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The Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-350SC: Overview and Comments

The Sony Pocket Edition PRS-350SC is a beautiful-looking e-reader with some excellent features for a 5" machine. It also has one or two drawbacks such as a lack of wireless connectivity, but all in all is one of the best pocket e-readers on the market and well worth buying if you need such a device. Its amazing intuitive optical properties just about overcome the lack of connectivity and a protective cover.

Author: Marco Gustafsson
Date: Nov 25, 2010 - 2:07:45 PM

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The Sony reader pocket edition is, as you would expect, a pocket edition of the popular Sony e-reader, both ultra slim and lightweight with a 5" screen. The e-Ink pearl display offers a high degree of contrast and is very easy to read. It responds much quicker than the standard version, and is integrated with the Sony book store, allowing downloads of the ePub standard e-book format.

Available in silver and pink, it looks good and is nice to handle, while its battery will last for two weeks - you hardly need take the charger with you on vacation. It is a very good small e-reader for those that need a pocket version, although the small screen naturally has its disadvantages and you wouldn't choose this model unless you had a pressing need for it.

Another disadvantage, which might be a serious one depending on how you access your eBooks, is a lack of connectivity. There is no 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity. So you need a direct connection with a computer. It also comes without any protective cover which is a bit thoughtless for a pocket e-reader, and is an added expense that you will definitely need.

The fact that it is more expensive than the Kindle or other e-readers of its size means that you are paying more for fewer features: both the cheaper Kindle and Nook offer wireless connectivity plus both Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer a more extensive library, so you may have to be a Sony fan to go for the PRS-350SC (the SC indicates a silver case, and the 350PC is pink). According to the article "How to Choose an eBook Reader", the Sony store has somewhere around 100,000 books, whereas the Amazon Kindle store has over 280,000 books (dbReaders).

However, in saying that, the touch screen is a bonus, since it is very clear and very easy to navigate. You can touch and swipe your way around very easily due to the excellent optical technology that Sony offers. By means of an infra-red sensor, the screen knows exactly where your fingers are, and by determining exactly where your fingers are tapping can determine exactly what you are trying to do and then executes that action. The results are very precise and very rapid. This is far better than the resistive overlay on the PRS-600.

It has both micro-USB and SC card slots, and charges through the micro USB connection. You can buy and download books from Sony's store or any other that offer eBooks in the ePub format, so you are not restricted to purchasing from just Sony. However, due to the lack of connectivity, you cannot download direct but must download to the PC or Mac desktop client and from there to the Sony Pocket Edition.

The Sony Pocket Edition PRS-350SC is a nice looking e-reader, but suffers weaknesses that may not be critical to most people. Whether you consider the purchase price worth it depends upon what price you can find online and whether or not you really need a Sony pocket e-reader. If you do, then it is excellent, but if not then you might be better with the Kindle unless you are a Sony person.

Marco Gustafsson writes articles about high technology gadgets, e-readers applications and books. You can find more of his reviews visiting Digital Book Readers.

View all articles by Marco Gustafsson

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