November 2006
First Look: Sony Reader
Price we paid: $350
Date of ConsumerReports.org update: November 2006
What it is: Digital music has become mainstream, thanks to MP3 players, but manufacturers have yet to find a so-called e-book--a handheld electronic device that displays text on a small screen--that people want to curl up with. The Sony Reader is the latest attempt to popularize paperless books. About the size of a typical trade paperback (5x7 inches and a half-inch thick), this lightweight device (about 9 ounces excluding its microfiber and leather soft cover) can hold up to 80 or so full-length books on its 64-megabyte internal storage. It also accepts memory cards, providing virtually unlimited storage not only for books but also for black-and-white photos, music, and more. Here's our take:
PROS
Decent legibility. The Reader's screen is about 6 inches diagonally, and it has a resolution of 800x600, equivalent to some laptops. While it looks somewhat like an LCD screen, it isn't. The Reader uses a technology called e Ink, which is designed to offer high-contrast text that can be seen in all lighting, even direct sunlight. That's a bit of a stretch. The screen displays blackish text on a grayish background, so the contrast is closer to that of an aging paperback than a brand-new hardcover book. Still, it was readable from almost any angle, and overall, it's the best of any e-book we've seen so far. You can switch among three type sizes by pushing a button. The smallest will strain many eyes, the medium type resembles mass-market (smaller) paperback size, and the large type is similar to that of trade paperbacks or some hardcovers. There's no size that corresponds to large-print books, so the Reader isn't a good choice for anyone who's visually impaired.
Easy downloads. The Reader comes preloaded with a few classics like "1984" by George Orwell, along with excerpts from past best sellers like "Freakonomics," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and exotica such as a manga (comic book) novel. To buy new books, you load the Sony Connect software onto your computer, open an account with Sony's Connect eBooks store , and select the book you want to buy. In our tests, we were able to download a full-length novel to our computer within 15 seconds or so, less time than it usually takes to buy a song from an online music store. To transfer a book to the Reader (or to delete one when you're done with it), you connect the device to the computer using a supplied mini USB cord and drag and drop titles onto the Reader icon in the well-organized menu interface. The transfer takes only 10 to 15 seconds.
The Reader accepts standard plain-text files and Word documents, which means that you can help yourself to the 19,000 free, out-of-copyright books at Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org), as well as other formats. We downloaded Adobe PDF files--page images--of our December 2006 issue and found the drag-and-drop process straightforward. But the text on the pages was so small that it was virtually unreadable.
Multimedia capability. The Reader can store and play music through headphones (not included), even while you're reading a book. It can handle only unencrypted MP3 and AAC files, which sounded quite good played through good headphones. It can also display black-and-white photos, but those we viewed were of rather low quality.
Ample storage. The ability to store 80 or so books on the Reader--plus music and documents--is a huge benefit for anyone who likes to travel light. If you use removable Memory Stick or SD memory cards, there's no limit to the storage capacity.
Long battery life. Sony says the Reader consumes power only when you "turn" the page (as in refresh the screen with new content), which reduces energy consumption. You can reportedly browse through 7,500 pages on each battery charge. Our informal testing suggests that the estimate might be an overstatement, particularly if you also use the MP3 player. The battery was running low on juice even though we turned through far fewer pages than that. And be prepared for lots of page turning. The Reader's "pages" are smaller than those of an actual book, and thus hold a lot less text. For example, "State of Denial," Bob Woodward's 576-page hardback book, clocks in at 2,670 pages viewed at the Reader's largest type size and 1,264 pages when viewed at the smallest. When it comes time to charge the included lithium-ion battery, you attach the Reader to an AC adapter or USB cable (both included with the unit). A full recharge takes about 4 hours using AC or about 6 hours using USB.
CONS
Disconcerting delay. When you move from one page to another, the screen doesn't refresh instantly. Instead, the old page disappears and is momentarily--and distractingly--replaced by a negative image of the next page (that is, white print on a black background) before the new page settles in. The process takes about a second--not fatally long, but hardly ideal.
Display quirks. While you can view PDF files, you can't zoom in on them, so the contents of the page are virtually unreadable. So are the text balloons" in full-page comic books like the one included with the Sony. The display can show only a few shades of gray, so photos have a grainy, dithered look. We also noticed that a page displayed for several minutes got perceptibly darker in the white space.
Unfriendly controls. Usability in general could be easier. The tiny power switch and volume slider on the side panel are awkwardly designed, and we found it hard to master the pointing device used to navigate the menus. You're supposed to jiggle the tiny plastic nub (sort of a miniature joystick that's hard on the fingers) and press it when you reach your desired selection. That's easier said than done. If you angle the nub at all while pressing it, the cursor will move to another menu item rather than select the highlighted item. We found it requires a rather precise, delicate tap to get the desired result. For bigger jumps, you can use small buttons below the screen that will advance you through a book in 10 percent increments, which seems a rather odd navigational system. In fairness, a few controls are easy to use. To get to the previous or next page, you can press either a concave button below the screen or small forward and back keys to the left of the screen.
Missing features. There's no built-in light, which could come in handy when there's not much ambient light. We didn't have enough light to read in a dimly lighted commuter van, for example. A search function to enable you to find a specific passage or phrase would be useful as well.
Limited book selection. There's a fairly wide selection of content available, but nowhere near what you can get in print. Sony's Connect eBooks online store offers thousands of titles in 19 categories, including biography, business, fiction and literature, health, sports, travel, and more. Listings include most but not all bestsellers. In late October, we found 8 of the 10 books atop the New York Times Best Seller list for fiction (missing were the #1 and #4 fiction titles that week, "For One More Day," by Mitch Albom, and "The Book of Fate," by Brad Meltzer). It also offers classics from authors such as Jane Austen, Homer, and Walt Whitman. Don't expect to save money because an e-book requires no paper or printing. When we checked prices on various electronic works, they were almost all within a dollar of the cost of the hardcover version (without shipping) from Amazon.com. Until Christmas, Sony is offering a $50 credit toward the purchase of e-books and music at its Connect sites. (Don't think you can pass along books and split the cost with friends. All content is subject to Digital Rights Management provisions, as with downloaded music. The Terms of Service restrict the manner and number of times you may transfer, play, and otherwise use your content.)
Not compatible with Macs. The Reader works only with Windows PCs at this point, but Sony says it hopes to support other platforms in the future.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Reader is better than earlier e-books we've tested and costs less than current rivals--notably the i-Rex Iliad, to be released soon at a price of $800. That said, like many new works, it could use some revision. The unit is back-ordered at least a month on Connect e-Books, which might suggest that sales are strong. Still, we don't believe this first-generation Reader is quite ready to be a mainstream bestseller. We see it as more of a niche product if you:
Date of ConsumerReports.org update: November 2006
What it is: Digital music has become mainstream, thanks to MP3 players, but manufacturers have yet to find a so-called e-book--a handheld electronic device that displays text on a small screen--that people want to curl up with. The Sony Reader is the latest attempt to popularize paperless books. About the size of a typical trade paperback (5x7 inches and a half-inch thick), this lightweight device (about 9 ounces excluding its microfiber and leather soft cover) can hold up to 80 or so full-length books on its 64-megabyte internal storage. It also accepts memory cards, providing virtually unlimited storage not only for books but also for black-and-white photos, music, and more. Here's our take:
PROS
Decent legibility. The Reader's screen is about 6 inches diagonally, and it has a resolution of 800x600, equivalent to some laptops. While it looks somewhat like an LCD screen, it isn't. The Reader uses a technology called e Ink, which is designed to offer high-contrast text that can be seen in all lighting, even direct sunlight. That's a bit of a stretch. The screen displays blackish text on a grayish background, so the contrast is closer to that of an aging paperback than a brand-new hardcover book. Still, it was readable from almost any angle, and overall, it's the best of any e-book we've seen so far. You can switch among three type sizes by pushing a button. The smallest will strain many eyes, the medium type resembles mass-market (smaller) paperback size, and the large type is similar to that of trade paperbacks or some hardcovers. There's no size that corresponds to large-print books, so the Reader isn't a good choice for anyone who's visually impaired.
Easy downloads. The Reader comes preloaded with a few classics like "1984" by George Orwell, along with excerpts from past best sellers like "Freakonomics," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and exotica such as a manga (comic book) novel. To buy new books, you load the Sony Connect software onto your computer, open an account with Sony's Connect eBooks store , and select the book you want to buy. In our tests, we were able to download a full-length novel to our computer within 15 seconds or so, less time than it usually takes to buy a song from an online music store. To transfer a book to the Reader (or to delete one when you're done with it), you connect the device to the computer using a supplied mini USB cord and drag and drop titles onto the Reader icon in the well-organized menu interface. The transfer takes only 10 to 15 seconds.
The Reader accepts standard plain-text files and Word documents, which means that you can help yourself to the 19,000 free, out-of-copyright books at Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org), as well as other formats. We downloaded Adobe PDF files--page images--of our December 2006 issue and found the drag-and-drop process straightforward. But the text on the pages was so small that it was virtually unreadable.
Multimedia capability. The Reader can store and play music through headphones (not included), even while you're reading a book. It can handle only unencrypted MP3 and AAC files, which sounded quite good played through good headphones. It can also display black-and-white photos, but those we viewed were of rather low quality.
Ample storage. The ability to store 80 or so books on the Reader--plus music and documents--is a huge benefit for anyone who likes to travel light. If you use removable Memory Stick or SD memory cards, there's no limit to the storage capacity.
Long battery life. Sony says the Reader consumes power only when you "turn" the page (as in refresh the screen with new content), which reduces energy consumption. You can reportedly browse through 7,500 pages on each battery charge. Our informal testing suggests that the estimate might be an overstatement, particularly if you also use the MP3 player. The battery was running low on juice even though we turned through far fewer pages than that. And be prepared for lots of page turning. The Reader's "pages" are smaller than those of an actual book, and thus hold a lot less text. For example, "State of Denial," Bob Woodward's 576-page hardback book, clocks in at 2,670 pages viewed at the Reader's largest type size and 1,264 pages when viewed at the smallest. When it comes time to charge the included lithium-ion battery, you attach the Reader to an AC adapter or USB cable (both included with the unit). A full recharge takes about 4 hours using AC or about 6 hours using USB.
CONS
Disconcerting delay. When you move from one page to another, the screen doesn't refresh instantly. Instead, the old page disappears and is momentarily--and distractingly--replaced by a negative image of the next page (that is, white print on a black background) before the new page settles in. The process takes about a second--not fatally long, but hardly ideal.
Display quirks. While you can view PDF files, you can't zoom in on them, so the contents of the page are virtually unreadable. So are the text balloons" in full-page comic books like the one included with the Sony. The display can show only a few shades of gray, so photos have a grainy, dithered look. We also noticed that a page displayed for several minutes got perceptibly darker in the white space.
Unfriendly controls. Usability in general could be easier. The tiny power switch and volume slider on the side panel are awkwardly designed, and we found it hard to master the pointing device used to navigate the menus. You're supposed to jiggle the tiny plastic nub (sort of a miniature joystick that's hard on the fingers) and press it when you reach your desired selection. That's easier said than done. If you angle the nub at all while pressing it, the cursor will move to another menu item rather than select the highlighted item. We found it requires a rather precise, delicate tap to get the desired result. For bigger jumps, you can use small buttons below the screen that will advance you through a book in 10 percent increments, which seems a rather odd navigational system. In fairness, a few controls are easy to use. To get to the previous or next page, you can press either a concave button below the screen or small forward and back keys to the left of the screen.
Missing features. There's no built-in light, which could come in handy when there's not much ambient light. We didn't have enough light to read in a dimly lighted commuter van, for example. A search function to enable you to find a specific passage or phrase would be useful as well.
Limited book selection. There's a fairly wide selection of content available, but nowhere near what you can get in print. Sony's Connect eBooks online store offers thousands of titles in 19 categories, including biography, business, fiction and literature, health, sports, travel, and more. Listings include most but not all bestsellers. In late October, we found 8 of the 10 books atop the New York Times Best Seller list for fiction (missing were the #1 and #4 fiction titles that week, "For One More Day," by Mitch Albom, and "The Book of Fate," by Brad Meltzer). It also offers classics from authors such as Jane Austen, Homer, and Walt Whitman. Don't expect to save money because an e-book requires no paper or printing. When we checked prices on various electronic works, they were almost all within a dollar of the cost of the hardcover version (without shipping) from Amazon.com. Until Christmas, Sony is offering a $50 credit toward the purchase of e-books and music at its Connect sites. (Don't think you can pass along books and split the cost with friends. All content is subject to Digital Rights Management provisions, as with downloaded music. The Terms of Service restrict the manner and number of times you may transfer, play, and otherwise use your content.)
Not compatible with Macs. The Reader works only with Windows PCs at this point, but Sony says it hopes to support other platforms in the future.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Reader is better than earlier e-books we've tested and costs less than current rivals--notably the i-Rex Iliad, to be released soon at a price of $800. That said, like many new works, it could use some revision. The unit is back-ordered at least a month on Connect e-Books, which might suggest that sales are strong. Still, we don't believe this first-generation Reader is quite ready to be a mainstream bestseller. We see it as more of a niche product if you:
- Often take many books with you when you travel
- Read mostly bestsellers and familiar classics
- Are willing to give up the tactile experience of reading a "real" book
- Are comfortable with technology that isn't yet mature and polished
