Sony PRS600 Touch Edition eReader Review 1 comment
I finally was able to get my very own Sony Touch Edition e-reader a few days ago. I had hoped to have one last week so that I could do a review last weekend, but it was not to be.
The Sony Touch Edition has apparently been selling well in the two weeks or so that it has been out, at least judging by the short supply that it seems to be in. I tried to buy one from my local Sony Style store last week but they were out of stock. In spite of recent talk on the internet about how the retail price of ebook readers needs to drop to $50 (?) to reach mass acceptance, the Pocket Edition which retails for $100 less at $199 is still in stock at most outlets that I’ve checked; so maybe it’s not selling as well as the Touch Edition is at $299? No way to tell without knowing the production and sales numbers. Amazon
You will see in the pictures that the Sony PRS600 is packaged with a USB 
cable, a Neoprene slipcase and a quick start guide. What you will not see is an AC adaptor. If you want that you will need to pay another $30. Maybe this is not such an issue as the battery in e-Ink based ebook readers lasts for so long; however it does mean that you have to have your computer on while charging your e-reader with the USB. A full charge over the USB cable takes about four hours. The slipcase, while being a nice gesture, is pretty flimsy and does not look like it will provide any serious protection. Probably a good cover is advisable.
No software cd is included or needed. There is a brief startup process on the PRS600. I also noticed that there are about twelve books and excerpts pre-loaded on my new ebook reader. These include a work by Stendhall, The Three Musketeers by Dumas, and even a short story by Stephen King. Curiously, several of these were in German or French instead of English. I bought my ereader in North America, and in the setup I choose English; shouldn’t the pre-installed books be in my chosen language? If Sony wants to prove that its ebook reader can handle other languages, all they have to do is put it in the specs – I’ll believe them.
Now to actually buy, download and read an ebook on my new ereader. I’ve recently read the first installment in the Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison. If you have not read it, it is kind of like Kinsey Millhone with magic and….well… with pixies. And vampires. Anyway, it’s fun, I like vampires; not that I’ve actually met any and lived to tell about it. To start off, I want to see what the competition, in this case the Kindle store, is doing so that I have some kind of reference point. The second book in the series, “The Good, the Bad, and the Undead”, is available for the Kindle for $5.49. Good, now over to the Sony Store. …Uhmmmm….$13.49. More than double what Kindlers are paying. Never mind, Sony’s e readers have embraced openess and we are now compatible with Adobe Digital Editions, so I can buy from another store in that format. So I’m off to other ebook stores to see what the best price I can come up with is, and ….uhmmmm….well, so much for openness. After wasting 15 – 20 minutes price checking I’m dragging my mouse back to the Sony eBook Store, as $13.49 is the cheapest price that I can find. Yes it is nice to be able to buy your ebooks from any store you choose. But unless your cousin works at one of them, what’s the point if the prices and selection are almost the same at all of the stores and epecially if the prices are more than double that of the main competition? You are probably starting to wonder why I didn’t just buy the paperback version for less than $5.
Anyway, the Sony eBook Store software is pretty easy to download and install. It’s just a matter of entering your credit card number and then drag and dropping the downloaded file to your e reader after you activate it. There was also a firmware update, which I installed with no apparent problems. I don’t use Mac, so I can’t test Sony’s newly compatible software with that.
Sony’s PRS700 ebook reader was notorious for its glare, which is caused/made worse by the touch screen. I was worried that the PRS600 might share the bad genes, so I have tried it in several different lighting conditions. Actually, in direct sunlight I found the ereader to be very readable, and contrast was very good in the bright light. Great for the beach. Where I had problems outside was on my patio, which is partially covered and provides a dappled shade. This is bad, as it is hard to find an angle that doesn’t show varying degrees of glare across the screen, which is most distracting when trying to read. Indoors I had problems reading beside a lamp (for example in bed with a side table lamp). It was somewhat distracting to find a comfortable angle to avoid the glare from the lamp.
The touch screen in general is good. It does make navigation easier. On the other hand it does reduce contrast and there is some glare, though less than I had feared. Sony definitely could have done a better job of implementation. To make notes or highlight you must first tap on a hardware button and then an icon to activate that ability. Too many actions. The page turn is the worst though. To accomplish page turns, you either use a finger swipe on the touch screen or use the hardware button at the bottom of the e reader. It seems hard to get the pressure right for the finger swipe as if you don’t press hard enough nothing happens. I then found myself becoming afraid that I would swipe too hard and scratch the screen. This wouldn’t be such an issue if Sony had placed the page turn hardware button on the right and left edges of the bezel about halfway up the sides of the ereader; but no, they put it at the bottom. It is very hard to hold this ereader with one hand and turn pages while, say, lying in bed. Distractions like this make it harder to get lost in a good book.
Actually, I’ve had a couple of touch screen phones that I’ve read books on and have had the same problems with the page turn swipe. It seems to me that the correct amount of pressure required for this action on most touch screens is not an intuitive one, and is hard to file in one’s muscle memory. Maybe that’s just me, but I would ask any ebook reader manufacturers that use a touch screen on their ereaders in the future to please also include page turning buttons that can easily be thumb-pressed when the ereader is being held in either the left or right hand only, in lieu of the finger swipe if one so chooses.
All in all I’m enjoying my time with the PRS600. I have to admit to not being a huge Sony fan. Not all of my experiences with Sony products have had happy endings. Maybe Sony got it right this time though. The new ereaders (and this includes the PRS300) are attractive and appear to be well made. I like the aluminum case much better than the plastic one some ereaders have. I find myself really wanting to like the PRS600. There are two major issues though that make the Sony Touch Edition take second place to the Kindle 2 in my opinion, however.
The greatest shortcoming is the lack of content compared to the Kindle family’s ebook store. If you discount Google’s public domain titles, the Sony eBook Store has somewhere around one third as many titles as the Kindle store has. In the price comparisons that I’ve done the Kindle store is also usually less expensive. Most bestsellers are $9.99 pretty much everywhere now, so if you mainly read current bestsellers or the Google public domain ebooks you will probably be satisfied with Sony’s offerings. If, however, your reading taste falls somewhere between these two poles you may end up spending a lot more in the long run for your reading and have less to choose from. Yes, with the newly added support for Adobe Digital Editions you can shop around, but most of the ebook stores seem to have pretty similar prices and selection.
Sony’s UK ebook store appears to have even fewer titles than its US counterpart; one wonders how Sony’s ebook readers can seriously expect to challenge Amazon when the Kindles are introduced there. Of course it remains to be seen how many titles a Kindle UK store would launch with.
Wireless connectivity, of course, is the other area in which the new Sony ebook readers come up light when weighed against the Kindle. Yes, Sony has announced the Reader Daily Edition, which is supposed to come out in the next few months with a wireless connection provided by AT&T. According to the specs we’ve been given so far, however, that will only connect you to the Sony eBook Store. The Kindle’s Whispernet adds much more versatility to Amazon’s ereaders. If you need to you can browse the net, though admittedly the Kindle browser is not going to be anyone’s first choice when it comes to accessing the internet. But if you need it, it’s there. Same for being able to check your email or researching something you are reading about on Wikipedia. The business world is finding new applications for the Kindles all the time. If you work in the field and must carry several hundred pages of frequently changing documents how easy would it be for your office to email new and updated docs to your Kindle email address from whence they would be transmitted wirelessly to your ereader? To me the wireless connection is a more valuable feature than the touch screen.
I’ve only used my Sony Touch Edition for a few days now, but so far I think it’s a great ebook reader. The thing is I think the Kindle 2 is the better choice at the same price. On the other hand, if you really like Sony or if you don’t like Amazon for some reason, or if you would rather have the touch screen than Whispernet, then I don’t think you will be disappointed with the PRS600.
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Superb article to have read on my break!