With recent disappointing news that the much awaited Amazon Kindle 2 is being delayed, Sony has released their $400 PRS-700 Reader and initial reviews say that it is difficult to read.

I can already see publishers across the country, sighing with relief that Sony struck out with their latest ebook reader which had potential to be very cool. Sony improved on this reader by including a touchscreen, a sidelight as well as a simpler interface but forgot to making the screen easy to read. The design flaw is the horrendous glare caused by the translucent layer used by the touchscreen and sidelight, rendering the device useless.

Sony also made no improvements on the software side of reader.

I guess they totally dropped the ball on this one. What could’ve been very cool improvements to last year’s reader did nothing but reduce the paper replacement to a paper weight.

I find the dedicated e-book reader concept a little dubious, given the plethora of other devices that can do the same sort of thing. Their primary advantage, of course, is the use of "e-paper" technology (in this case, E Ink’s Vizplex version) that provides a high resolution and doesn’t require power to maintain the image. Thus, the Cybook Gen3 e-book reader, to be released sometime in September, is rated at 8,000 page turns rather than by time (we all read at different speeds, of course). Cybook will be working with Mobipocket, giving it instant access to 50,000 titles, which is a plus, but of course that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the Library of Congress. Being sold in packs, it’ll start out at $350.

If you love reading like I do, how about a device that allows you to have a number of stored material without having to lug around so many books? Sony just did it with their Portable Reading System.  The PRS-500 is thin and light at 1/2″ thick, weighing about 9 ounces.

This will introduce a new way to experience reading with a 6″ screen and E Ink® technology making the pages you read paper-like. You can magnify the text, illuminate it when it’s dark and view it at different angles. 

Along with its portability, it has 64 MB of storage, allowing you to hold up to 80 electronic books.  If that isn’t enough, the expandable memory slot allows you to get more memory, so you can definately hold tons more. Also, the Sony® Reader can give you thousands of material to choose from because it allows you to search and browse through popular electronic books. You can get the titles from the CONNECTâ„¢ eBook online store, but you won’t be limited to these files, you can definately upload your PDF files!

I wish I had this during college…oh by the way, it’s also energy efficient with great battery life. Price? Only $300 bucks after your $50 rebate.