Waterstones have cut the price of the Sony Reader Pocket Edition
When I saw that Waterstones had decided to discount the price of the less than a year old Sony Pocket Edition reader to £99 my immediate reaction was that it simply wasn’t a big enough to compete with Amazon’s new £109 Kindle.
Let’s face it, when for a mere £10 more customers can get WiFi, a built in (though DRM-crippled) store and instant access to their books, why would anyone want a rapidly old-fashioned standalone reader?
My next thought was that, consciously or otherwise, Waterstones had probably started a process of price reductions that will soon commoditise eReaders. My hunch is that by this time next year, the grey screened, non-web enabled standalone readers will probably be on sale in your local supermarket for under £40.
Less than a year ago I predicted that “it won’t be long before the first major supermarket starts retailing a sub £100 device” – I might have got the nature of the retailer wrong but not only are Waterstones now eeking in just under that price point, but Argos are already beating it with an £89.99 reader.
Prices are heading downwards and I suspect the pace will pick up fairly quickly.
Not only are would-be buyers going to be tempted by the keenly priced Kindle, but the iPad is soon expected to be joined by a wave of Android powered tablets, all offering much more functionality.
If a £99 Sony is going to be squeezed by a £109 Kindle (and it will), so a £229 Sony will surely look increasingly unattractive compared with a £429 iPad which, though £200 more expensive, is capable of displaying magazines and comics and picture-rich books in glorious colour.
To look competitive, eReaders are going to have follow non-premium branded MP3 players, Freeview boxes and digital cameras into those supermarket ranges of cheap and cheerful electronics which causal shoppers are happy to take a punt on and try out.
Given that you can buy an MP3 player for less than a CD, the real question is: how long will it be before an eReader costs less than the latest hardback? My hunch is we’ll be there sooner than anyone expected 12 months ago.
Actually after a lot of research I am thinking of getting the Pocket Edition even though it does not have wi-fi etc. Why? Because my local library already has hundreds of ebooks and I can’t read them on Kindle but I can on Sony’s readers. That’s a major saving. Not having a wi-fi is only a minor inconvenience. How often do you upload books? I am going to use it mostly for royalty-free books. I can use calibre software – upload dozen at a time and have something to read for months. I can also use it read news from most major newspaper and magazines – free of course -l thanks to calibre again. If Amazon allowed users to loan books from libraries no other reader would stand a chance. But why would they support libraries if most of their incomes comes from selling books?
Hi km -
I’m a big advocate of the ePub/Adobe DRM ‘standard’ which all UK booksellers have long supported. For me it’d be a major retrograde step if we lost that in favour of two competing hardware manufacturer controlled stores i.e, iBooks and Kindle.
I agree with km, borrowing from the library is an essential feature for me and I am amazed this functionality is not being widely promoted. Unfortunately the only devices I’ve found that allow borrowing are Sony, but as I don’t want to pay ~£190 for a new touch, I’ve bought the previous model from ebay second hand.
The Kindle looks impressive with the wifi and 3G, but when I looked at the restrictions on the file format I realised it was not the device for me. Martin Hoscik is correct an open market is advantageous for everyone.