Sony Unveils New E-Book Reader

As all card-carrying gadget geeks know, the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show is going on right now, bringing visions of a techie utopia to everyone who lusts after the latest cellphone, bluetooth gadget, plasma television, or motorized floating rafts. Myself, I freaking hate cellphones and still lug around my old bag phone that I gleefully installed in my car after all those years of watching Crockett on Miami Vice answer with a simple and forceful “yeah” while cruising in his Ferrari.

Anyway, for those of you more gadget savy then me, our pal John and his techninjas over at Gizmodo are filling frequent updates on all the cool displays at CES. Most interesting to us bookish folks was the introduction of the Sony Reader, a gizmo that Publishers Weekly calls “the most reader-friendly e-book device to date.”

The Reader is said to deliver “the sharpest screen resolution of any e-reader yet developed.” The device weighs 8.8 ounces and features a battery life capacity that yields about 7,500 page turns per charge. Price estimates range from $300 to $400 which is a bit of a drag, but it might be worth it. As the Gizmodo guys gush, “here’s the hottest part: RSS support with images. The digital morning paper is finally about to happen.”