Sony Reader PRS-650BC (Touch Reader Edition), the successor of PRS-600, recently appeared on the market in the U.S. and UK as response to the new generation of Amazon Kindle e-readers. Unlike the Kindle‘s Third-generation Sony Reader has touch screen as a salient and recognizes several types of files: books in ePub format (Adobe DRM protected), PDF (Adobe DRM protected), BBeB Book (PRS DRM protected), Text, RTF, Word Micrsoft and photos in JPEG, PNG, GIF and BMP. As disadvantages, it hasn’t text-to-speech function and the full-QWERTY physical keyboard is replaced by the digital one (on screen).
Sony “electronic book” measures 167 x 120 x 10.1 mm and weighs 215 grams. 6-inch touch screen has a resolution of 800 X 600 pixels and can display shades of gray on 16 intensity levels. The storage space is limited to 1.4 GB (internal memory), plus one on the external support for Memory Stick Duo and SD cards (up to 32GB). The organization and content transfer from your PC via e-reader can be done with the help of the Reader Library, available on the Sony site. The program is very easy to use: you can copy books with drag / drop on the desired unit of eReader. We are sure you won’t enocounter any sync or adding books problems. Since opening, you are asked to make the necessaary general settings: set the date and time, preferred language (7 European countries), the Browse page, keyboard settings and screen orientation settings (since it has no accelerometer).
Sony E-Reader PRS 650BC
To navigate documents and to customize the interface you must use the five keys positioned below the display: the left page, right page, home page, zoom (in each page you can set an appropriate extra zoom conducting by the pen – in case of sketches for example) and Options. From the main menu, you’ll remark: Periodicals (digital newspaper subscriptions – we haven’t unravel yet the mystery- may not work in Europe), Colections (where we can create your own collections, for example Legal or Philosophy adding books to the collections to be found more easily), All Notels (all notes made from the books you read that send you exactly to that paragraph in the book in question), Menu – Applications where you can find the photos section (currently slideshow), Drawings (done on screen), Dictionaries (12 dictionaries: French, English, Spanish, English- Italian, Dutch – English), Text memo – with the digital keyboard you can create notes, Audio – MP3 and AAC (active in the background) – the audio section is very good, here you can find functions such as Return to list,Repeat on / of, Shuffle on / off, Continue Reading (basically is a shortcut to what you read before return to the audio section), Orientation Screen, Skip to beginning, Play / pause.
Sony Touch Reader Edition
To connect the headphones, you have a 3.5 mm jack. We mention that the Sony Reader PRS-650 has no integrated speakers. A function quite useful, accessible from the Settings menu is the Device Lock. This enables you to set a password to block unauthorized access to e-reader. Options menu includes: Return to list, Add Bookmark, Go to – Previous View, History, selected Page, Notes – List, Create or Edit, Search, Word logs: Book, Adjust View, Delete Book, Info and Orientation. For active people the Search function is very important, excellent set up.
Sony E-Reader 650BC touch screen
Regarding Sony e-reader personalization, we mentions that you cannot choose the fonts, but this thing is compensated by the 6 levels of characters you have available. At the bottom of the screen, are displayed the current page number and the total number of pages. Easily touching that area, we can mention what page to jump. Note that you can turn pages by simply moving a finger across the screen, which leads us to wonder why two keys are needed on top of the e-reader to do the same thing? Talking about its autonomy, power can be done from a 950 mAh battery which provides browsing of about 10,000 pages (the old model, PRS-600, could open only 7,000 pages). The autonomy estimated in normal use revolves around 14 days.
In Sony e-reader package, you’ll find only the USB cable. Probably, initially, you’ll be a little disappointed that you don’t have also a feeder to connect to the socket. After connecting the cable to the PC, you’ll see that it loads very quickly on the USB, just in few minutes you can transfer about 50 books. It’s not a joke, but you’ll need more time to find the books, than passing them on e-Reader. The cover with light is an optional accessory that costs $ 50 but is very good for eReader– it watches it from dust or scratches and is very comfortable to hold in your hand. E-reader has a very smooth exterior case and holding it into your hands, you’ll see that is very slippery. The lamp can be adjusted on two intensity levels and it’s powered by one AAA battery. The covers can be magnetically closed, forming an „integral” so necessary. Sony Reader 650, as its predecessors, has a restricted availability: can be found in the United States, Canada, UK and, more recently, Australia and New Zealand. The price is indicated on the website ($ 230), to which has also added the light cover (Reader Cover with Light, $ 50).
The New Sony Reader has lamp, storage space, stylus and supports various formats
In conclusion, Sony e-reader, by definition helps you reading easier and more varied, being very soothing to the eye. It indicated to people that are forced to read a lot on the computer. Sony Reader PRS-650 is an excellent product in this category, with lots of useful features and a generous support for various formats. It provides a lot of advantages such as: storage space with two card slots that makes this ereader a mobile library, technology E Ink Pearl, you can change the screen orientation and the font size, with Library Reader you have access at Store Books Sony and at 3 libraries with thousands of books, music in background, managed design, small size, touch screen, bookmarks and stylus. As disadvantage, we couldn’t find nothing than its metal case that creates a slippery sensation.
