Sony May Be Readying New Lineup Of Readers

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It’s been a busy few days for Sony, folks; we’ve been hearing about their Walkman line coming back from the mostly dead and a whole load of product news from them besides. And now we’ve got one more chunk of news: the Sony Reader? It’s not dead either, at least, if you believe the reports coming out.

The last report from a variety of sources said that the new readers would be offering wi-fi but not 3G connectivity, but word about other features was staying pretty quiet. Launches were expected for this August, as that’s when Sony has offered up their newest Reader models in the past. There’s also no word about pricing, but many are looking for these to come out slightly cheaper than the current model to keep up with the superabundance of tablets and ereaders already out on shelves, including their own imminent releases.

But Sony itself offered up a note of extra word on this, saying that they were “committed” to the ereader product, but hadn’t released any word about launch dates or features or anything else, thus much of this was speculative.

It’s an interesting notion, sure enough. We already know about the S1 and the S2, so would Sony be somewhat willing to offer up new Readers in the face of a full tablet launch? On the one hand, it might well serve as a bit of warm-up for a larger marketing frenzy. Get people reacquainted with something approximately similar to the big new thing from Sony before bringing out the big new thing that everyone will have to take a chance on. But on the other, it may distract and divert resources away from the bigger new campaign. And given that “August” is only two to six weeks away, it doesn’t give Sony a lot of time to put out its supposed new product in  that short a time.

So what do you guys think here? Will we actually be seeing new Sony Reader models emerge in the near future? Or is this an example of the rumor mill running overtime? No matter how you feel about this, head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!