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Last updated: Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Sony unveiled a new e-book reader Monday that features 3G connectivity over AT&T’s national wireless network. As with Amazon’s Kindle, consumers won’t have to pay monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity used by Sony’s e-reader. The new Reader Daily Edition is slated to become available for $399 in December, when it will join the new Pocket Edition ($199) and the Touch Edition ($299) readers that Sony launched earlier this month. All three models sport an E Ink Vizplex electronic-paper display that emulates the look of ink on paper. “Like its brethren, the Sony Pocket and Touch readers, the Daily has Sony’s hallmark high-quality design and, frankly, makes the Kindle look like an oversized calculator,” said Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps. “The Daily is slightly smaller than the Kindle 2, and with its built-in cover weighs the same.” An Elegant Solution However, unlike the Kindle, Sony’s Daily Edition sports a touchscreen display that offers a vertical orientation evocative of a newspaper column, Rotman Epps said. “The new screen size is an elegant solution to the problem of how to optimize for newspaper and magazine content without building an oversized, ungainly device,” she said. “Even with the higher price, this is an attractive product for consumers who value Sony’s design and touchscreen along with wireless access.” When running in portrait mode, the Daily Edition will display about 30 to 35 lines of text for a reading experience similar to that of a printed paperback book. The new device also features a high contrast ratio with 16 levels of grayscale, rendering text and images crisp and easy to read, Sony said. In addition to wireless capabilities, consumers will be able to load personal documents or content from compatible sites via a USB cable. The Daily Edition, which ships with enough memory…

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Wireless Sony Reader Offers Touchscreen Elegance

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