Despite being in the e-book reader market for years, Sony is nowhere nearly as successful as Amazon with its Kindle. Sony’s e-book readers, despite having a better industrial design and more attractive look-and-feel, lags behind the Kindle with its lack of always on connectivity and content.

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Looks like that might be about to change as Sony announced its latest addition to its eBook family of products – Reader Daily Edition. The new reader, available in December this year at $399, will have free always-on 3G connectivity so that users can access the online bookstore whenever and where ever. Up to now, Kindle is the only eBook reader with such wireless functionality.

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Other goodness includes:

  • Large 7” Touchscreen display. In comparison, Kindle has a 6” display and Kindle DX has a 10” display – both are not touchscreens.
  • Landscape mode – this is enough to show 2 pages at a time.
  • Ability to checkout books from libraries for free. Sony is partnering with New York Public Library as a launch partner, but is expected to have “thousands more” libraries added over time through its partnership with Overdrive.com. The checked out books automatically expire after 14-29 days.
  • Users will also be able to access all the content of Google Books.

It remains to be seen how the eBook market will shake out. This market is still relatively nascent, and is about to heat up, particularly if Apple brings on its Tablet.

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