SAN FRANCISCO — Electronic books are often mentioned in the same breath as Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle digital reader. Now e-book rival Sony Corp. is determined to recapture consumers' attention with a smaller reader that's also $100 cheaper.
On Wednesday, Sony is expected to announce that it will release the Reader Pocket Edition by the end of August. Like the Kindle and Sony's previous Readers, the Pocket Edition will come with an "electronic ink" display, which shows dark gray text on a lighter gray background. As the word "pocket" implies, its five-inch screen will be smaller than that on the Kindle and other Sony models.
Unlike other Readers, the Pocket Edition won't play digital music files, and it won't have a slot for a memory card to supplement internal storage that can hold 350 books.
It will retail for $199, a third off the price of the basic Kindle model and about $80 less than Sony's PRS-505 reader, which will be discontinued. Color choices include blue, red and silver.
The device is entering a small but growing market. U.S. e-book sales totaled $113 million last year — up 68 percent from 2007 but still a fraction of the estimated $24.3 billion spent on all books, according to the Association of American Publishers.
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