For all the fuss made at its
launch back in August, Sony's Reader Daily Edition has all but dropped off the map in terms of interest. Remember, Sony's response to the Kindle gave us a 7-inch touchscreen device with free AT&T 3G data for a street price of $399. Now we've got a proper in-depth review of the thing. On the plus side, the interface is simple and easy to understand right out of the box with nice, oversized icons suitable for your meat digit manipulation. Unfortunately, the Daily Reader was also sluggish. According to
Laptop, it was common to suffer a delay of a
few seconds after tapping an icon or other interface item. Worse yet, about a third of the time the Daily Reader's touchscreen display wouldn't respond to taps or swipes
at all. Conversely, page turns responded with a relatively snappy (for E-Ink) one second delay -- faster than both the Nook or the Kindle. The
EPD display was also a bit "dull" compared to non-touchscreen e-readers like the Kindle and Nook thanks to the additional screen layer that enables touch -- a common issue that affects all touch-enabled e-readers, we might add. This resulted in some eye strain in medium to low light. Connectivity also proved a sore spot. AT&T's network would inexplicably drop out during testing. It was plenty fast, however, when available, capable of delivering new books to the device in just seconds. Performance still lagged both the Kindle and Nook during comparison testing though.
Laptop's verdict isn't surprising then, finding the $140 premium you'll pay for the Daily Reader difficult to justify compared to the
EPUB supporting Nook or Kindle 2 with its better design and superior content selection.
It's worth noting that Laptop did not test the Daily Reader's
library finder services that lets you check out e-books from the local branch for free for a period of up to a month. A shame; as library nerds we think that's one of the killer features compared to the competition.
posted March 3rd 2010 2:46AM
So than do we buy it or not? Im confused
@abedinthehouse
Well... That really up to you isn't it?
@DaHarder
that's... that is
@DaHarder
lol I was being sarcastic, there is no way I can justify buying this thing!
A slight increase in page turns is not enough to forgive a product being unresponsive a third of the time
@abedinthehouse why would it be a second delay for each page turn? what are they trying to sell the people? rot?
@emopoops
s second delay is still better than most e-ink ereaders out there, but when all is said and done, its still a second
You know, does consumer electronics test their products anymore? Do they think a laggy UI to be acceptable? I mean it's not like the tech is not available.
I mean consumer electronics manufactures ^
@pika2000
Consumer Electronic companies think they can just whip out one half-ass product after another without any tests or 3rd party reviews and expect big profits from dumb-wit buyers while they move on to their next "big" half-assed product.
Not pointing fingers to Sony or any companies...Im just saying this in general.....this seems to be the biggest trend of last year, and now this year too
When do we, the consumers get a break?!?!
Give us a damn product that WORKS AS ADVERTISED!
I'm happy with the smaller Sony Touch, whose screen looks best on sunny days (great for sitting at tables outside bars here in Madrid). Battery life is nowhere near that of non-touch readers, though.
@Chris, have you tried Iliad for non-touch reader re battery life? I've been reading my PRS-900 for about 3 weeks now and there's still plenty of juice left. I'm not using the Wireless though - this is the battery killer.
WTR page flip speed - WTF? 1 second? It's about 0.2-0.3 seconds and there's no lag to speak of (other than due to inherent nature of EDP tech).
The screen "dullness" comment is correct. It works really well with a light though. IMHO all features on e-readers have pros and cons. For what it's worth PRS-900 is an excellent reader. I recommend using it with Calibre though, not that sorry excuse for software application that Sony ships :)
@mreader
correction WTR speed: If you open a graphics heavy PDF file, there'll be a considerable delay the first time you open the file.
I own one of this (but with no 3g) and i am very disappointed with how it works with books, especially PDF. Also the screen gives lots of glare, no option to add any dictionaries beside English and generally poor software. For this price and brand trust - shame on you SONY.
Just FYI, the nook can do the whole library ebook borrowing thing using Adobe Digital Editions - the same way as this reader
Agree100%, I don't find it sluggish at all with page turns, faster than my Nook, the menu is not as responsive bit this is a minor issue, the dictionary is much faster than Nook, and the touch screen is easier to navigate than Nook, meaning that you get things done faster...
I recently compared this side by side with a Nook. My experience was exactly the opposite in that the device is more responsive all round when compared to the nook. The screens contrast and brightness are about the same. This feels much much better in the hand and there is no comparison in build quality.
huhuhuh... he said "meat digit manipulation"
EPub? The Sony readers support that, and way more formats than any of the other big two readers, namely the Kindle (which supports the least formats) and the Nook.
@Luxury Guy right. i dunno if engadget were actually trying to imply Sony readers don't support ePUB, but it sure looked that way...
Ok, I've actually been using the Sony Daily Edition (SDE) for two months now, and there's a lot of misinformation. The SDE is MORE responsive than the Sony PRS-505 model (widely considered to be the baseline standard for eReaders amongst reader enthusiasts), which I used to use. It turns pages faster and is generally more snappy. It's more responsive than the Nook and about the same as the latest Kindle versions. All e-ink readers have a brief delay when turning pages, but it's doesn't make then unreadable. It's a much shorter delay than turning the page in a physical book, but you don't hear people complaining about how slow their fingers are...
The SDE touchscreen does have a glare under POOR LIGHTING. BUT, if you use adequate lighting, like a book light or a reading lamp, the glare is gone completely. The glare is caused by inadequate lighting where not enough light penetrates to the e-ink layer and too much of the light is scattered by the touchscreen layer (which sits on top of the e-ink layer). If you have adequate lighting, the problem is 100% solved. Under sunlight, the SDE reads perfectly. I don't think of this as a defect or short coming. I mean, you shouldn't be reading under poor lighting conditions anyway! Sony went with this particular touch screen technology to allow both finger and stylus input, but it does have the drawback of increasing glare. As I said, I use a book light when reading indoors and the problem is solved.
I prefer the SDE over the Nook and Kindle because it has all the features I want: full EPUB support, ability to take notes/highlight, ability to check out free library books, style, stylus (I hate fingerprint smudges), wireless (I wasn't a big fan of wifi before, but I see the benefits now since I subscribe to a periodical that is automatically delivered weekly to my SDE).
@erasure25
What I like is skimming newspapers and magazines using the stylus. The pages zip by, and when you see the next article, you stop holding down the stylus, and though you might think you were too late in releasing the hold, no, you stopped right where you want.
Can't do that with buttons.
I love my Sony Daily Edition. The 7" screen is much more akin to a book than a 6 incher. It is plenty responsive, and I've never had any difficulty with the touch screen.
erasure25...well said, i've had my SDE since early january
i looked at the nook when it came out and the SDE is definitely faster and more responsive that the nook.
there IS glare (just to get it outta the way) in low light conditions but hey, get proper lighting and you are fine.
outdoors, riding the trains to work, at work, and 99% of other places i use it, the reader is fantastic
the touch screen is responsive though you do have to use a bit of pressure (due to it being resistive; not capacitive) but that is not a big deal for anyone who has used a touch mobile device in the past decade.
the screen being 7 inches is the perfect size imho for reading...big enough but not too big.
and talk about solid construction...it kills the nook which feels like a cheap toy by comparison...
let's not forget the newspaper downloads, ePUB, PDF, library downloading....