Sony Ereader PRS-T1
Rating:
Design and Features
The Sony Ereader’s design is slim, with a plastic case which, to me, felt a little cheap and old fashioned, but it has some fairly advanced features such as a touchscreen, Wi-Fi and integrated dictionary.
The Reader is lightweight making it comfortable to hold and reading is simple and easy with pages turning quickly. Most important of all though, is the 6 inch glare free 800 x 600 resolution screen which is kind on the eyes, provides great contrast and is more desirable than a general LCD screen
Although it works with Adobe’s Digital Editions software, it has its own software which lets you manage your music, pictures and notes as well as eBooks and periodicals.
The only online bookstores currently available are from WHSmith, Waterstones and Mills & Boon. The Reader also comes with a Public Library link which allows you to search local libraries and borrow a huge selection.
Storage
When it comes to storage, there’s microSD card slot with support for up to 32GB to expand upon the 2GB of internal memory and a 3.5mm headphone jack. This means there’s plenty of space for MP3s too. Great if you like music on the go, but you won’t get the advertised battery life if you enjoy playing the music. Furthermore, you’re more than likely to already have a separate mp3 player if you like listening to your personal music collection.
Touchscreen
Unlike traditional touchscreens which require physical touch, this system reacts to your finger’s presence allowing you to use the swipe “action” to turn the page. You can also use the edge of your fingernail or the stylus to add notes or underline selected words.
The interface is intuitive as is the menu system.
One minor niggle is the annoying page flicker when loading or refreshing a page, which only lasts a split second, but it makes the reader feel a little outdated, especially with the quality of the gadgets available today.
Fonts & Screen Mode
You can select eight font sizes and seven fonts as well as being able to select the viewing mode, for example splitting the width of the text on the page into two columns. However, frustratingly, there’s no built-in autorotate function, instead you need to manually select this option within the menu settings.
Holding and pressing on a word highlights it and adds a note, searches or looks up on Wikipedia or Google and a dictionary definition is automatically displayed at the bottom of the page.
Extra Accessory
Sony includes an extra accessory – a black stylus so you can make notes, but annoyingly, there’s nowhere to keep it within the reader. So, unless you have a case for the reader and a pocket for the stylus, it’s more than likely to get lost or forgotten about!
Pros
- swipe action to turn pages
- slim and lightweight
- intuitive menu system
- comfortable to hold
Cons
- screen flicker when loading a page
- nowhere to secure the stylus
Verdict
Overall, this is an impressively designed slim and lightweight reader with some pretty decent features. But it’s not without it’s minor niggles.
Aside from these and it’s slightly higher price tag compared with the Kindle, the specification is a good selling point that includes it’s connectivity, expandable memory options as well as the clever multi-touch anti-glare screen.
