Sara Edmonds | The World of E-readers: Sony Readers

If you read my previous post, you saw that I examined the qualities of Barnes & Nobles nook that you might prefer over the Kindle or Sony e-readers. This time, I take a look at the Sony e-reader’s best qualities.

Like Barnes & Noble’s nook, Sony also has a touch screen but they take it a bit further. You can also turn the pages with a touch of your finger, a move to give you still a better feel for reading an actual book. Again, this takes away that extra space of the Kindle’s keyboard, by putting its menu and keyboard in a touch menu. Sony does not however, have their menu in color or give you the chance to look at book covers in color.

You can also highlight passages in your book and take notes, either with stylus pen or keyboard. The note feature is also included in the Kindle, but with Kindle you have to use the keyboard.

The Sony Reader also supports other formats on its reader, so you can read other PDFs and Word Docs.

The biggest drawback to the standard Sony Reader- it is not wireless. But before you take this option off the market completely, Sony has (like Kindle) a bigger Daily Edition that is wireless and includes a bigger 7inch touch screen. You do pay for this improvement however, with a price of $399- a price that is still cheaper than the new improved Kindle2. The standard reader is $299. And if that is still not in your budget, Sony makes a pocket version of the reader at $199. You only give up an inch of screen display from the standard version.

The one great feature the Sony has the no one else does–the ability to check out books from the library and read them on your Sony e-reader. You can not however, share books with friends.

Sony’s e-reader is the featured partnership of Borders, so like Barnes & Noble’s nook you still have a chance to have the book from your favorite bookstore at your finger tips. Sony does not compete against Barnes & Noble and Kindle by having every bestseller priced at $9.99, but a lot of them are. Shopping for e-books on Borders.com is no easy task. Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com make this process much easier. New e-reader additions and upgrades will have to also come from Sony and not Borders, which could be a draw-back as Barnes & Noble and Amazon can make new versions of their e-readers based on customer feedback quickly.

These are the best features of Sony’s e-reader. Next time I take a look at the Kindle. In the meantime, if you have a Sony e-reader, let me know what you love (or dislike) about your e-reader.

Sara Edmonds

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