Roundtable – The History and Future of Sony e-Readers

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Michael Kozlowski and Peter Carotenuto of Good e-Reader have another roundtable discussion on the evolution of the Sony consumer e-Reader brand. They discuss important milestones, such as the advent of touch, the incorporation of a stylus and releasing the first front-lit e-reader.

The entire e-reader industry owes Sony a debt of gratitude for pioneering major technologies. The company has announced exclusively to Good e-Reader that they are abandoning the consumer space and that the PRS-T3 e-reader will be the last one they make. Instead, they are focusing on the business segment with the Sony DPT-S1 Digital Paper.

During the roundtable we discuss the ramifications of exiting the eBook and e-reader space, how Kobo is benefiting and how the customers are responding to dealing with a new ecosystem.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.

Mitch Gusat

Thank you for raising this topic and not letting Sony’s contribs to the e-reader development silently fade away!

While it seems that the overall e-ink market is indeed

(a) A niche, eclipsed by phones and tablets that can play colors and videos, and also *proper* WWW sites;

(b) A race to the bottom, as my $69 kindle proves it;

IMHO there’s future potential in having e-ink readable in the sun for days on a charge…!

Since years i’m awaiting on the Sony DPT-S1, hoping it to be truly a pro PDF reader for tech/academic papers.

I also wish it could render justice also to MSO documents, and, to complex WWW pages… which don’t seem yet on Sony’s agenda (though the PDF crowd also cares about MSO, CAD and complex pages) for the pro & business market.

If Sony will focus on the pro/business market, we expect that products north of 1K$ will reach above 300dpi (think 2-3 column-based complex layouts in fine pitch types) and handle well file formats like PDF, DOC, PPT, XLS, DXF.