Sony Challenges Kindle With $199 E-Reader

Sony plans to fire up competition in the E-reader market with a pair of affordable releases next month, Bloomberg reports. The Sony Reader Pocket Edition, with a 5-inch screen, will be priced at $199. A touch-screen version will sell for $299. Amazon dropped the price of its Kindles to $299 last month in an effort to dominate the market.

Sony, which expanded the size of its E-bookstore to 600,000 titles under a deal with Google earlier this year, says it is cutting the price of new releases and bestsellers to $9.99, matching Amazon's prices. The new Sony reader models, unlike the Kindle, aren't wireless, but company officials say they're committed to bringing out a wireless E-reader in the future.
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