Sony's touchscreen e-book Reader: a cool Kindle competitor

The attention given to the Kindle makes it easy to forget that Amazon's device isn't the only e-book reader on the market—or even the only innovative one. Among other brands, there's Sony, who began selling its Reader before the first Kindle was launched. The latest Sony, the PRS-700, $350, is the first e-book reader to offer a touchscreen.

A pretty decent one, too, as it happens. The screen—six inches in size and black-and-white, like that of the Kindle 2, $359—is about as sensitive as the touchscreens on most cell phones we've tested. That is, you need to press down firmly as you swipe your finger across the screen to advance to the next page.

You can choose the direction in which you'd like to swipe in the device's settings. I opted for right to left to right —the same direction your finger moves when turning the pages of a real book. After time to calibrate the required pressure (compared with the more-sensitive screen on iPhones), I found page turns to be a bit easier than on the Kindle 2, on which you turn pages by clicking one of the tabs located on each side of the screen. You can turn pages backwards as well as forwards.

I also found the touchscreen made it easier to select content than with the Kindle's five-way joystick. On the Sony's home screen (which is a bit slow to appear), you press the square for the type of content, then the title, you want. The screen responds promptly, and content appears rapidly.

The touchscreen also provides handy way to advance through the book. Pressing down your finger continuously at the edge of the screen allows you to advance through pages (at a rate of several per second) until you reach the number you want. You also use the screen to control other functions, like type size—the menus appear when you press tabs mounted along the bottom of the screen.

Two of those tabs—a bit small for continuous, regular use, I found—are the only alternative page-turning controls if you happen not to like the touchscreen. Also, the Kindle has the edge in crispness of type and images, and pages of type appear a little more quickly as they turn.

The Sony and Kindle screens both use so-called e-ink technology, and reading in a range of light conditions is generally fine on both devices. However, I'll blog again soon on the most-asked issue about reading from these devices—how well legibility holds up on a sunny day. (I'll also include notes on the PRS-700's night light, an attempt to solve the opposite lighting challenge.)

I'll have a more comprehensive comparison of the Sonys—the PRS-700 and less expensive PRS-505, $299—and Kindle 2 (and bigger Kindle DX, if it comes out in time) available soon to subscribers. —Paul Reynolds