The PRS has 2 gigs of internal storage with 1. It doesn't have an expansion slot and you'll both charge and sync books to the reader using the included micro USB to USB cable.
You can also load MS Word files, but you must use the Sony desktop software to do so since it converts Word files before loading them on the reader. Speaking of Sony's desktop software, it's much improved and both the Mac and Windows versions are stable and reasonably quick. The PRS has a partition with the desktop installers pre-loaded, or you can simply download the latest version for free from Sony's website. You don't have to use Sony's desktop software unless you wish to purchase books from Sony's online bookstore.
You can use Calibre or just drag books to the reader when it's mounted as a USB drive on your computer. If you choose not to use Sony's software, you'll need to download Adobe Digital Editions and authorize the reader if you wish to load Adobe DRM-protected ebooks. That means you can't buy and download books over 3G, you must use USB.
Given the popularity of wireless ebook delivery, we can't imagine why Sony left this feature out. The PRS also works with Google's million public domain books and with public library ebooks. Sony's ebookstore has a solid selection of books and you'll find most current bestsellers there, but they don't have as many books as Amazon. Still, I've rarely had trouble finding the book I was looking for I read mostly literature and fiction.
Prices are similar for most online bookstores these days since Apple and the publishers introduced the agency pricing model for ebooks. PDF rendering and viewing features are improved over previous models, and we'll cover that later.
I was skeptical that Sony finally found a way to make a touch screen reader that didn't significantly diminish display quality. These readers had glare and contrast was weak; the background was a darker shade of gray compared to non-touch readers. But Sony surprised me and removed the touch layer that caused these problems.
Instead, IR beams sense your finger's location and touch-- and this makes for an even more responsive touch experience than prior Sony Readers. The display looks as good as the Kindle 2 and Nook's.
In fact, text is a bit darker thanks to the new Pearl E-Ink display that boasts better contrast. The background is a similar shade of gray as the Kindle 2 and Nook, but it's not quite as light as the Kindle 3 and Kindle DX Graphite. But we're talking very small, nuanced differences. The PRS offers contrast adjustment as well press the Options button to find it. And while it does display PDF files and has zoom capabilities along with Word and text formats , we can't say the small screen is all that convenient for PDF viewing.
But if compact is what you're after, compact is what this is--without being too small. With the Size button, you can choose among six font settings: extra-small, small, medium, large, extra-large, and extra-extra-large. While the absolute sizes vary from title to title, a 5-inch screen diagonal doesn't give you a lot of real estate. In one case, the large font size yielded just 11 lines with about four words per line; in other cases, it was 15 to 17 lines.
However, if you switch to the "medium" setting, you move up to about 24 lines of text with around 10 words per line, which is pretty good. Note: You can manually set the screen to display vertically or horizontally, but we really didn't like the horizontal setting for reading books. To download e-books from the Sony store, you have to install the Sony desktop app on your Mac or Windows computer. You then "side-load" e-books you've purchased to the device via the USB port.
Alternatively--and this is one of the nice things about the device--you can download EPUB books from other sites and transfer those books to the device by simply dragging and dropping them to the device icon when you're connected to the desktop app on your computer.
For example, we downloaded some free public-domain books from epubbooks. Also, this Sony reader allows you to check out EPUB books from your local library if it offers that service.
The Nook also has this capability, but the Kindle currently does not. We should also point out at that at the time of this writing Sony didn't have an iPhone or Android app that would allow you to read e-books you bought from the Sony e-book store on those other devices.
Apps are in the works, the company says, but they should have been ready for the launch of the latest Readers. Beyond the major "no Wi-Fi" shortfall, the Reader Pocket Edition also lacks audio playback and expandable storage. The battery life is rated at 10, pages per charge, or about 2 weeks. Because of the touchscreen, the Sony PRS has a completely different interface than the PRS, with more menus, options, and on-screen features.
Add that to all the existing features of the Pocket Edition and it comes out to a pretty long list. The has all the features listed above, the main difference being the has a larger 6-inch display. And aside from the margin cut setting which seems to only work on certain books , there are no options for changing line height, margins, or other character adjusting features. For that you have to modify the book's CSS code and add extra fonts to the Reader.
Landscape mode: The annoying thing about reading in landscape mode is that it shows duplicate sentences on every other page in ebooks. With most ereaders each new page consists of entirely new text, whereas the Sony PRS breaks a single page into two sections, making the middle half overlap on both pages. This makes it difficult to keep your place when turning pages. Page Settings: Some page settings reset when closing an ebook and then reopening it.
For instance, you have to reset the margin cut feature each time you open a document. Another thing is that 2 and 3 column split is a nice zooming option but goes from top to bottom instead of left to right, so it's pretty much useless except on PDFs with 2 and 3 columns.
The text is darker and glare is no longer an issue. As usual with Sony's products, the build quality is solid with an aluminum front and back panel, making it one of the best looking ereaders. Other positives include Adobe EPUB support for ebooks from a wide variety of ebook stores as well as borrowing ebooks from libraries. As most reviews will point out, the main drawback with the Sony PRS is the fact that it doesn't have any wireless connectivity and costs more than other wireless ereaders like the Kindle WiFi and Nook WiFi.
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