Naturally, I don’t agree with your arguments, though.

1. Having the ability to expand memory/storage is nice, agreed. That’s no excuse for providing you with 192mb internal memory for 299 € though. Given that price, I expect a device to which I am not obliged to add external storage in order to properly use its stated purpose – ie carry my whole library with me.

2. Ebook reader have been around for several years now. Where is the innovation with the PRS-505 when it comes with no wireless connectivity? The whole point of the Kindle (and surely one of the reasons for its success) is that it provides you with a revolutionary new feature. I think connecting your reading to your pc is indeed cumbersome. It’s just not the point of mobile reading devices, in my opinion. Everything has gone mobile (email, surfing, mp3 streaming etc), books should be next and thankfully are, due to the Kindle.

3. As I said, prices are for Germany. That’s where I’m located and there is no cheaper pricing here.

4. I’m arguing for the ability to share newly produced/amended/mashed-up/etc content. “Remix” some quotes and publish it as a blog post to further the book’s points, for example. That would be a really great feature, which even the Kindle does not have.

5. You can get some sort of push-email on your Blackberry and iPhone. Why would I want to plug my ebook reader into my pc just to finally be able to read new blog entries, newspapers etc?

I tend to think only those ebook readers are innovative and therefore worth their purchase price who provide me with wireless connectivity. That’s just what I expect in 2009 from an innovation and user-experience point of view.

Oh, and for the sales figures.. I think the Kindle has already outdone all Sony ebook readers and Sony is reportedly working on a new device with wireless connectivity.. guess they get it now..

1. The expandable memory up to 8GB is cheap and far better than the limited 2GB on the Kindle. What if I want to load some music to listen to on the PRS-505 in addition to my books?

2. Are you kidding me? OH NO! The Kindle is the ONLY reader with wireless and it’s really not that big of a deal to connect your unit to a PC to grab a book. For entering a new market this won’t seem like such a disadvantage to someone. Especially because people are not typically ripping through books so fast as that they need to have that instant access to the reader. You’ve given the impression as that connecting your eReader to a computer for all of 1 minute is so cumbersome that having a root canal may be a better alternative.
3. There are constantly special deals and prices on eBooks. There are millions of public domain books through Sony and Google’s partnership, Publishers often offer deals and specials on certain titles every month or few weeks and often the eBooks are $2-5 cheaper than their printed counterparts. Where did you get your pricing information? 5 minutes on ebookstore.sony.com? A little from your bum? Does it matter that the Sony units support more formats (like Adobe DRM) than the Kindle?

4. You feel the need to repeat what you said in two. You’re not making a new point here except for the wrong one that says you can’t share. You can share Sony books you just have to plugin to the same computer and add it as an authorized unit. Kindle’s sharing is not remotely as easy as this.

5. You can read a variety of blogs, rss feeds etc on the Sony 505 using Calibre. I won’t go into the details though because it involves plugging the PRS-505 in a computer and everyone knows that’s a big epic fail and should not be tolerated.

You can claim the 505 is a failure but Sony’s sales of the unit would suggest otherwise. Thank you for the very informative, poorly written, and clearly bias article.