Initial review: Sony PRS-T1 ereader
My CyBook Opus kicked the bucket at barely a year old, and when I lamented to my sister-in-law that I was going to have to spend 150 euros to replace it, she offered to buy me a new reader. As much as I loved my Cybook Gen3 from Bookeen, the Opus was much less stable, and I’d dealt with random lockups and stability issues even after to ROM updates were released. So when the screen went black and I couldn’t recover anything, I decided to see what else was on the market that could read epub.
I found out that Sony’s current line of readers is epub-friendly, and it was roughly 9 euros cheaper than the model from every other competitor. It has a touch screen which is more responsive than the Bookeen Orizon and a simple set of gestures to turn pages and zoom. It also has Wi-Fi and access to an online book store, but I suspected this wouldn’t work in Italy, and I was right. I can connect the device to my Wi-Fi router, no problem. But clicking on the store button brings up a screen that says in Italian that there is no bookstore for my country. No option to shop in the US either. Just “sorry, no books for you.” Fortunately, since I’ve been buying DRM-free epubs all year, I have plenty of files to load on my new reader.
The screen looks great, as most e-ink screens do. The new Pearl e-ink screens are very nice, and they display text and ebook covers with nice resolutions and smooth pixels. The touch screen is responsive, and the gesture for page turns is easy, just a little flick of the thumb on either side of the screen. The pinch to zoom works pretty smoothly, though I don’t have much use for it reading reflowable text fiction instead of manga or other comics where zoom might come in handy.
About the only thing that I can’t sort out is the stylus. Sony sent this nice bookmark like stylus with a loop-over hook similar to a pen for attaching to a chest pocket. I guess that’s how you’re supposed to carry it, but most of my clothing doesn’t have a chest pocket, and I’d lose this tiny thing in my purse. There’s no recessed space for the stylus on the reader, so it’s an extra piece of plastic that I just leave at home rather than risk losing it on the road. If there were some way to attach it to the device and make it convenient to carry, I might use it. But since it doesn’t attach, I figure I’ll just suffer with fingerprints.
I’m also not entirely fond of the menu button layout, with the page turn buttons on the lower left corner. Yes I can just flick my thumb on the right side to move to the next page, but I kind of liked how the Opus had page buttons right under my thumb, making one handed operation easy. This is a minor quibble, though, as I don’t actually need the buttons at all. I’d just like them to be in a more convenient location in case I planned to use them.
I’ve only just started using the reader, so I can’t speak to issues of stability or battery life yet. One thing I do like is that when the device goes into sleep mode, the screen flashes to the cover of the book I’m currently reading. On the Opus, the sleep mode screen was essentially a series of ads for Bookeen. So having the ereader advertising my current read instead is an improvement, in my opinion.
Currently, I’ll give the Sony PRS-T1 four stars. I’d give it a higher score if Sony would let me buy books in the US store, even though I’m in Italy. Then the Wi-FI might be slightly less than useless. But Since I have sources for ebooks already, my bigger concern is, will it read the files I’ve already bought. It will, and the screen looks gorgeous. So that for me is good enough for now.
I’ll try to do another short review about stability and battery life after I’ve had some time to beat the new reader up a bit.
