Amazon Kindle vs Sony Daily Edition
Well, Amazon’s Kindle has been out for a while now, and it seems to be hugely popular amongst those who love to read. And with the ability to download books from Amazon to the Kindle now available with Amazon’s 3G model, Amazon seem to have the market sewn up, right?
AmazonKIndle 2
I mean, let’s be honest, the Kindle looks cool. The fonts look crisp and smooth, the interface is pretty well laid out (I have issues with the next/previous page keys) and for geeks, it really does look a little like a PADD out of Star Trek. But wait, there is one problem with this comparison – the PADD was touch screen. The Amazon Kindle has no touch screen. I love devices with touch screens, and this along the bad layout of the previous/next keys then I am not sold on the Kindle.
But there is a new competitor entering the arena. Now, to be fair, the Sony Reader has been around for quite some time, and they even sell it at my local book store. But today Sony announced their new edition - The Daily Edition.
Sony Daily Edition
I mean, just look at it. It has got great Sony styling all over it, and Sony are offering to drop their proprietary format and support Google’s supported EPUB format, which is open. The Daily Edition also supports PDF formats and the Word format. It looks like a pretty nice piece of kit. But then there is the drawback – the price tag. The top of the range Daily Edition costs $399.
To be honest, if I was going to buy one of these two devices, I think I would buy the Daily Edition. I’m a fan of Open Source and the Kindle supports Amazon’s locked down format, whereas the Daily Edition supports open formats. And with Project Guttenberg offering 30,000 books, a lot of them in PDF format, as well as all the books Google will be offering, plus Sony are going to be hooking up with a partner service to offer the same books that they offer libraries.
