Sony finally unveils e-readers in Australia

SONY has finally entered the burgeoning Australian e-reader market with a brace of touch screen models under $300.

Sony Reader Pocket Edition

SONY has finally entered the burgeoning Australian e-reader market with a brace of touch screen models under $300.

The Japanese electronics firm has had e-readers in its product swag since 2006 but declined to sell them here. That policy changes this month when the firm starts selling the $229 Reader Pocket Edition and the $299 Reader Touch Edition, reports The Australian.

The Touch has a 6 inch touch driven, grey scale e-ink screen and 2GB of memory that can be expanded to 16GB.

The smaller Pocket has a 5 inch touch driven, grey scale e-ink screen and 2GB of memory.

Battery life on both models is claimed to handle up to 10,000 continuous page turns and Sony claims the screens on both models are readable in direct sunlight.

The Sony e-readers are single purpose machines and not capable of tablet computer functions like running apps and web browsers .

Unlike Amazon’s Kindle e-reader which can download books on the fly from a wireless network, the Sony machines need to be plugged into a PC to load up on books.

The Sony e-readers will be available at the end of next week from selected retail outlets.

Read more at The Australian.