Sony Reader

Sony Reader – A portable e-book reader.

Recently, I had the opportunity to test out the Sony Reader. The Sony Reader is Sony’s version of the Amazon Kindle. It is a portable e-book reader thats idea for long term travelers who love to read. Lets face it, books are cumbersome and take up a lot of precious real estate in your backpack. But, what if you could combine all of you favorite books into a device about the size of a thin paperback novel? With the Sony Reader, you can. In fact, you can add up to 150+ books in a single unit.

As I mentioned before, the Sony Reader can hold around 150 book titles. But if you need more space, the Sony Reader also has several memory card slots for added storage. The reader also has the ability to store and show digital pictures in a simple black and white format. The entire unit only wieghs about nine ounces and takes up little to no space in your bag. The charge on the Sony Reader’s battery is also impressive. A full charge can handle up to 7,500 continuous page turns. the Sony Reader can be charged through your USB or via the optional wall adapter.

The Sony Reader uses a program much like that of iTunes to allow you to purchase for the reader. The store is easy to use and simple to figure out. While books purchased through this site will give you the best quality e-books, you are not restricted to only buying books from this site. There are a number of other e-book sites on the web that offer e-books that can be read on the Sony Reader. The reader also has the ability to read a number of other file formats including, Adobe PDF documents10, Microsoft Word documents5, BBeB Book, and other text file formats.

The quick & dirty:

Where you can get one:
Amazon: $279

Why they rock:

• Displays eBooks purchased from the CONNECT eBook online store
• Displays Adobe PDFs, plus TXT, RTF, BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG and Microsoft Word files
• Plays MP3 and AAC files (protected files not supported)
• Internal 192MB memory
• Memory slot holds an SD Memory Card (up to 2GB capacity) and Memory Stick Duo media (up to 8GB capacity)

Seat-of-the-pants rating: 7 out of 10

I had high hopes for the Sony Reader and many of those hopes were not disappointed once I had a chance to test it out. My only two real gripes are that the Sony Reader doesn’t handle most web based e-books well (i.e. the can you can download for free off blogs and news sites) and the other gripe was that there is no back lit option for reading in the dark. if you don’t mind those two drawbacks, you may want to give the Sony Reader a try your self.

Looking to buy? Check out these sites:
Amazon: $279