Sony's Reader PRS-505, which we tested just last year, has made a way for a trendy touchscreen version.  Capable of holding up to 350 books and enjoying the same excellent battery life, this new model brings with it some features previously reserved to traditional books, like being able to make notes in the margin.


One of our biggest criticisms of the first version of the Reader was the number of different buttons it had--some of which were entirely useless--which made it very complicated to access certain features.  This model, though, has only the bare minimum, making for a quicker and more fluid user experience.  As a consequence, its new clean look is much more palatable and more likely to encourage the biggest skeptics to take to a look.

Looking at from the outside, this model clearly improves on its predecessor: all of the details are nicely finished and the whole thing gives an impression of robustness.  Nevertheless, we would have still preferred brushed metal to the black plastic exterior.  What's more, the soft cover in natural leather has been replaced by a neoprene slip case, which is much less attractive.

As with the first version of the Reader, no lamp is supplied with the Reader, but one is available separately.  Given the price that Sony is charging for this little e-book reader, we would have thought a small light might have been included.


The first Reader won us over because it was simple and easy, but the touchscreen version is even more of a treat to use.  The interface is very intuitive and works well.  It's even faster on this model, and the black screen that appeared in between two pages on the earlier version of the Reader as it loaded the next page is no longer a problem.  Turning a page on the screen really takes as long as it would to turn the page of a physical book.


The 6'' touchscreen allows you to skim through the book using your fingers, but you can also use two buttons underneath; holding them down moves through the pages faster.  You can double click to mark a page.  Because the screen is matte and less susceptible--although not entirely immune--to reflections, there's no need to worry about covering it with greasy fingerprints that would make it harder to read.

Staying with the screen, we would have preferred more brightness and contrast, like on the PRS-505 where the white of the page was really white, rather than light grey here on the PRS-600; the difference is probably caused by the touchscreen layer.  Nevertheless, the text is still very legible and you can adjust the print size from S to XXL to suit you.


One new feature is being able to take notes onscreen.  You can underline a paragraph, highlight a phrase or bookmark a page with your own comments, either using the stylus or using your fingers to type on a virtual QWERTY keyboard.  You can jot down your ideas on the text you're reading, or take general notes.  The arrival of touchscreen technology was highly-awaited and we're very happy about it. 


Support for a number of formats

Naturally enough, the Reader 600 can display PDFs.  They display correctly and you can even zoom into different parts of the document, which is a very practical detail.  It's a shame that it doesn't have an accelerometer, though, as if you want to adjust the orientation to read a large document in landscape mode, you have to use a menu to change it.

It can also access the very common ePub format, in which an incredible number of books has already been published.  Other formats supported include Book, Word, RTF, MP3, AAC, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP.


The downsides

Here we'd have to include the lack of wireless connectivity, which is somewhat conspicuous by its absence in this product category, and the number of available titles which still remains relatively small.  Publishing houses are taking a while to convert their works into digital editions, so even if the hardware is getting better, as this product shows, the amount of content available to read on it is still ridiculously small compared to traditional books.

That's what's holding the widespread adoption of e-book readers back.  While you're waiting for a more up-to-date selection of titles, you can still enjoy a wide range of texts in the public domain, including many of the classics. 

The other main brake on growth, which we've mentioned several times already, is the price of new e-books.  Buying the electronic edition of a book costs almost exactly the same as the paper edition, but you can't lend your-ebook to a friend or sell it second-hand afterwards.