I received my first PRS-300 as a gift last Christmas (yes I did say “first”... more of that later.) My initial thought was: “What the bloody hell do I want one of these for?!” Yes, I know, I’m an ungrateful wretch! I was surprised to receive it as I had had conversations previously with the giver (mummy) about such devices and how they would never replace books for me as there is a certain je ne c’est quoi about the physical process of going to a bookstore, browsing for hours, then heading to the till with arms overloaded with crisp, fresh papery oblongs of reading matter! I didn’t want to make it apparent that I’m an ungrateful wretch however and duly ooh’ed and ahh’ed over the shiny Sony.
This particular model was a special edition sold exclusively by Waterstones. It is the “Alex Cross” version, blue in colour and comes complete with a padded, leather-effect case and the latest “Alex Cross” novel by James Patterson pre-loaded. As it was a gift I am unsure of the price that was paid for it, however, perusal of the Amazon.co.uk website reveals it to be available now for £139.00, about £20 more than the standard version (which does not come with a cover.) As well as the cover and pre-loaded book, the reader came with a USB cable, operating instructions and a natty little neoprene case (kinda like an iPhone sock) to protect it from damage when not in use (rendered obsolete in this case by the cover and commandeered to keep my portable hard drive safe instead.)
The reader itself measures approx 6 inches by 4 inches (15cm by 10cm) and is about half an inch (1cm) thick. It weighs 220 grams (about the same as a thin paperback book.) The screen is all of 5 inches (measured diagonally.) Before the device can be used it has to be charged for several hours, and unlike many electronic devices, this one cannot be fiddled with whilst charging. Sony, in their penny-pinching wisdom, do not supply you with a mains charger as standard so charging has to be done via the USB cable provided. This also means you must have a computer to use the reader (you may think that obvious, but some readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle do away with the need for a PC by providing a wireless download service.)
Once the reader is charged, indicated by the red charge light on the top of the unit going out, we can switch it on using the slide switch on the top (next to the charge light.) This launches the Autoplay function (assuming you still have it plugged in) on your PC. The first step is to install the Reader Library software, this will allow you to move downloaded books on to and off of the reader, in much the same was as Apple’s iTunes does with the iPod. Installation on any modern PC is an absolute doddle and it guides you through any updates that may need to be done at the same time. With everything installed, you are now ready to start adding titles to your electronic bookshelf. The Reader Library has a wee tab to click on marked “eBook Store” and this will bring up a list of suppliers of downloadable eBooks – currently Waterstones, WHSmith and Mills and Boon.
From here you can also register your reader at Sony.co.uk which will entitle you to choose up to 100 classic books for free.
I have a confession to make here.. . I’ve never actually used this service although it does seem nice and straightforward – you choose the items you wish to purchase, checkout as normal but instead of waiting for the postman to bring you your book, it’s downloaded straight to your Reader Library, ready for you to “sync” it to your reader. The reason I’ve never used the service is that I use free to download sites instead, this generally involves copying and pasting the text into a .txt, .doc or .pdf file and manually adding them to the library. This is easily done using the “Import Files” function found on the “File” menu of the Reader Library.
Once you have your books in your Reader Library, whether by download or import function, the process to add them to the reader is simplicity itself. Just select the title or titles you wish to transfer from your Library, and drag and drop them onto the Reader icon within the Reader Library. The PRS300 supports USB 2.0 and each title transfers in seconds. The average file size for a title seems to be around 2.0 megabytes although this will vary depending on the file type and length of your book.
Speaking of file types, the PRS300 supports a wide range, including but not limited to: ePub, BBeB, PDF, TXT, RTF and DOC. I confess I’m not familiar with all of these, but I do know that different suppliers / providers of eBooks use different file types so being able to view several types is a good thing. The reader has an internal memory of 512 megabytes so you can easily expect to store 200 titles, minimum.
OK, so you’ve charged it up, stuck some reading material on it and now you want to actually use the thing, so how does that work?
Rather well actually. Switching the device on for the first time, you are presented with a greyed out version of the menu / home screen and a rotating arrow in the middle, with the word “Loading” at the bottom of the screen... depending on how many books you have just transferred, this may appear for anything from several seconds to a couple of minutes. Once complete, the arrows and loading message disappear and the menu is now bold rather than greyed out. The first thing to strike you is that this is not like looking at an LCD screen. Sony use eInk technology, which utilises a “paper-like” screen which is not backlit and has no refresh rate or flicker, meaning it can be read for long periods at a time without causing any soreness as per a VDU / cellphone screen. As a consequence, you cannot use this in the dark, unless you use a torch!
The matt finish also makes it possible to use this in bright / direct sunlight, although EXTREME sunlight may cause the “ink” to fade if left on one page for too long (as I discovered whilst out in the Nevada desert this summer) but moving to the next page will recharge the ink pixies and no permanent deterioration was observed. Speaking of recharging, the PRS has an amazing battery life and with everyday use will only require one full charge a week, this is due to the eInk technology again, which draws no current between page turns and therefore conserves the battery for as long as possible.
I don’t know how they do it but it works!
The menu is clearly laid out, with the following headings:
Books by Title – displays all books in your collection, arranged alphabetically by title.
Books by Author – as above, but arranged by author.
Books by Date – yup, you guessed it.
Collections – displays titles in user-defined collections
All Bookmarks – displays a list of any bookmarks you have made. Multiple bookmarks in multiple books can be set.
Settings – Sub menu that allows you to change the orientation, date and time, set a sleep mode, change the menu language and lock or reformat the device if necessary.
You can navigate these menus in a couple of ways. You can either use the numbered buttons (1-10) on the right hand side of the screen that each match up to a menu option, or you can scroll up and down the headings using the 4-way directional button at the bottom of the device, confirming your selection with the central select button.
When you decide upon a title and start to read, you are struck by how much like reading a “real” book this is. The eInk technology is really very cleverly used here and after a few page turns you feel completely at ease with it. Speaking of page turns, these are easily carried out by tapping “down” or “right” on the directional pad to advance, or “up” or “left” to go back. Pressing and holding an advance / return button for a few seconds will jump 10 pages and by using the numbered buttons on the right, you can jump straight to a specific page number.
There are 4 further control buttons, 2 on either side of the directional pad.
First on the left is the Home button, which unsurprisingly returns you to the home screen.
Next is the Back button, which will either return you to the last function or, if you are in normal reading mode, will show you the Options screen relating to that book – file info, first page, last page, bookmarks, index (if available) and utilities – delete title and remove bookmarks.
To the right of the directional pad is the bookmark button, which allows you to set a bookmark, denoted rather cutely by a folded corner of the page on screen.
The final button is the zoom option which allows you to choose between three font size options – definitely required as some file types result in microscopic text in standard size.
As I said above, you quickly forget you are not reading a normal book, especially if you have a folding cover fitted – this makes the process seem much more natural, as it feels as though you are holding a conventional book, the only noticeable difference being the turn of a page is replaced by the press of a button.
Although I did not initially want an eReader and was surprised to receive one, I am now very glad to have it and would certainly not be without one... the main reason for this about turn in my opinion? TRAVEL! I made the decision earlier this year to quit my job in the UK in order to take part in a 3 month voluntary conservation project in the USA. Packing 3 months worth of clothes and camping gear was enough of a hardship in itself, without having to pack reading material for the same period...
I read A LOT and can easily get through a book a week under normal circumstances. Add to that 24 hours of flights and you’re looking at a lot of books... Enter the eReader! I loaded it up with several hundred of my favourite author’s titles and it still only weighed 220 grams and took up little more space than “See Spot Run” would!
I certainly got ample opportunity to use the little eReader during my summer and am overall very pleased with it’s performance. One thing that I would note against it though is that using the zoom function can sometimes upset the formatting. It’s rarely enough of an issue to detract from the reading experience but I did note that often the reader would get confused between “i”s and “j”s and sometimes would display an “h” instead of “in”. It also gets confused when letters with accents are used. It’s something that you get used to and as it is not replacing “real” books for me, it’s certainly something I’m prepared to live with.
My “Alex Cross” edition was sadly misplaced in Nevada shortly before I was due to return home and rather than face the hours of flying without reading material, I went straight to the nearest electronics store and bought myself a replacement! The new one was silver rather than blue, but otherwise identical and I was able to load it with all my books from the Reader Library on my laptop with no problem at all, thus saving myself from a terribly dull trans-Atlantic flight!
The PRS 300 has since been superseded by the PRS 350 which is lighter at 155 grams, has a touch screen and a built in 12 language translation system. Although still classed as glare-free, I have seen the touch screen on a friends reader and it is glossy rather than matt and is much harder to make out in daylight. There is also a PRS 650, which is a much larger unit and has a 6.5 inch touchscreen, also glossy and hard to read in daylight.
If I were to buy a new replacement now, I would probably consider Amazon’s Kindle over the latest generation of PRS models. The Kindle has the same matt screen, multi-format support and has the added advantage of being 3G or wi-fi so one can download books straight from Amazon to the device without having to go through a PC. It’s cheaper too!
My favourite travelling companion! 
