Sony to Introduce $200 E-reader

sony-reader

Amazon watch out as Sony is set to launch an all-out offensive against the Kindle.  Sony plans to introduce two new e-readers priced at $200 and $300, according to a release from Sony.

The two new models—PRS-300 branded as Sony Reader Pocket and PRS-600 called Sony Reader Touch–will be available at the end of the month.

The  aggressive pricing on the new devices puts Sony ahead of its rivals. Amazon’s Kindle 2 retails for $300, while the large screen Kindle DX costs $490.  Even the cheapest of e-book readers today such as the Cool-er cost $250.

Specifications of the two Sony e-reader devices had leaked late last week.  The $200 Pocket will have a 5-inch display and will be available in colors including blue, rose and silver. The device can store about 350 standard eBooks. The $300 Touch will have a 6-inch touch screen display. Users can take handwritten notes with the stylus pen or type with the virtual keyboard. All notes can be exported and printed. But unlike the Kindle, both models do not have wireless connectivity.

Sony is also likely to cut prices of e-books in its store to match that of Amazon and the newly launched Barnes & Noble e-book store. New releases and bestseller titles in the eBook Store will be available for $10, said Sony.

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Photo: Sony PRS-700 Reader (Eirik Newth/Flickr)


HTC support site reveals Hero for Sprint, Snap for Alltel

We’ve been asked not to reveal the URLs, but we can assure you we’ve seen this official support screen pictured above with our own two eyes, which means that the HTC Hero is all but confirmed in a juicy CDMA blend for Sprint. How (or if) that’ll affect the availability of the US 3G version unlocked or on any carrier is unclear, but given Hesse’s huffy language regarding Pre exclusivity, we wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got this one locked down for a while as well. We’ve seen a similar support page for an Alltel-branded Snap, so if you’re still tied up in one of the carrier’s legacy divested markets and you’ve been pining after the Snap (and Ozone) on Sprint and Verizon, fear not — your own version is on the way. We’ll admit, if you had asked us a few months back what American carrier would get HTC’s highest-end Android phone to date, Sprint wouldn’t have been our first guess — but hey, good for them. If you can’t win the coverage battle against the Big Red juggernaut, may as well try to win the exclusive hardware battle, right?

[Thanks, Adam]

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HTC support site reveals Hero for Sprint, Snap for Alltel originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First impressions of Amazon App for Android

Amazon offers its full shopping experience in a mobile format.

(Credit: Taylor Wimberly)

Amazon customers finally have their own application for Google Android phones. Amazon App for Android provides the full Amazon shopping experience while adding new features like Amazon Remembers. Customers also get full control over their Amazon account …

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Panasonic home theater systems reviewed: Blu things come in small packages

Although the technology debuted in 2006, for many consumers Blu-ray still feels like brand-new tech. That’s why home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) systems like the Panasonic SC-BT200 and SC-BT300 feel like such an incredible deal–with a street price as low as $450 for the SC-BT200, you get a 7.1 speaker system …

Palm hires Apple vet Jeff Zwerner as new SVP of Brand Design

It’s no secret that Palm has plenty of Apple veterans in its upper ranks (starting right at the top), and it looks like there now may be even more reminiscing about old times going on during lunch breaks, with the company recently announcing that it has hired Jeff Zwerner as its new Senior Vice President of Brand Design. In addition to working at Apple for a stint from 2001 to 2003 as Creative Director for Packaging and earlier from 1995 to 1996 as a Senior Art Director, Zwerner also founded the San Francisco branch of Factor Design, which has done work for Coca-Cola, Gap, GE, Hewlett-Packard, L.L. Bean, Nike, the Walt Disney Company and, yes, Apple.

[Via PreCentral]

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Palm hires Apple vet Jeff Zwerner as new SVP of Brand Design originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kodak Zi8 impressions: surprising functionality, but it’s still a pocket camcorder

We’ve been messing around with Kodak’s latest pocket camcorder, the Zi8, and find the shooter to be an interesting hybrid. With a flip-out USB plug, HDMI out and an easily accessible SD card slot, this is clearly a “premium” mix of features for the class, but the $180 pricetag keeps the device firmly grounded in Walmart-friendly reality. Other odd perks like a line-in jack and 1080p have us scratching our heads — but in a good way. Overall, we’d feel pretty comfortable saying the footage is about the best you can obtain at this pricepoint. Colors are great, the image stabilization isn’t a gimmick (sorry, Flip), and if you squint hard enough you can almost believe the 1080p is 1080p. Still, the camera is hampered by its cheap approach to processing and compressing the footage it’s taking in — despite its limitations, we’d say the iPhone 3GS is besting most cheap pocket camcorders on this front, motion just looks much more fluid. But don’t take our word for it, check out a couple of video samples after the break.

Continue reading Kodak Zi8 impressions: surprising functionality, but it’s still a pocket camcorder

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Kodak Zi8 impressions: surprising functionality, but it’s still a pocket camcorder originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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G.I. Joe is enlisting all consoles: Should movie video games be DLC only?

Slated to release the same week as the movie is G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, the video game, for all major consoles.

This third-person shooter has an exclusive storyline that picks up where the film leaves off. With 20 levels of game play, three character classifications, (Commando: Does well …

Originally posted at Digital City Podcast

Newegg and CyberPower Release Back-To-School Gaming PCs

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August and September usually herald the return of classes and homework to kids across the nation. CyberPower and Newegg want to sweeten that deal by adding a back-to-school gaming machine to the piles of textbooks and mechanical pencils.
The series comes in three flavors for young gamers with different needs (and budgets). The entry-level CyberPower PC Gamer Ultra 7209 is equipped with a 2.8-GHz AMD Athlon II X2 240 processor, 4GB of RAM, 500 GB of hard drive space and an ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics card. Not too shabby, especially for $490. 
The Gamer Infinity 6314 sits in the mid-range of desktops, with a 3 GHz Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 1-terabyte hard drive and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 graphics card for $1009.
At the upper-end of the spectrum is the Gamer Xtreme 1019, running an Intel Core i7 processor at over 3 GHz, 12GB of RAM, two terabytes of hard drive space, a Blu-ray drive and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 graphics card. This epic gaming rig will set you back $2,149, a small price to pay for all that, ahem, class work you’ll be using it for.
All of the systems are available now from Newegg.com.

TomTom GPS Car Kit for iPhone Could Cost $200

tomtom-iphone-app1GPS devices maker TomTom offered a tantalizing preview of its iPhone application and car kit at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference this year.  But that demo came without pricing or availability information.

Now a U.K. retailer Handtec  has started taking pre-orders for the app and the kit combo on its web site for£113.85 ($164). The pricing indicates the TomTom iPhone car  kit could be available in the U.S. for $200 soon.

In June, TomTom said that it would make an iPhone app that would offer turn-by-turn GPS navigation for users. What made TomTom’s announcement interesting was that the company said it will also create a car dock-connector for the iPhone. Just as with a standalone GPS device, the TomTom for the iPhone dock would stick inside the car and act as a charging cradle for the iPhone. It would also enhance the GPS capability of the phone.

At $200, the TomTom iPhone car kit would probably be the same price as a dedicated GPS device.  If customers don’t have to pay monthly subscription fees for the app and just pay $200, we think it could be a pretty good deal.

[via NaviGadget]


Handmark beats Microsoft to mobile app store

HandMarket on Windows Mobile(Credit: Handmark)

The countdown is well under way for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile app store, called Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which is slated to arrive in early fall alongside the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. Yet on Tuesday, mobile media company Handmark outmaneuvered Microsoft, releasing a rival application for …

Originally posted at The Download Blog