Sony Reader: Электронды кітап оқу құрылғыларының тарихы

Line of e book readers manufactured by Sony

The Sony Reader (ソニー・リーダー) was a line of e book readers manufactured by Sony. The first model was the PRS 500 released in September 2006 and was related to the earlier Sony Librie, the first commercial E Ink e reader in 2004 using an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation. The last model was the PRS T3, after which Sony announced it would no longer release a new consumer e reader. Sony sold e books for the Reader from the Sony eBook Library in the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain. The Reader also could display Adobe PDFs, ePub format, RSS newsfeeds, JPEGs, and Sony's proprietary BBeB ("BroadBand eBook") format. Some Readers could play MP3 and unencrypted AAC audio files. Compatibility with Adobe digital rights management (DRM) protected PDF and ePub files allowed Sony Reader owners to borrow ebooks from lending libraries in many countries. The DRM rules of the Reader allowed any purchased e book to be read on up to six devices, at least one of which must be a personal computer running Windows or Mac OS X. Although the owner could not share purchased eBooks on others' devices and accounts, the ability to register five Readers to a single account and share books accordingly was a possible workaround.

Ten models were produced. The PRS 500 (PRS standing for Portable Reader System) was made available in the United States in September 2006. On 1 November 2006, Readers went on display and for sale at Borders bookstores throughout the US. Borders had an exclusive contract for the Reader until the end of 2006. From April 2007, Sony Reader has been sold in the US by multiple merchants, including Fry's Electronics, Costco, Borders and Best Buy. The eBook Store from Sony is only available to US or Canadian residents or to customers who purchased a US model reader with bundled eBook Store credit. On July 24, 2007, Sony announced that the PRS 505 Reader would be available in the UK with a launch date of September 3, 2008. Waterstone's is the official retail partner and the Reader is available at selected stores such as Argos, Sony Centres and Dixons; while a red edition is available exclusively from John Lewis. On October 2, 2008 the PRS 700, with touch screen and built in lighting was announced. On August 5, 2009 Sony announced two new readers, the budget PRS 300 Pocket Edition and the more advanced PRS 600 Touch Edition. On August 25, 2009 Sony announced the Reader PRS 900 "Daily Edition." This features a 7" diagonal screen to compete with the Amazon Kindle DX. It was also the first to feature free 3G wireless through AT&T to access the Sony eBookstore without the need of a computer, and to increase the grayscale level, from 8 to 16. On September 1, 2010, Sony introduced the PRS 350 Pocket Edition, PRS 650 Touch Edition, PRS 950 "Daily Edition" as replacements for the PRS 300, PRS 600 and PRS 900, with both new models featuring 16 level grey scale touch screens. The launch of the new models also represented the introduction of the Sony Reader into the Australian and New Zealand markets for the first time. On August 31, 2011, Sony announced a new reader replacing all of their previous models, the PRS T1, featuring a 6" screen. On August 16, 2012, Sony announced the PRS T1 successor, the PRS T2. On September 4, 2013, Sony announced the PRS T2 successor, the PRS T3. Unlike previous Sony reader models, the T3 is not sold in the US, and Sony has abandoned the North American market due to competition from Amazon, B&N and Kobo. On February 6, 2014, Sony announced that it was closing its North American, Europe, and Australia Reader Stores in late March, migrating all its customers to the Kobo Reader Store. On August 1, 2014, Sony announced that it would not release another ereader but would keep selling its remaining stock. In late 2014, Sony released the Sony Digital Paper DPTS1 which only views PDFs and has a stylus for making notes aimed at professional business users.

The PRS T3S is the latest 6", Wi Fi only model. Announced in October 2013 in Japan, it is a PRS T3 without a cover that costs $99 and was sold in Japan, the UK, Canada and Germany.

Sony Reader came bundled with Sony's proprietary software called Sony Reader Library (or formerly eBook Library and Sony Connect). It requires MS Windows XP or higher (MS Windows Vista or 7), an 800 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, and 20 MB of hard disk space. This software does not work on the 64 bit versions of MS Windows XP. 64 bit MS Windows Vista and 7 is supported since Sony eBook Library version 2.5 for all but the 500 models. In February 2014 Sony Reader announced that they were transferring content to the Kobo Store. In March 2014 the Sony Reader store was closed and account holders received an email with a link that enabled them to transfer their library to Kobo. Most titles transferred; however, some were not able to be transferred even though the titles were sold on Kobo; the transfer period ended in May.

Sony released an official Apple Mac OS X client for the Reader with the release of the PRS 300 and PRS 600. It is reported to work with the PRS 505, PRS 700, Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition. The software now works under 10.7 Lion.

Sony eBook Library was not officially supported on Linux based systems or other operating systems, although when the device is connected it grants access to its internal flash memory and any memory card slots as though they were USB Mass Storage devices (on all models except PRS 500s that have not received the free EPUB upgrade from Sony), allowing the user to transfer files directly. See the Third party tools section below for a third party software utility that provides comprehensive support for MS Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux. Note if the device is locked, using the optional 4 digit pin it will not mount via USB, the lock option needs to be disabled in order to mount the device.

Several third party tools exist for the Sony Reader. For example, the PRS Browser for Apple Mac OS X from Docudesk allows Apple Macintosh users to manage content on the Sony Reader. Users can also use the free software library and utility called Calibre to communicate with the Reader and manage their digital library. Calibre can convert many ebook formats as well as collate multiple HTML pages into a single ebook file with an automatically generated table of contents. Calibre can also manage RSS subscriptions, including scheduled pushes of newsfeeds to the reader. It has both a command line and graphical interface, and is available for MS Windows, Apple Mac OS X and Linux. Calibre notably does not offer MS Windows 64 bit support for the PRS 500 model either. Specialized on notes, annotations, bookmarks and other input by the user, noteworks allows for listing, exporting and other handling of this data, extracted from the device. In addition, Adobe Digital Editions can deliver DRM locked PDF and ePub documents to the PRS 350, PRS 505 and PRS 700. The software is officially available for Windows and Mac OS. It can be run on Linux using Wine. After activating the reader on an officially supported platform, DRM locked media can be downloaded and transferred to the reader on Linux as well.

PRS+ project seamlessly integrates into Sony UI and adds support for folder browsing, dictionary, key binding, book history, custom epub styles, games (Sudoku, Chess, Mahjong, etc. ), localization (Catalan, German, Czech, English, French, Georgian, Russian, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese) and has built in fb2 to EPUB converter.

Runs as an independent application. Adds support for FB2 / CBR / CBZ formats, drops support for LRF. Currently in beta state.

The PRS T1, PRS T2 and PRS T3 run a heavily modified version of the Android operating system, which Sony mentions in the Legal Notices installed on the device. Its predecessors run the MontaVista Linux Professional Edition operating system with Kinoma FSK, a JavaScript virtual machine, optimized for devices with limited resources.

In December 2008, Sony disclosed that it had sold 300,000 units of its Reader Digital Book globally since the device launched in October 2006. According to an IDC study from March 2011, sales for all e book readers worldwide grew to 12.8 million in 2010; 800,000 of those were Sony Readers.