It’s been a long time coming – and strictly speaking it’s not quite here yet – but it looks as if the Amazon Kindle reader is about to get some serious competition. Sony has just announced the launch of its latest e-book reader – the “Daily Edition” – and it looks as if it will give the Kindle a run for its money.

Sony say it will be on sale in early December – which means it will be in time for the Christmas season. The selling price shall be 9. That’s 0 above the Kindle 2 and less than the DX.

The price isn’t all that Sony have pitched between the Kindle 2 and the DX. Readers can view a similar number of lines of text to a paperback book on the seven inch wide screen. The device trumps both of the Kindles by incorporating touch screen technology.

Wireless connectivity is provided – to the Sony bookstore at least. This will be provided by AT&T which may make it easier for Sony to launch the reader in Europe (no date for this has been announced as yet). Amazon has been largely unsuccessful to date in their attempts to obtain similar European connectivity to their Sprint 3G “Whispernet” system employed in the US.

It appears that Sony has a very competitive offering here. Based upon the specified details released to date, Sony's Daily Edition seems to be technically superior to the Kindle in certain areas. Of course, it's not just the technical functionality of the actual reader devices that need to be considered. Amazon’s huge, and ever increasing, library of titles on offer is a big selling point for them. However, Sony have a tie-up with Google which lets their users access Google’s public domain library and the Daily Edition reader will also allow users to access their local library’s collection of e-books.

There are plenty of other new readers planned for launch in the near future by other competitors – including Apple. It certainly looks as if the e-book reader marketplace is hotting up. At the end of the day, increased competition can only be good news for consumers as prices of both the readers and the e-books for them will trend downwards.

Olan Butler – Technology Specialist – Computer Services