Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader
Amazon Kindle is an electronic wireless book (e-book) device launched in the United States by Amazon.com in November 2007. It uses an electronic paper display, reads the proprietary Kindle (AZW) format, and downloads content over Amazon Whispernet, which uses the Sprint EVDO network. This means that the Kindle can be used stand alone without a computer. Whispernet is accessible through Kindle without any fee.[1] On the release day, the Kindle Store had more than 88,000 digital titles available for download.[2] Amazon's first offering of the Kindle sold out in five and a half hours[3] and the device remained out of stock until late April 2008.[4] It retails for $399 from Amazon.com. Technical specificationsThe Kindle features a 6" diagonal, 4-level grayscale electrophoretic display (E Ink material) with a resolution of 600×800 pixels (167 ppi), although the largest graphic image that can be displayed without being resized in a publication is 450x550 pixels.[5] It measures 5.3 inches × 7.5 inches × 0.7 inches (134.5 mm × 190 mm × 19 mm) and weighs 10.3 ounces (295 grams). The Kindle has 256 MB of internal storage, of which 180 MB is available on a new device. An SD memory card expansion slot is present, officially supporting cards up to 4 GB in size.[6] It has 64 MB of RAM. The battery lasts roughly two days with wireless on, and one week with wireless off. The battery charges in about two hours. A USB 2.0 port (mini-B connector) is available for connecting to a computer (where it acts as a USB flash drive). The Kindle features a headphone jack and one-year warranty. The device runs on a modified version of Linux based on the 2.6.10 kernel.[7] ContentThe internal memory of the Amazon Kindle can hold approximately 200 non-illustrated titles.[8] Users can download content from Amazon in the proprietary Kindle format (AZW), or load unprotected Mobipocket (PRC, MOBI) or plain text content. Amazon offers an email-based service that will convert HTML, DOC (Microsoft Word), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP documents to AZW.[9] It also supports audio in the form of MP3s and Audible 2, 3, and 4 audiobooks, which must be transferred to the Kindle over USB or on an SD card. Users can download content through the Kindle Store. The Kindle Store is accessed through Whispernet, over Sprint's EVDO network, which Amazon provides free of charge. New releases and New York Times bestsellers are offered for approximately $10. Classics like Bleak House sell for around $1.99. The first chapters of many books are offered as a free sample. Subscriptions to newspapers cost between $5.99 and $14.99 per month, magazines between $1.25 and $3.49 per month, and blogs for $0.99-$1.99 per month.[10] Users can send documents to a conversion service which will send a Kindle-formatted file to the device directly for $0.10 or to a personal e-mail account for free. Users can transfer converted documents from a computer to the Kindle via a USB cable or an SD card for free. Access to Wikipedia is offered at no additional charge.[11] The device comes with electronic editions of its owner's manual and the New Oxford American Dictionary. The Kindle also contains several free experimental features. These include a basic Web browser and NowNow, an online research service which can produce answers to simple research questions (customer support questions are not answered).[12] Product developmentThe Kindle was developed by a team led by Gregg Zehr. The team was based in Cupertino and was known as Lab126 during product development.[13] Notes
Digital Text PlatformConcurrently with the Kindle device, Amazon launched the Digital Text Platform, a system for authors to self-publish directly to the Kindle. Currently in open beta, the platform was promoted to established authors by e-mail.[22] Authors can upload documents in several formats for delivery via Whispernet and charge between US$0.99 and $200 per download.[22] The authors receive 35% of revenues based on their list price, regardless of discounts by Amazon.[23] See also
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The Sony PRS-500 Reader is an e-book reader available in the United States since September 2006 and in Canada since April 2008. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation, that has 166 dpi resolution, four levels of grayscale, is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain the image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation. Like real paper, it may be difficult to read from in low-light conditions, as the unit has no backlight. The reader uses an iTunes Store-like interface to purchase books from Sony's Connect eBook store. It also can display Adobe PDFs, personal documents, blogs, RSS newsfeeds, JPEGs, and Sony's proprietary BBeB ("BroadBand eBook") format. The Reader can play unencrypted MP3 and AAC audio files. Unlike its close cousin, the LIBRIé, the Sony Reader offers no way for the user to annotate a digital book due to lack of a keyboard. The digital rights management rules of the Reader allow any purchased eBook to be read on up to six devices (at least one of those 6 must be a PC). Although you cannot totally share purchased eBooks on other people’s devices and accounts, you will have the opportunity to register five Readers to your account and share your books accordingly. At this time Sony has no plans to introduce time-expiring books in the U.S. The Reader was announced in January 2006. By September 2006, it was available for order from the Sony online store. It competes with other Epaper devices— the Amazon Kindle, iRex iLiad, the Jinke Hanlin eReader, and CyBook by Bookeen. Since 1 November 2006, Readers have been on display and for sale at Borders bookstores throughout the US, according to posts at MobileRead.com. Borders had an exclusive contract for the Reader until the end of 2006. From April 2007, Sony Reader has been sold in the US by multiple merchants, including Fry's, Costco, Borders and Best Buy. The eBook Store from Sony is only available to U.S. residents or to customers who purchased a U.S.-model reader with bundled eBook Store credit. PRS-505On October 2, 2007, Sony announced the PRS-505, an updated version of the Reader. The '505 keeps the 6" SVGA display of the original Reader, but uses an improved version of E Ink's imaging film with faster refresh time, brighter white state, and 8-level grayscale. PRS-505 is thinner than its predecessor (8 mm vs. 13 mm) and comes with more internal memory (256 MB vs. 64 MB). Other new product features include auto-synchronization to a folder on a host PC, support for the USB Mass Storage Device profile, and full USB charging capability (the PRS-500 could only be recharged via USB if the battery was not fully drained, and if the Sony Connect Reader software was installed on the host PC). Also adding books to "Collections" (a feature to organize and group book titles) is now possible on the storage card, unlike the PRS-500 model. SpecificationsPRS500
PRS505
Formats supportedDRM-free Text: BBeB Book (LRF), PDF, TXT, RTF. Typefaces in PDF files formatted for 8.5 x 11 inch (216 x 280 mm) pages may be too small to read comfortably. Such files can be reformatted for the Reader screen size with Adobe Acrobat Professional, but not by Adobe Reader software. The Reader does not directly support Microsoft Word DOC format. The 'CONNECT Reader' application uses Word to convert the .DOC files to RTF before sending them to the Reader. DRM Text: BBeB Book (LRX); Titles from major publishers and most small publishers can ONLY be read in Sony's proprietary format (BBeB); For example, such copy-protected ebooks in Adobe format cannot be read on the Sony device as of 17 February 2007 Image: JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP (Loading an animated GIF will freeze the Reader) RSS: Limited to 20 featured blogs such as Engadget and Wired, no ability to add others and no auto-update (as of December 1, 2006) The Reader supports TXT and RTF documents with Latin character set only. Other character sets (such as Cyrillic, for example) are not displayed correctly. Sony customer support confirmed that units sold in US only work with Latin characters (as of March 2, 2007). (An unofficial fix exists allowing the reader to properly show Cyrillic characters PRS 500. PRS 505) Operating systemsWindowsSony Reader comes bundled with Sony's proprietary software called Connect, Sony Connect is designed similar to iTunes and requires Windows XP or newer, a 800MHz Processor, 128Mb of ram, and 20Mb Hard disk space. Mac OS X and LinuxSony Connect is not officially supported on Mac OS X or Linux based systems, although when the device is connected it grants access to its internal flash memory as though it were a USB Mass Storage device (on the 505 only) allowing the user to transfer files directly. Several third-party tools exist for the Sony Reader. For example, Docudesk PRS Browser for Mac OS X which allows Macintosh users to manage content on the Sony Reader. Users can also use the free software library and utility libprs500 written by Kovid Goyal to communicate with the Reader and manage their digital library. This utility has both a command line and graphical interface, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Internal OSAn examination of the operating manual reveals that the operating system for the Reader is MontaVista Linux Professional Edition. See also
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia Encyclopedia article "Amazon Kindle" |
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