We all knew Sony was planning on releasing a successor to their PRS-T1 ebook reader when the PRS-T2 went through the FCC last month, and while Sony has yet to release any official information on their new ereader, the Sony Reader PRS-T2 has turned up for pre-order for $129 from J&R.com in three colors: black, white, and red.
As you can see from the picture, the design has changed somewhat. The plastic looks like it has more of a matte finish now instead of glossy, which was a common complaint with the Sony PRS-T1. The buttons have a new look now as well.
However, if the product description at J&R is accurate, the new look appears to be the biggest change—most of the specs for the PRS-T2 are identical to the Sony PRS-T1.
It still has an 800 x 600 E Ink Pearl screen (no HD screen?) with infrared touch, a microSD card slot, WiFi, 2GB of memory (1.3 usable), and the usual long battery life, although they’ve changed the wording on that a bit to make it sound better.
But not all hope is lost. Here is one potentially interesting new feature mentioned in the description: “More advanced features – Evernote Clearly and Facebook for Reader.” Not sure what that means exactly. Also, there’s mention of less flickering with page-turns so it looks like they’ve added partial refresh like the Kindle and Nook.
Other details mentioned include downloading ebooks from public libraries, shopping the Sony Reader store, 6 built-in dictionaries for definition look-up and translations into English, French, or Spanish, and the usual support for Adobe DRM and ePub, PDF, and TXT formats. Sony is advertising the PRS-T2 as the world’s lightest ereader at 5.9 ounces.
There’s no mention of audio file support or a headphone jack so it looks like the audio player may have been nixed on this model.
It also looks like Sony is finally getting their official Harry Potter tie-in (last year they initially advertised the PRS-T1 with a download code for a free Harry Potter ebook, but that got yanked once Pottermore got delayed until this Spring). This time around it says a free Harry Potter ebook comes pre-loaded on the PRS-T2.
Nevertheless, Sony hasn’t officially announced the PRS-T2 just yet so some of the details might change. Subscribe to The eBook Reader Blog to keep updated on future developments.
Update: I ran a search and turned up a flyer for something called MCX Core Brands that advertises the new PRS-T2 ebook reader for $99 during their Anniversary sale that runs September 5th – 18th. If that’s any indication, the PRS-T2 should be released within the next 4 weeks.
The pictures show that there is no audio jack where it was in the PRS-T1; kiss the audio goodbye. The same pictures does not show where to put the stylus. Probably it will just come in the box but you will have to buy a cover to bring it around with your.
There are also fewer dictionaries, or maybe the European version will have more.
What is left to know is whether it is rootable and which processor it has in.
The picture is exciting. It looks like the PRS-T2 will be very comfortable to hold and read on. The E Ink screens in professionally shot photos are always touched up to make them look amazing, but I’ll bet that the new Sony will have better screen contrast and text clarity than the competition. Even though my heart sank a little bit when I saw that they weren’t using an HD screen, I’m hoping they at least improved their font rendering software. I can’t believe they have made so few upgrades.
According to another tech blog, “Evernote Clearly looks to be a way for you to save blog posts and news articles from your browser so you can read them later. This sounds similar to Pocket and Instapaper, so I guess this means you’ll be able to push web content to the PRS-T2.” Sounds like a blog posting and news collector.
Remains to be seen how the buyers will react to leaving audio out. I thought it is nice to have, but only used it 2-3 times.
The stylus had no place to put with the PRS-T1, so no change there.
But also no reason to switch from a PRS-T1 if (!) the specs are correct.
Both HD and a glow-light should be possible, at least as an upgraded model and soon. Sony loost it’s edge, imho. How long did they built Readers with this e-ink-display (Pearl 800×600) 1-2 years, 3 or even longer? This is neither innovation, nor real progress. Just a simple design-change.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a company’s products that I started out loving going in a different direction than I think they should go. Sony must have some market research to support the product design decisions that appear to be present in the PRS-T2 and price point must be an important factor. There will be groups of people who will still like the PRS-T1 versus the PRS-T2, which is still good for Sony.
Kindle DX is on sale today only! $269 for a brand new device. That’s $110 off the list price! I got one of these for this same price during Black Friday last year, and it was totally worth it. If you are looking for a 9.7″ eReader at a decent price, or have always wanted to try one out, go for it today. You can even get the official Kindle DX leather cover and end up at around $300 total. The software is sort of dated, but has almost all the features the Kindle 3 has (I think you won’t be able to use the dictionary on PDFs; I sold my unit so I don’t remember for sure). Again, the Onyx Boox M92 might be a more updated reader, but it is $100 more. The Kindle DX graphite has an amazingly beautiful E Ink Pearl display, and it was a dream to read on.
The decreased weight may suggest that T2 display will be based on plastic substrate, not on glass. I think _that_ would a killer feature…
Unfortunately plastic displays are a ways off yet because they have 20% failure rate.
But these are the ones from LG …
(Supposedly already got all production from a russian company)
Remember EInk should have (maybe not ready) their own flexible displays. You have the video: E Ink Booth Tour at SID 2012.
Here the man do his own show, but also over 13:05 time you can see their 6″ and 9,7″ EPD, standard resolution 800×600 and 1200×825.
I vote anyway for something more classic and a Pearl HD screen. They are already available, and new Kindle firmware also contains support for exactly his resolution and ratio (1024×758).
Regards.
I think nook glow light is the best choice eho want to buy new ebook reader..
Prs-T2 has not got light and is so expensive.