Sony PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition Review – a bargain revisit

1. Introduction2. Sony PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition (1)3. Sony PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition (2)4. Sony PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition (3)5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

Apple's iPad has dominated the press this year, with incredible sales figures verifying that there is a huge market for easy to use, portable devices. I will hold my hand up and say I use an iPad regularly, from reading the Times newspaper every morning to playing with latest games and applications on the iTunes Store.

As with any technological gadget is it only after months of use that you begin to really get to grips with the strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately I have found one rather major weakness and that is when I want to read books. It is not that the applications are poor, or that the device is slow – it just hurts my eyes after 30 minutes of staring at text. There are however some very clever alternatives to the iPad, built specifically for reading books.

Today we are going to look at the Sony PRS 600, Sony's follow up to the PRS 505, a fantastic eBook reader which was released in 2008. The PRS 600 was released almost a year ago, but as people are really catching on to electronic books we have noticed stores such as PC WORLD are stocking them in the UK. As the model has been phasing out, huge stores such as Play.com are selling them for £159.99 inc vat, down £110 from when they where released.

Is this a device that makes a good value for money purchase in 2010?

• Key Features:
• Store up to 350 eBooks (13,000 with extra memory card)
• 6″ E Ink Vizplex touch-screen for the ultimate reading experience
• Advanced Features: annotations, search & in-built English dictionary
• Sleek aluminium design plus choice of colours, covers, & reading lights
• Long battery charge for around 7500 page turns
• Specifications:
• Display Screen:
• Technology: E Ink Vizplex touchscreen
• Screen size (inch): 6
• Resolution: 800×600 (h/w)
• Grey scale: 8-level grey scale
• Storage Capacity:
• Built in flash memory (MB): 512 (Approx. 350 eBooks)
• MemoryStick MS DUO slot: Yes
• SD Card Slot: Yes
• Power:
• Battery Type: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery: DC 3.7 V
• Battery Life (reading EPUB eBooks): Approx 7500 page turns
• Recharging Time: Four hours with USB, two hours with optional AC charger
• Compatible Formats:
• Unsecured / free eBooks & text files: EPUB eBook, Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, TXT, RTF, BBeB
• DRM (Secure / purchased) eBooks and text files: EPUB eBooks (Adept) BBeB eBooks (Marlin)
• Unsecured Audio files: MP3, AAC (not most DRM audio)
• Image & Photo files: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP
• Supplied Accessories:
• Soft cover: Pouch
• USB Cable: Yes
• Quick Start guide: Yes
• eBook Library software: Yes
• Recommended Minimum System Requirements:
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit or 64-bit) or Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit only), MAC OS X 10.4.9 or later
• Processor: 800 MHz Intel Celeron class processor or better
• RAM: 128 MB minimum, or 512 MB minimum for Windows Vista
• Hard Drive: 20 MB Minimum available Hard Drive space
• Optical Drive: Capable of reading CD-ROM
• USB Port: USB 2.0 high speed
• Internet Connection: Broadband
• Dimensions:
• Width (mm): 121
• Height (mm): 174.3
• Depth (mm): 9.8
• Weight (g): 286

The Sony PRS 600 arrives in a small box, modestly designed with the product name on the front and some literature on the back.

Inside there are several multilanguage guides, a USB cable for connecting to your PC and a soft cover for transportation. The device is protected inside a cloth sleeve.

The PRS 600 is a typically designed Sony product, available in black or silver. It is finished in aluminum and is quite light to lift, especially when used after the Apple iPad. Being only 6 inches in length it is noticeably smaller next to the iPad.

The PRS 600 looks substantially different next to the previous Sony eReaders because they decided to kill many of the buttons, resulting in a simple row of 5 across the bottom. As it has a touch sensitive screen this would be an obvious design change. The back of the unit has been kept clean and simple with the name of the device in the middle.

As well as using your finger, Sony have built a stylus into the corner which can be used to activate various on screen displays.

This device is e-Ink based which means the screen is easy on the eyes as it is not backlit. It is crisp and clear and text is easy to read – battery life is rated at 7,500 hours from a full charge. As this screen is touch based however you will notice from the images above that it is slightly more reflective than the majority of E-Readers on the market today.

Along the bottom ridge of the PRS 600 is a mini USB port, a power socket for the optional adapter (it generally charges from a computers USB port), a headphone jack and volume control. Along the top is a power button and SD/Sony Memory Stick Duo slot.

Internally you can store around 350 ebooks, but with the added use of an SD card this can be massively increased. Formatting our 8GB SD card took a few minutes.

The quality of the screen is very high and we are pleased to report that it has open support for most ebook formats. Sony have adopted basically all the standards on the market and are trying to ensure that regardless of your preference then this device will support it, out of the box.

This means you get support for Microsoft Word documents, Adobe PDF documents, BBeB format and other text file formats. It also supports EPUB/ADEPT and connection with Adobe Digital Editions so you can buy eBooks off the web.

You can also play back AAC audio files and MP3's which is a nice addition, especially as the device allows you to listen to music while reading your books and documents. The device contains Sony's ebook Library software Version 3 which installs when you connect to a Macintosh or PC to control and manage all your files.

The PRS 505 was slated for its limited support for only BBeB Books purchased over the internet and Sony have taken this on board with a much wider range of file support.

The interface is very well structured and there was no need to refer to any literature or support files, as it all works exactly as expected. The unit is very well made and we are glad to see Sony opting for metal rather than plastic. I am a sucker for aluminum, so it is hard to fault the design. The only downside for some of the audience is that this obviously makes the device slightly heavier than other ebook readers on the market – personally I find this gives it a feeling of strength and durability.

Acquiring eBooks and moving them to the reader is very easy. There are no CD's required as the installation software is preinstalled on the Sony device itself. When it is connected to a PC you can install the package with a simple mouse click. This loads the eBook library software which acts as a file manager for the device, letting you sync documents, audio files and notes. This software is also a ‘middle man' for the online book store where you can buy commercial titles. Files move between the devices very fast across the USB 2.0 port.

The PRS 600 has 512k of ROM onboard and 380MB is free – which allows for around 350 books to be transfered at any one time. With the use of an SD card then this can be increased to tens of thousands, with music files as well. Storage can be changed over without losing anything on the individual cards. Its a nice, simple system which will ensure that even people not technologically minded will experience no issues.

The touchscreen is worth talking about, because it isn't the typical screen we have looked at before. The 6 inch display is obviously different to a traditional LCD touchscreen. E-ink technology produces a very high contrast monochrome image at a 800×600 resolution which looks stunning in the flesh, I experienced no eye strain at all, even after 3 hours of reading the latest Tony Blair book entitled ‘A Journey'.

I was stunned by the overall experience because it almost felt like actually reading the real thing. The Sony screen as I said earlier is slightly more reflective than the Amazon Kindle I recently used, but it wasn't something that irritated me. Perhaps in direct sunlight it would prove troublesome but as the weather lately in the UK has been so dire, I haven't been able to test that out.

The screen also supports images, which means you can view your family pictures or anything else you have in your computer, but only in monochrome. While this is obviously not going to suit everyone, I found the images looked quite stunning and reminded me of a high quality newspaper. You can see for yourself in the video above.

The touch layer on the screen means you can now press directly with your finger to select books or options rather than having to wade through arrow based buttons which I find a welcome addition. I also found that the screen was very easy to clean, not at all like the Apple iPad which continually undergoes a vigorous cleaning regime twice daily. If you don't like getting fingerprints on the screen then the stylus works a treat, although I found it needed a reasonably high amount of pressure to work.

The Sony PRS 600 also allows for a note taking and handwriting mode which may be useful for a business based audience. You can see how it works above.

There are also options to erase your writings (or drawing) which works reasonably well. The processor seems to play ‘catch up' from time to time, but its forgiveable considering the insane battery life.

I found the device much slower than the iPad, however I expected this to be the case before using it, as the iPad has one of the fastest mobile processors on the market right now. I recorded a video of the various page viewing speeds and options below.

Even in this video, you can see the quality and clarity of the text and there are several size options for those with slightly weaker eyesight, if you find the lettering too small. S/M/L will suit a younger audience, while XL and XXL cater for an older age group. Turning pages causes a delay of around a second as the eInk pages update, it is much faster than the older Sony units which could take 2-3 seconds a page. Remember when a page is displayed it doesn't cause battery drain, its only when it is refreshed that the battery power comes into play – this is why you often see battery life rated in ‘page turns'. Our battery has lasted a week under heavy operation and it is still showing 45 percent life, so we can safely assume this would be an ideal unit for a vacation. From flat it takes 4 hours for a full charge, but even a 30 minute charge gives many days of battery life.

The in built music player is basic in design but has decent sound quality and will be perfectly usable when away from home, but you will need to use your own headphones as none are supplied.

I never thought I would say it, but the Apple iPad can't quite do everything as well as I want. I love the iBook store, but the backlit LCD display is hard on the eyes when reading text over many hours. There is certainly a market for Ebook Readers because the E-Ink technology is fantastic, giving a sharpness and stability you just don't get with a standard panel.

Battery Life is extraordinary because the E-Ink display only needs to draw the image initially, not to keep it displayed on the screen. This means the manufacturers rate their products on Page turns and this one is rated at 7,500. Playing music will sap it faster however we still managed to get a week out of it, when used for playing music and reading books.

Sony haven't supplied a charger as standard so you need a computer USB port to charge, although we know you can buy a plug socket on ebay for a few quid, which accepts a USB connector. It seems a bit frugal that Sony didn't supply this with the product as we would assume many people might not always have access to a PC for a charge, especially if away on vacation for many weeks.

Negatively, the screen does give a slight reflection, although after using the iPad it was hardly noticeable and certainly didn't cause me any issues. It is noticeable however especially after using the latest Kindle.

The build quailty sets the Sony product apart because no corner has been cut – this is built from aluminum, not plastic. The differences are clearly seen (and felt) and we always like to see a manufacturer ensuring that something they build is going to last many years. It is the best built Reader on the market.

When this product was released it was selling for £270, you can now buy it online for £160 inc vat and with free delivery – thats a 40% price reduction in a year. If you waited a while before buying an e-reader then we can see no better time … unless of course you are waiting for stock of the Amazon Kindle 3. Kitguru will have a hands on with this device in the near future.

KitGuru says: If you haven't tried an E-Ink display and love books, then head over to your local dealer and get a hands on demo, we think you will be pleasantly surprised at the stunning display quality.

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