Sony’s Reader ebook goes on sale on December 10 at about 20,000 yen ($240) for a model with a 5 inch screen or 25,000 yen for a 6 inch screen.
It hopes to sell 300,000 Readers in the first year and win half the domestic market by 2012, Sony Marketing Japan president Nobuki Kurita told reporters.
Competition includes Apple’s iPad and Sharp’s Galapagos. I wonder why Amazon doesn’t offer Japanese titles on its Kindle; if it did Sony might be in for a tough fight.
Akihabara News: Sharp will launch its Galapagos tablets and services on December 10th in Japan.
The 5.5-inch Galapagos tablets weigh 220g with 167x92x12.9mm dimensions. The 10.8-inch model weighs 765g and is considerably larger: 286x177x14.7mm. Both sport: WiFi BG, microSD, customized Android, and a web browser.
ChangeWave Research → MacRumors:
According to the survey, the Kindle leads the iPad 47% to 32%, a dramatically smaller margin than the 62%-16% spread of just three months ago. Both devices dwarf Sony’s Reader (5%) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook (4%) in popularity.
The iPad grows from 16% to 32% while the Kindle drops from 62% to 47%. All of this in just three months. My guess is that the iPad will overtake the Kindle in the next several months.
The one thing that I don’t appreciate about both the iPad and the Kindle in terms of the reading experience is that the text itself is stripped of its unique typography, the Kindle more so than the iPad. With the Kindle every book looks the same. Why cannot e-books use the same fonts as the original paper-based books?
Akihabara News: Samsung will be showcasing its Galaxy Tab sporting a 7-inch Super AMOLED. The just-released Galaxy Tab sports a very decent LCD. The difference is not just display technology but pixel format too.
The LCD packs 1024×600 pixels while the Super AMOLED features 1200×600. I’m not sure if this is an apples-to-apples comparison as the Super AMOLED will most likely make use of PenTile Matrix technology that is based on a 2×2 sub-pixel structure, different from the 3×1 structure of typical LCDs.
Gizmodo: The main thesis is that today’s electronics are designed for the dump:
EXTRACTION → PRODUCTION → DISTRIBUTION → CONSUMPTION → DISPOSAL
Designed for the dump sounds crazy, right? But when you’re trying to sell lots of stuff it makes perfect sense. It’s a key strategy of the companies that make our electronics. In fact it’s a key part of our unsustainable materials economy. Designed for the dump means making stuff to be thrown away quickly.
25 million tons of e-waste is created every year. This connects well with the iFixit Self-Repair Manifesto. The way I try to help is to purchase products with high quality that will last a long time.
DisplayBlog is written and produced by Jin Kim. Subscribe via RSS.