New ereader

We seem to accumulate gadgets like they’re going out of style – M’s bought himself a Sony ereader! This means that we’re now a dual-eInk ereader household. The picture shows the two ereaders, side by side.

The new ereader is a Sony – specifically it’s a Sony PRS350. To give it its full name, it’s a Sony Digital Reader Pocket Edition 5-inch ereader.

I was quite curious as to why M wanted an eInk ereader as I’d thought he was an avowed iPad fan. He says he was actually getting tired of not being able to read comfortably on his iPad while outdoors in the sunshine during his lunch breaks!

I must admit I’m a little envious of this new ereader. It’s got a new pearl eInk screen and 16 levels of gray scale – the Kobo has 8. It has a touch screen – the Kobo doesn’t. On the Sony you can highlight words and look them up in the dictionary provided, and annotate pages using your fingers or the enclosed stylus. Not possible on the Kobo. The Sony lets you set multiple bookmarks – again, this is not possible on the Kobo. The Kobo remembers where you stop reading, but that’s the only bookmark you can set for any single book. I am starting to avoid letting people fiddle with my Kobo, because when they play with it I often end up losing my page. On the Sony this wouldn’t be a problem as you can set a bookmark. Finally, the Sony processor is much, much faster than the Kobo. M graciously let me use the new ereader over the weekend; I read a novel and found it a very pleasant experience indeed.

I am seriously tempted to go and get myself the 6-inch Sony (PRS650), but they are apparently all sold out all over town (and all over Australia, if I recall from the chatter on Twitter)! I think they’ve sold out at the Sony website, too. Just as well, as I think it would be the height of extravagance to get myself another 6-inch ereader when I currently have a perfectly serviceable Kobo…

Although the 5-inch screen on the PRS350 is perfectly serviceable, I think I would prefer at least a 6-inch screen. The Sony I would really love is the 7-inch Sony PRS950. There’s something about the larger screen that makes the idea of this model very attractive to me. It is not available in Australia, however.