Keeping up with recent price drops on the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle, Sony has announced a price drop on its Reader line. The 5-inch Pocket Edition of the Sony Reader is now available for $149.99, down from $169.99; the Touch Edition Reader saw its price drop from $199.99 to $179.99, and the 3G Daily Edition—which features wireless connectivity—is now $299.99 instead of $349.99.
The Pocket Edition had previously received a $30 price cut back in April; the Pocket Edition is Sony’s least expensive e-reader, and features a 5-inch screen and 512MB of internal storage—the unit does not have Wi-Fi or 3G wireless capability.
The move highlights increasing competition in the ereader market, with makers of dedicated ereaders like the Sony Reader struggling to get out of the high-end of the price brackets now defined by the $499—and more broadly functional—Apple iPad tablet device, which starts at $499. Amazon dropped the price of its Kindle DX from $490 to $380 to get out of the iPad’s way, and mid-range ereaders have been adjusting their prices to try to undercut each other. However, the bottom range of the ereader market is going to see intensive competition too: Borders is offering the Kobo ereader for $150—but that’s with a $20 gift card—and the Libre ereader should be hitting Borders this month for $120.
