Sony’s touchscreen e-book Reader: a cool Kindle competitor

Sony Reader PRS-700

The attention given to the Kindle makes it easy to forget that Amazon’s device isn’t the only e-book reader on the market—or even the only innovative one. Among other brands, there’s Sony, who began selling its Reader before the first Kindle was launched. The latest Sony, the PRS-700, $350, is the first e-book reader to offer a touchscreen.

A pretty decent one, too, as it happens. The screen—six inches in size and black-and-white, like that of the Kindle 2, $359—is about as sensitive as the touchscreens on most cell phones we’ve tested. That is, you need to press down firmly as you swipe your finger across the screen to advance to the next page.

You can choose the direction in which you’d like to swipe in the device’s settings. I opted for right to left to right —the same direction your finger moves when turning the pages of a real book. After time to calibrate the required pressure (compared with the more-sensitive screen on iPhones), I found page turns to be a bit easier than on the Kindle 2, on which you turn pages by clicking one of the tabs located on each side of the screen. You can turn pages backwards as well as forwards.

I also found the touchscreen made it easier to select content than with the Kindle’s five-way joystick. On the Sony’s home screen (which is a bit slow to appear), you press the square for the type of content, then the title, you want. The screen responds promptly, and content appears rapidly.

The touchscreen also provides handy way to advance through the book. Pressing down your finger continuously at the edge of the screen allows you to advance through pages (at a rate of several per second) until you reach the number you want. You also use the screen to control other functions, like type size—the menus appear when you press tabs mounted along the bottom of the screen.

Two of those tabs—a bit small for continuous, regular use, I found—are the only alternative page-turning controls if you happen not to like the touchscreen. Also, the Kindle has the edge in crispness of type and images, and pages of type appear a little more quickly as they turn.

The Sony and Kindle screens both use so-called e-ink technology, and reading in a range of light conditions is generally fine on both devices. However, I’ll blog again soon on the most-asked issue about reading from these devices—how well legibility holds up on a sunny day. (I’ll also include notes on the PRS-700’s night light, an attempt to solve the opposite lighting challenge.)

I’ll have a more comprehensive comparison of the Sonys—the PRS-700 and less expensive PRS-505, $299—and Kindle 2 (and bigger Kindle DX, if it comes out in time) available soon to subscribers. —Paul Reynolds

Comments

[J David Reid]

I like the Kindle DX because of the page-size text. A color option would be nice, but most books are read in Black & White; however, color would be great for magazine copy and art illustrations. The only drawback to the DX is the price; I will have to wait until the price comes down. --JDR

[Jill]

The recent review in the New Yorker of the Kindle makes me think I would be better off with a Sony Reader. However, I will be living in the Caribbean and do not know if I will be able to download books to the Reader. It sounds like I could not do this on the Kindle. Does anyone have an answer?

[Dancom]

I want to buy a Sony PRS-700... My only question is:
"can i use a stylo to write down notes on the touchscreen?".
I hope someone replies soon.

[Charles]

I am tired of lugging paperback and other books on my travels abroad. And English language books are very expensive and hard to find. The Kindle would be PERFECT if it operated on GSM--the international and nearly universal system for phones. Sprint is a dead end, non compatible system, so, no chance of using Kindle anywhere except USA.
There are many THOUSANDS of people world wide who want English language materials, news, etc, and who want it in a book like format--not a phone or laptop.
Maybe Amazon, which has operations in several other countries, will smell the coffee and come out with an international Kindle. I can't justify buying one until then....

[Chris Heath]

I'm trying to decide which to buy - Kindle 2 or Sony PRS-700. I'm leaning toward Kindle 2. I understand that there are differences in how you acquire (download) books, and that Kindle is much easier. Can anyone enlighten me - and make an overall recommendation on my choice? I travel a lot, and am looking at this as a book-reading device. Thanks.

[vrread]

I would have preferred the Kindle for it's wireless capability, however I like my sony prs-700 because I can actually borrow ebooks from my library.

[dbReader]

In my opinion what makes Sony PRS really strong is not its technical features (though they are really good), but Sony's approach to content distribution. PRS looks like much more open platform for using everywhere in the world, while Kindle is strongly US-market oriented. We see it already with iPod and iTunes - great model of content distribution brings big profits.

[mrsmegalosaur]

I own a Sony eReader and a Kindle. I prefer the Kindle for many reasons: 1) the Menu is easier to figure out 2) 3G downloads 3) built in dictionary 4) internet resources 5) sleep mode, which I often fall into myself 6) Incredible choice of font size. I actually broke the screen on my first eReader when I put it into my purse with my camera, in spite of a $35. leather cover. The Kindle holds a battery charge fairly well, and recharges quickly, it also can hold the charge longer if you turn off the 3G. Neither is very good in low light, but the Kindle works fine in he sun, although I've noticed washing out of text definition. Not sure I'm ready to read a paper on either one. Hope this helps the discussion.

[Bill Costa]

"...the Kindle has the edge in crispness of type..." My 2nd gen Kindle already doesn't have has much text to background contrast as I would like. I'd say it is slightly less contrasty than a typical newsprint news paper. And so far the G3 wireless is still free, a boon for an old cheap geezer like me with no Internet connectivity at all beyond the computer at work. I just can't believe that Amazon will keep the G3 service free indefinitely. Particularly if significant numbers of people buy the device but don't buy many (if any!) books from them.

[Paul Reynolds]

Steve: I wish I could say I wrote this because I am so erudite and multilingual that I primarily read books in those languages where reading back to front is the norm. But I have no such abilities. I erred, and my checker missed it. Thanks for catching this, which we've now corrected.

--Paul Reynolds, Electronics Editor

[Steve]

Paul, do you really read books from the back to the front? Because it seems to me that swiping your finger from left to right would imply that. When I read, pages I have already read are on the left, and I swipe the page on the right side to turn it to the next.