Sony Announces Reader Daily Edition, Free eBook Checkout

The big question for the Sony Reader has always been how the company would compete with the Kindle. Up until today, Sony Readers had great features, but lacked the crucial one, namely the ability to download books wirelessly. Today Sony announced the Reader Daily Edition, which can download ebooks via 3G, and as a final jab to Amazon, Sony also announced a way for you to get free books.

And that’s absolutely essential considering that the Sony Reader has never had anything close to the Kindle Store to offer readers. This isn’t just a free download, it’s actually a very literal interpretation of a library checkout system. Sony has teamed up with Overdrive.com to allow you to find a local library that carries ebooks and check those books out on your Reader Daily Edition. The ebooks will remain on your device for 21 days, and presumably you won’t have to worry about late fees because the digital copy can be taken away easily enough. In fact, getting even more literal, the libraries will only be allowed a certain number of copies of each book, so even though we live in a digital society you may find that the very ebook you want has been checked out by someone else. Quite the throwback, but again these are free books, so perhaps we shouldn’t complain too much.

The device can still purchase and download books from the Sony eBook Store, via 3G connection. Don’t get too excited; there’s no browser in the device, so the only place you can go is the Sony eBook Store. The Reader Daily Edition is an addition to the new line of Readers Sony announced earlier, the PRS-300 and the PRS-600. It has a 7-inch touchscreen (16 levels of gray) and the aforementioned 3G modem. It will cost you $400 and will be available in December.

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