Review While the price and diversity of e-book readers is still some way off achieving the sort of critical mass that put an MP3 player in nearly pocket, the number of devices appearing on the market is increasing at a healthy rate.
A good read? iRiver’s Story
While not exactly a household name here in the UK, iRiver can usually be relied upon to cook up a quality product that’s a little different from the norm. Entering the e-book reader market with the Story, this all-white device looks a lot like Amazon’s Kindle. On more careful inspection its obvious the similarities are simply down to the colour and the presence of a full Qwerty keyboard below the 6in electronic paper screen, rather than any shared heritage.
At 127 x 203.5 x 9.4mm and weighing 284g the Story is par for the e-book reader course. Even if the white plastic case lacks the cool, machined finesse of Sony’s aluminium Readers, it still has a solid and substantial feel to it and will only flex or groan when subjected to some pretty severe torque. Read the rest of this entry »
Review With the price of the Reader PRS-600 Touch Edition having been hiked up by 25 per cent over the original PRS-505, Sony clearly thinks there’s room for a cheaper alternative. Hence the launch of the Reader PRS-300 Pocket Edition which does without a touchscreen and has a 5in rather than 6in screen.
Sony’s Reader Pocket Edition:
In the UK, the Pocket sells for £180. While that’s a hefty £70 cheaper than the Touch, it’s worth remembering that it’s only 20 quid less than the old 505 sold for.
Physically, the Pocket resembles a shrunken and tidied up version of the 505. At 107 x 158 x 10mm, it’s the same thickness as the Touch, but 14mm narrower and 17mm shorter. At 220g, it weighs a noticeable 66g less.
Without a touchscreen, the controls are once again placed on the device’s face, but there are only ten rather than the 17 the 505 had, and the layout is far neater. Read the rest of this entry »
Review When we reviewed Sony’s original PRS-505 Reader a little over 12 months ago, our only real criticism was that the plethora of buttons and switches that festooned the device would be better replaced by a touchscreen.
Revised edition: Sony’s PRS-600 Reader Touch
Now Sony has released its next-generation Reader, the PRS-600, which does indeed have a touch screen, hence its ‘Touch Edition’ moniker. Having asked, we have received. But should we grateful?
Look at the Touch from any direction other than face on and the differences between it and the old Reader are a hard to discern. At 121 x 174 x 10mm, it’s a shade shorter and narrower but just over 2mm thicker than the original. At 286g it’s also 26g heaver than the old model.
Like the 505, the 600 has an aluminium case which makes for a solid and flex-free bit of kit that should last the course. In order to keep the front as clear as possible, all the necessary ports, sockets and switches are crammed into the top and bottom edges of the device. Read the rest of this entry »
Review iRex extended its electronic book line back in September last year, but it’s taken us more than a couple of weeks to get used to its new DR1000s Digital Reader and understand that this is really a new class of product, rather than an evolution of the smaller readers of the past.
iRex’s Digital Reader
Electronic-ink screens have been pushed into the role of electronic books but, like Amazon, iRex has realised that the real money isn’t in electronic books at all, but in electronic document readers. Executives, or journalists – who have to plough through enormously long documents – will pay handsomely for a device that enables them to easily read, and make notes on, such documents with the minimum of fuss.
Indeed, that’s the market that Amazon’s latest, the Kindle DX, and the iRex DR1000S are aimed. Yet, the DR1000S isn’t exactly comfortable for reading books. At just under 27 x 22cm and a smidge under 12 mm thick, it’s much closer to a clipboard than a paperback, even if it is six hundred quid’s worth of clipboard. Read the rest of this entry »
