Substantial headway in the eReader race

Sony recently unveiled it's first e-reader with wireless capability. The Daily Edition will debut in December for holiday shoppers and cost about $399. The new e-reader has a 7-inch screen, can hold up to 1,000 books and can be read either vertically or tipped horizontally to mimic the two pages of an open book.

The Daily Edition will use AT&T's 3G mobile broadband technology (just like the iPhone) which it can use for downloading new books from Sony's online bookstore as well as yet-to-be announced newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Although Sony's reader debuted before Kindle: Amazon's 6" Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation), the Kindle has made substantial headway in the e-reader race and is already wireless.

However, to stay in the competition, Sony also highlighted its new "open" Epub format. Books bought for Kindle can only be read on a Kindle, but books bought in EPUB format can be read by a variety of readers. This will hopefully become an industry standard, similar to the MP3, which allows more vendors to sell in this format and will allow the customer to decide which reader they would like to use.

Even more enticing to many will be the wealth of free content not available on the Kindle. The Sony Readers can access the hundreds of thousands of public domain Google Books, and if your local library supports electronic lending, members will be able to download borrowed books and transfer them to the Reader for 21 days (after which the files expire). Sony continues to release alternatives to the Kindle. The Daily Edition joins the already announced Sony PRS600 Reader Touch Edition Portable eBook reader with 6" touchscreen Black ($299) and Sony PRS300-BC Reader Pocket Edition - Dark Blue ($199), both of which should be available within the next couple of weeks.

How do the Kindle and Sony e-readers match up? Pricewise, the cheapest is Sony's pocket edition -- announced earlier this month -- selling for $199. That's less than the slightly larger 6-inch editions -- Amazon's Kindle 2.0 and Sony's e-reader -- which both go for $299. And the upcoming Sony Daily edition is $399, not quite as much -- or as large -- as the $489 Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7" Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation).