Sony E-Reader

[tdemarco]

I for one take Sony's E-Reader very seriously. The display is breath-taking, the human I/F seems good. With such a device I could happily leave my powerbook home for most trips. I could also justify bringing it along even when I did need my laptop, as it weighs less than the book(s) I typically carry with me, not to mention the documents. The device supports pdf, MSWD files, as well as HTML, so if I had one now -- it is scheduled for US release in the spring -- I could push a few of the pdfs I need to stare at for the next hour or so over to it, and read them in the comfort of my easy chair. I can see it displacing a lot of paper.

The question is (always) will it have Mac support? I saw no mention of that. This is a rumor forum, so I wonder if anyone's heard a rumor . . .

t.

[fryke]

This is, however, an *Apple* rumour forum, so I'm moving the thread to the Café.

I like the Sony eReader idea and will certainly look at it more closely once it's released. However: I don't see it replacing a PDA or notebook, since it's no good for data _input_, it's merely a reading device.

[Thank The Cheese]

there have been a lot of good reviews. I'm just not sure people want a device sepecifically for this purpose. I think this is a good addition to a tablet PC or PDA, but it's a lot of money for such a one-dimentional gadget.

What really impresses me is the display technology (called eInk -- are Sony going with apple's iPod/iMac naming system, but with an "e" instead of an "i"?). Reviews I've read claim it looks almost exactly like traditional printed paper. That is a big deal IMO, because people hate reading stuff on screen.

Computers were supposed to signigicantly reduce the amount of paper we use, but instead they have increased it dramatically because many people prefer to print out a PDF or webpage than read it on screen. If this eInk technology can help minimise this trend, I welcome it with open arms!

[fryke]

ePaper, eInk, those names go quite a while back, nothing to do with Apple's naming scheme. Although... Apple's eWorld was around even before that...