
While the Kindle may not natively support PDFs, DOCs, etc you can easily either use 3rd party tools to convert them or just email them to Amazon and have them convert them for you. For 10 cents they’ll covert it and wirelessly transmit it to your device or for free they’ll email it back to you. It’s actually pretty slick. I’ve tried both and I have to say despite its odd shape the Kindle came out well ahead after a while just in terms of how well it worked and some of the features.
Hi, I’ve just bought the PR-505 as a present for my partner and am thinking about keeping it myself. The battery life is impressive and given we will be reading mainly books freely available on Gutenberg and free books I don’t have any issues with whose software is best or whose books are the cheapest. As for the first posters comment about lcd screens, just try reading for a couple of hours on an lcd screen and you’ll see why the e-ink screens are special. very special. I also link the leather case although have concerns about how well this willl protect the screen in the long run.
I have been using a Sony Reader PR500 for quite some time now & I love it. Previously I used a LCD PPC & I can say there is no comparison – the epaper beats the LCD hands down. The display is MUCH clearer & a battery charge on the Sony lasts 3 weeks instead of the 3 hours (or less) on the LCD. It was suggested a much cheaper reader could be sold based on a LCD digital picture frame type device. While this is quite possible it would not be portable since it would require full time use of an AC adapter & still wouldn’t have as clear a screen. I agree the price for epaper readers is too high, they will come down as the technology gets better. The newer Sony is already $100 cheaper.
does the sony reader have a dictionary feature?
I am always searching for online resources that can help me. Thank you!
I can not get coverage for the Sprint based download for the Kindle. Is there an option to download via the internet?
Actually, Amazon.com has released the international version of the Kindle for all to enjoy…
Yes, there is an option to download through the internet. Just access ‘Manage your Kindle’ from the ‘your account’ menu on the amazon.com website and there you can download the content into the computer and transfer it onto the device (Documents folder)
can you acssesa website such as face book or youtube useing this device?
I live in China and I was wondering does anyone know if the Kindle will still work such as the internet…and will I be able to charge it without having to but a transformer?
I’m not sure if it supports Chinese characters. But if you want to use it for English books, it should work just fine. As for the charger, you’re probably going to need and adapter, but that shouldn’t cost more than 5 bucks.
I just received the Sony touch edition PRS-600. The design of the reader is very nice and I like the feel, but that’s as far as I can go with this paper weight. The software doesn’t work on a MAC system like they say it does. The software for this paper weight is the worst software I have ever seen. It dose not respond to any input, it is a big waste of time and resources on the computer.
I don’t want to have to reload a book to meet another different format. The amount that this reader costs, you shouldn’t have to do anything but download a book and read it. Sounds simple, but these readers are a long way from being a simple easy alternative to a book.
I have other Sony electronics that seems to work the same way as the software for the reader, very very slow.
I HAVE RETURNED MY SONY TOUCH EDITION READER, going to stay with paper for a long time.
Don , a lot has changed from 2007 till now. I will make an updated version of this post, based on the new Kindle and the Sony Reader. For now, i do have to say that o totally recommend the Kindle, as you can see in my recent post where i compare some of the best available readers: http://www.mikesquarter.com/best-ebook-readers-offers-reviews-and-comparisons-587/
When it comes to which ebook reader is best I have to say hands down its Amazon’s Kindles.
The new versions of the Kindle read many different formats and the Newest Kindle DX is a native PDF reader.
Add that to the fact Kindles are wireless, to me its a no brainer!
Free wireless for life with the Kindle made it an easy choice for me.
I teach a small class and often scan portions of books to prepare discussion guides. Would Kindel be able to send “stuff” to my computer?
OK Im sorry but I have to say that Sony is the winner… and here is why:
- Sony is compatible with multiple eBook stores and with the kindle you can only purchase books from Amazon
-With Sony you can access to 1 million free public domain titles from Google books
-with sony you can borrow ebooks from the libraries
-Sony is compatible with Mac and PC
-Sony is touch screen
-has expandable memory
-you are able to bookmark,highlight and zoom and take notes freehand with the stylus that comes with it.
Not sure what you meant be send stuff. Do you meant send documents wirelessly somehow? if that’s the case, then no, you can’t, as this device doesn’t come with wi-fi (capable od doing that) or Bluetooth.
I received the kindle for Xmas and like it very much, however, I am told that with the Sony, you can download from the library for free. Is this true? My friend is contemplating buying a Sony for this reason.
Well, since you live outside the US why don’t you take a look at the BeBook that is coming out at the end of this month. I have some info about it on my blog and it seems to be a good competitor. It’s made by a Dutch company. Both the Kindle and Sonys are great choices. I personally would say go with the Kindle, but they’re pretty close.
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