Sony Reader Daily Edition PRS-900
Filed under Larger eReaders
While Sony may be one of the oldest players on the eBook reader market, its line of e-readers are perhaps some of the sleekest and most elegant out there (in a pre-Apple iPad world, at least). The Reader Daily Edition PRS-900 certainly does not let the side down as its svelte, sexy edges and touch display bring a lot to the table.
Design
In terms of design, the Sony Reader Daily Edition is essentially a slightly larger-screened Touch Edition with a 7.1-inch e-ink display. Its metallic slightly brushed finish feels solid and sturdy and attracts far less finger prints which is always a good thing. To protect your investment, the device ships with a nice leather cover (or at least one that feels like leather).
The Daily Edition is exactly the same width as the 6-inch Touch Edition but its height has increased to cater for the larger screen. Weighing in at 12.75 ounces (361.45 grams), it feels natural in hand and is easy to hold for lengthy periods.
The Daily Edition has a Spartan design as it sports just five long, thin buttons lined up beneath the display. These take care of the basic functions of turning pages, accessing the home screen, zooming in and out and firing up the context-dependent options menus. Everything else is controlled through the touchscreen. But less buttons equal a sleeker and more minimalist look that really highlights that sexy metallic finish.
All other necessary ports, sockets and switches are situated at the top and bottom of the device.
Display
The Daily Edition’s 7.1-inch e-ink screen offers a 1024×600 pixel resolution and 16 levels of grayscale. With 16 levels of grayscale, you would automatically expect the Daily Edition to have a good contrast but when placed side-by-side with the Nook and even the Kindle, you will notice that its letters and icons appear much lighter and are harder to see. Unfortunately there is no way to adjust the contrast but you can choose among six typeface sizes using the dedicated size button – extra-small, small, medium, large, extra-large, and extra-extra large. Most people with reasonable eyesight will find that the medium and large font sizes are optimal for reading.
On top of this, the Daily Edition has a few glare issues and though the touchscreen is fairly responsive, you still have to apply a little pressure to get the desired response. The touchscreen is nothing like the capacitive screen like those found on iPhones and other new smartphones.
The Daily Edition works in both portrait and landscape orientations, but because it doesn’t have an accelerometer you have to use a button to change orientation. To deal with the challenges of long line length in landscape mode, Sony have added a two-page per screen view that looks like a traditional print book opened up. The two pages are surprisingly easy to read which is great.
The Daily Edition has a touchscreen that you can manipulate with your fingers or with a stylus that slides into the device’s upper left corner. You can turn pages forward or backward with a finger swipe, and you get to choose whether to use left-to-right or right-to-lift action for this purpose. Swiping and holding your finger down at the end of the swipe allows you to advance or rewind through pages at a fast clip. The swiping is a nice way of giving you the feeling of turning pages in a book.
The home screen is populated with large icons, starting with a thumbnail cover of your most recent reading material on top and your other available books in the middle. At the bottom are icons for accessing your periodicals, other collections, and notes; and below them are tabs leading to the online bookstore, applications, and settings. Navigating through icons can be a bit sluggish but this is typical and expected behaviour of e-ink technology.
Software
The Daily Edition is capable of displaying text, RTF, Word, BBeB Book files, and ePub files, as well as PDFs which opens the door to a variety of free content, including public domain Google Books. Another big plus is that the Daily Edition is compatible with digital books from local libraries, which have just begun lending out e-books using an ePub file format with a 21-day expiration. You can download the books using the Sony desktop software for Windows and Mac or download them directly to the Reader using its wireless connection or USB slot. There is no charge for using the wireless connection. Big thumbs up for that!
Because the Daily Edition has a touchscreen, it is possible to annotate and mark up text or just take notes by hand. The reader does well when interpreting scrawls and sketching.You can write directly on the screen with the included stylus which tucks neatly at the back of the reader. The Oxford American and English dictionaries are on board and you can access these when reading or just use the dictionary itself via an icon in the applications tab.
The Daily Edition is Sony’s first e-reader to provide wireless access to content (via AT&T’s 3G wireless network in the US), and Sony has sought to capitalise on that feature by offering not just a bookstore but wireless delivery of newspapers, either by subscription or as single copies. Several big names in daily print US journalism – including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – are for sale in Sony’s Reader Store, which you can access from the device. In fact, if you leave wireless on in standby mode, the Daily Edition will automatically download your new subscriptions, so they’ll be waiting for you each morning. The prices are the same as Amazon’s, but the layout is more attractive with a front page presentation that has several graphics and article links. You can also opt to keep several days’ worth of content loaded on your Daily Edition, so you can catch up on the news at your leisure (the device has approximately 2GB of internal memory and can accommodate an SD or Memory Stick expansion card if that’s not enough).
The Reader Store itself has a clean logical layout which is pretty easy to navigate. Sony offers a decent selection of books and periodicals to choose from but that being said, the book selection is nowhere near as comprehensive or cheap as Amazon’s. In addition to that, the book categories could be better organised and refined as it is currently a mish mash of icons, links and banners which makes browsing a tedious process. To get an idea of the store, you can visit Sony’s web browser version here: ebookstore.sony.com.
On the plus side, The Daily Edition can be used to download books and transfer them to the reader in instances where there’s no available or compatible cellular service (such as when you’re travelling overseas).
Battery life
The Lithium Ion battery is designed to go several days or even weeks without having to be recharged (Sony says you should get up to 7 days of battery life with the wireless turned on and more than twice that with it turned off). The music player will shorten runtimes, but it’s not a terribly power-hungry technology.
This Reader ships with an AC adapter and you can also connect the Reader to your PC with the included USB cable.
Conclusion
Benefits
The Daily Edition looks classy, offers an extended screen with more lines of text and has quite an impressive feature set so you won’t be shelling out extra to get basic accessories. The Sony Store experience is enjoyable and pretty smooth. It supports ePUB, PDF and Adobe DRM so it works with library books and Google free books among others.
Downfalls
The screen contrast is not as good as it should be and it is very reflective. Book categories and sub-categories in the Reader Store could be better organised and refined and Sony’s book selection is nowhere near as cheap and comprehensive as Amazon’s.
PS – The Sony Daily Edition is currently only available in the United States.
