It seems Sony isn’t giving up the fight in the ereader market. Recently Sony shows off prototype of flexible electronic paper display technology in the dealer convention in Tokyo.According to SonyInsider:

Usually, E-paper has used glass substrate in the past but this new technology uses plastic substrate. Glass substrate is heavier and more prone to damage than plastic substrate, which is much lighter and can also be bent. Electronic paper with plastic substrate is also very difficult
to break even when you drop it, and can even be rolled up like real paper…..

Sony has not mentioned when it will bring this technology to Reader devices, but judging by these highly advanced concepts we imagine it can’t be any longer than a year or two. Can you imagine the compelling new product designs that will result from this technology?

We don’t what does Amazon have to show off in near future.

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You probably remember that Jeff Bezos doesn’t want a touchscreen for Kindle compromising reading, since it adds a layer on the screen that might lower the depth of letters and text on eink devices. Definitely, the new Pearl eink screen is way more better than the previous eink screen that we can see on new Kindle 3. Would it be similar to Kindle 2 screen if Amazon would add a touch layer on Kindle 3 given that it uses Pearl eink screen? Okay, we can judge it by looking at the new Sony Touch Reader PRS650. Sony Touch Reader uses the same eink Pearl screen, but it added a layer for touch capability. That’s an added bonus in terms of usability and attractiveness of Sony Reader even tough I think that can’t make Sony reader a winner in the ebook market. I didn’t find any comparion of Kindle 3 and Sony Touch reader in terms of visibility of text on the screen. The following is the most detail review of Touch Reader Edition even though it doesn’t talk about the depth or visibility of text on screen. However, it doesn’t seem that visibility has been compromised that much compared to previous Touch Edition PRS600. And the responsive of the touch is very smooth and quick. Sony has implemented nice features that lacks in Kindle 3 in terms of annotations, and note taking. I think Amazon could do so without any hesitation. And it seems current Pearl screen is the best one to do that. The next step for eink screen to be color one though not sure how well it would be. Amazon might switch to mirasol display or pixel Qi display for a color ereader. However, Amazon should continue with eink based ereader along with color ereader in future.

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Sony has released three new edition of its readers:

• PRS 350 – Pocket Edition
• PRS 650 – Touch Edition
• PRS 950 – Daily Edition

Accoring to CrunchGear,

• All three editions have new Pearl eInk display
• All have Improved touch-sensitive layer
• All of them come with styli
• They have been redesined – slim, sleek, and weight less than half a pound
• Each has 2GB internal memory & SD card/Memory Stick Pro slot
• Only Daily Edition have both 3G+Wifi
• Pocket and Touch Editions don’t have any wireless connectivity
• Pocket Edition has 5″ display, Touch Edition 6″ and Daily Edition 7″
• Price: Pocket Edition – $179, Touch Edition – $229 and Daily Edition$299
• Daily Edition will be available in November, 2010

CrunchGear’s comment on these three devices are appropriate, I think:

I mean, they look like great devices, but the Kindle is really killing them on price, and I think price is the main driver of e-reader sales, not features. Brushed aluminum and touch navigation are great, but I just don’t see a big market for them when everyone else is racing down to under a hundred bucks.

Engadget has a video review here. I couldn’t embed the video here since they don’t allow that.

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Sony is going to release yet two more ereaders: Sony Reader 350 – 5″ screen (pocket edition), and Sony Reader 650 – 6″ screen (touch edition).  However, this time pocket edition will also get touchscreen. The design pf Sony 350 seems to be like Sony 600 with touchscreen. According to Sony, both devices will have the properties like

• The touch screen is no longer over the eInk screen
• Amazing and crisp paper-like appearance
• There are multiple language dictionaries – 2 English dictionaries plus 10 Language translation dictionaries
• Cache capability that allows for faster page turns
• 2 GB storage capacity
• Intelligent Zoom for scanned documents, PDFs, and newspaper clippings
• 10,000 page turns on a single charge

Sony is the first company to enter ereader and ebook market with eink screen in 2006. From that time Sony has already released at leat five different models of ereader and it is the first company to introduce touchscreen ereader based on eink. However, the ereader market did never really took off until Aamazon released Kindle. Later B&N introduced Nook, & Apple released iPad, and Sony, in fact, became non-noticable player in ebook market. Sony really lost its leadership in this market. We never observed Sony taking any significant steps competing with Amazon to play leadership role and capture significant market share in both ereader & ebook market the way Amazon & B&N fought each other, and still doing so. Even with the new rumors of two new ereaders I don’t really find any significant steps Sony  is going to take. In fact Sony is evolving so slowly, and giving so much effort on things that do not enhance reading or sharing content or ebooks that can’t reach readers hearts & souls. This is quite contrary to what Amazon is doing. Moreover, Sony never realized that a reader without vast & constant flow of contents or ebooks at competitive prices is doomed to fail.

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