Sony released their new e-reader yesterday. They say the new non-backlit technology “rivals the printed page”. At $350 a pop, it better surpass it.

The Personal Reading System (PRS-500) handheld unit carries multiple titles a once. But it only works with Windows XP and displays Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, RTF, text and JPEG formats.

If you buy an e-reader now you get to choose $50 of free e-books from their catalog of 10,000 titles.

I could see this being useful for tech manuals or research materials. But I just can’t imagine curling up on the couch with one of these.

ED: I’ve done some more digging… the Sony Style site now posts a note saying “due to demand the PRS-500 will ship in November”. Also I notice that the reader takes in blog and newsfeeds as well as RSS. That’s pretty cool. But there is no wireless connectiviy. Oh well, that may be the one overlooked feature that kills the PRS’s chances.