May 15 2010
Borders.com has the Sony Reader Touch in black and red for $100.00 $200. The website is glitchy right now (probably from the number of people trying to place an order) but the deal is authentic.
Apparently the price has been raised to $200.00. The $100 price may have been an error.
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May 15, 2010 @ 09:59:41
Well, it WAS until I tried to check out and the sale price was raised to $200.
I suspect the glitchiness has to do with a mad scramble to correct a $100/unit mistake.
Tweets that mention Sony Reader Touch for $100 | Dear Author -- Topsy.com
May 15, 2010 @ 10:15:43
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by dearauthor. dearauthor said: New post: Sony Reader Touch for $100 http://bit.ly/dwkpw6 [...]
May 15, 2010 @ 12:05:24
Well, $200 is still a $100 discount off the usual.
I have one, though, and I admit it’s not good for reading in the hot sun. The eink doesn’t display as well when it heats up, so the book ends up looking like a 15th gen photocopy.
Reads fine indoors or in cooler sunshine, though.
May 15, 2010 @ 12:24:58
Not only did the price increase to $200, but when I checked it showed the reader on at least two week backorder. Is that because so many people snagged a reader at $100 bucks, I wonder? I’d love to know how many people got that deal (interesting signal for any company thinking of selling a reader for that price).
May 15, 2010 @ 12:38:14
I’d really like to know if anyone got the reader for $100 as well. Thus far it seems like nobody has been successful – and even more, Borders “turned off” the checkout so you couldn’t buy anything while they were sorting that out.
At least, that was my experience, and what the customer service representative so “kindly” told me.
May 15, 2010 @ 12:54:17
@Robin:
$100 is a sweet spot, you’re totally right.
I’d even buy a second one for $100. That’s my “eh, why not” threshold.
May 15, 2010 @ 12:58:20
I placed an order (Red) and got a confirmation email early this morning. I can’t say whether or not they’ll honor it if it was a pricing error. I’ll be a pretty happy girl if they do.
May 15, 2010 @ 12:59:11
@Ridley: Me, too, because I already have a Sony, am not hot to get another one, but would probably have gone for it with that price on the touch screen model (mine is non-touch, so I’d have best of both worlds). And I suspect that if you get enough of that consumer purchasing, you will get a much more rapid conversion to digital reading among people who never thought they’d even want an ereading device (like all those folks who got Kindles for birthdays and holidays and are now hooked).
May 15, 2010 @ 13:13:32
@Robin:
Unfortunately, I don’t think it’ll happen unless the materials cost goes way down. Game companies sell consoles at a loss because they make money off the licensed games, but books don’t work that way, really.
I’m not sure this is a good time for converting people with untethered devices anyways. It took me hours to buy a single ebook and put it on my Sony yesterday. I was done in by a website glitch, DRM and faulty metadata. The process is far from user friendly right now. As much as I’d be miserable with one, I steer everyone I know to the Kindle. It’s so much easier to use.
May 15, 2010 @ 13:28:44
@Ridley: If the Kindle dropped down to $100, I’d buy it without question. I already use the software on my Mac and my iPhone, and as much as I’ve derided the actual device, it’s got a software format I can use across my Mac-based devices, the easiest purchase process, and best prices, so I’d buy the hardware if the price point was right.
I enjoy my Sony, especially the great eink screen, but I just had to do a firmware update on a PC in order to download books to the device that I bought from the Sony store (!). Recently, when I hooked the device up to my Mac (as I had been doing since I got it), DRM’d epub books were downloading but the device would not read them. IMO I should not have to own two computer systems to use a device that is *supposed* to work on either.
And I’ll forbear indulging in my DRM rant, since I don’t see the industry smartening up on that issue anytime soon. ;D
May 15, 2010 @ 14:22:02
I stil have the Sony 505 which I’m very happy with! I’m waiting for the Sony 900 to come down in price!
May 15, 2010 @ 17:28:59
I was able to order a red one this morning for $100, but I’ll be surprised if it wasn’t an error and it doesn’t ship.
I have a Kindle 2, a Sony 505 and an Opus and use the Kindle pretty much exclusively right now. It “just works” more so than any other device I’ve used and the upcoming collections will add the one thing I miss from the 505, although folders like the Opus has would be better.
May 16, 2010 @ 08:18:47
@limecello: I was able to order a Black one for $100. it’s on back order. When I check my order on their site it still has it down as $100 and on back order..
I will be surprised (and happy) if I actually get it :-)
May 16, 2010 @ 11:20:22
At my writers group yesterday we held a session on eBook readers. We had two iPhones, one iPod Touch, one Kindle and three different Sony readers – one 900 and I’m not sure of the other two versions.
The Kindle never worked. The type looked like gibberish the entire time. The Sony readers won over the non-believers. The iPods were cool but small.
I attended an inDesign conference this past week on ePubs and Printing. Wow, I learned so much! inDesign is THE optimum desktop publishing program. It is sold separately and in a suite with Photoshop and Illustrator.
If you are having issues with eBook downloads and the like, I highly suggest visiting http://calibre-ebook.com/
The creator/owner of Calibre created it because he is a reader (a brilliant one) and he wanted easier ways to download and create eBooks.
May 16, 2010 @ 12:25:38
InDesign is great, I use it every day, but still needs a bit of work when it comes to ePub creation. The new version, CS5, which I haven’t used yet is supposed to fix most of the issues CS4 had. Add Sigil to your tools for tweaking things and you’ll get great results for ePubs. Throw the ePub in to Calibre and you’ll have a perfect Mobi version for the Kindle too.
Calibre is excellent and Kovid, and all the others who help with it’s development, are to be commended. Hopefully folks send a donation their way if they find it useful.
May 18, 2010 @ 17:40:38
When I ordered my laptop yesterday at Dell, they offered a pocket edition Sony for $100.
So, you know, if you were putting off buying a computer, that might send you running to dell.com. Or not.
May 19, 2010 @ 00:06:59
Will Borders quit selling the Sonys now that they’re selling the Kobos?
In the newsletter this week I see they have the Touch at $199.99 ($100 off) and the Pocket now priced at $149.99 (same price at the Kobo).
May 19, 2010 @ 06:11:41
@library addict My guess is that they will stop selling the Sony readers but I don’t know why. Sony Touch is a different animal altogether from the Kobo reader and I’m not sure many would buy the Pocket when the Kobo is lower priced.