Yuki’s PRS-300 review

[shounen-yuki]

After a lengthy debate into the ebook reader I should purchase, I came across the Sony pocket edition. Trying the touch edition as well, I went with the pocket edition as the screen exhibited too much glare on the touch. I ended up picking up 3 of the devices, 2 being gifts from a borders book shop near my house with a retail cost of $199 each.

Packages and contents:

The PRS-300 is a barebones reader device and does not come with much, it does however come with a soft case, this being a nice addition. In the box with the reader and soft case, you will find a usb cable and a quick start guide. A nice point is that the usb cable is a standard mini usb to host cable, if you loose it most people are bound to have another cable from another device laying around (digital camer / mp3 player / psp). Sony chose not to include any software in the form of physical media , which in my mind is great as you do not need a optical drive to install it (think netbooks). Software is actually installed from a virtual drive from the device it self, which I choose not to bother with.

Retail packaging for the device was very nice as it was a shrink wrapped box of minimal size to reduce waste. The device was rather easy to extract from the packaging with minimal personal safety violation as with some packaging .


Device build quality:

The PRS-300 is exceptionally well built for being made in china, the device is metal and plastic with good weight and good button feel. I personally opted to get my self the silver version which does a good job at hiding finger prints. My flat mate and boyfriend both received the black version which has a really decent black fish but will show off finger prints more so. The usb connector seems to be very firm and should be able to take quite a bit of insertion cycles without becoming damaged.


Computer connectivity:

Sony has been known in the past to supply proprietary poorly made software that was device specific, be it mp3 players to ebook readers. Connecting the PRS-300 to a windows machine and I was surprised that the device showed up as a ums device (like a external drive). You can opt to install the Sony software, choose a 3rd party book manager, or even drag and drop supported formats directly to the devices memory via “my computer”. I choose to both drag and drop and use a 3rd party book manger named calibre, both options work nice , and calibre can convert files to epub easily if it is a file that the PRS-300 will not render natively.


File Format support:

With calibre you can convert many formats into epub, which the PRS-300 support natively and works the best with speed and layout wise. As for native support the device will handle epub, bbeb, pdf, text, and rtf. Most files I have tested work fine with the device, graphic pdf files to take a while to render though.

Device screen and specs:

I absolutely love the e-ink display on the PRS-300, it has incredible contrast thanks to it not having a plastic cover or touch sensor on top of the display. I have had no glare issues either in all lighting conditions I have tired it in. Being an e-ink device, it is not backlit so keep that in mind, the reflectivity of the screen material however makes it readable in most lighting conditions as you would read a normal book by. The 800 x 600 screen resolution and small 5 inch size make fore excellent pixel density, however graphic novels are hit or miss if they format to the screen size well.

Speed :

The PRS-300 uses a slower i.mx1l processor that has been used in older generation sony book readers, it is not a good match to render graphic heavy pdf files. If you do plan to read graphic novels on the device, convert them to epub to speed things along. The actual screen refresh from one page to the other is fast enough not to be a bother. Opening a book for the first time may take a few seconds to format to the device but is also on the quicker side of things. Navigating the menu is a slow task, making the use of the side number buttons a must to get settings changed quickly.

Charging:

The device will charge from a pc via usb or an optional power adapter, when charging from usb the device can not be used though.

More thoughts:

I love the PRS-300, it is the perfect ebook reader device for reading text novels and maybe some graphic ones. The untouched e-ink screen is one of the most vivid in its class. The device has really good battery life as it is a very simple e-ink device. If you do not need mp3 playback or good pdf performance for graphic heavy documents, the PRS-300 makes a great choice. Also it seems for once that sony is the least privacy violating device in its class , other devices such as the kindle log and send back usage info of how you read , given the kindle has a 3g radio it can do it when ever it feels like it and has a cell signal. I personally don’t feel it to be a good thing that a reader device can send back usage statistics, something the sony device does not do if you use your own books on it.

Pros:

Great build quality
Great battery life
Excellent e-ink display
Standard usb port
Good price point
No privacy issues (unless you buy drm books)
Needs no drivers (loads as a mass storage device)
Comes with a soft case (no need to buy anything else if you are careful)

Cons:

Not good for most graphic novels
Barebones device

[poshm]

A good review thank you. I hope it helps some people with their choice of ereader.

I spent a long time thinking about whether to get the prs-300 or the prs-600 but I really wanted to have a dictionary (the touch screen too was a bonus) so opted for the 600 - if the 300 had a dictionary then I probably would have bought that instead.

[Bremen Cole]

Somehow I missed this review, excellent post....... I am sure it will help others......

[shounen-yuki]

picture added

[RonF]

What are those things behind the 300?????

[BeccaAnn]

Originally Posted by RonF

What are those things behind the 300?????

Looks like DVDs to me.

[justanut]

Manga methinks

[shounen-yuki]

Originally Posted by justanut

Manga methinks

gay adult manga to be exact

[wifish]

gay adult

[RonF]

And here I thought they were those ancient outdated things called........books......



The other answers were better though