Sony Reader PRS-T2

Sony's latest ebook reader, the Reader PRS-T2 ($129.99 direct) , is an unfortunate victim of timing. It's a nice device, shrewdly updated from last year's Sony Reader Wi-Fi PRS-T1 , with faster page refreshes and a sleeker design. But Sony came to the table this time around missing a key feature: backlighting. Now that the industry's top two ebook reader manufacturers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, make backlit readers in this price range, Sony's lack becomes a deal breaker.

Design, Screen, and Reading
Last year's Reader was a nice piece of hardware, and the PRS-T2 continues the trend. It measures 6.9 by 4.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.9 ounces. It's smoother and less busy looking, thanks to newly integrated membrane buttons along the bottom, and a slight taper to the frame. It's also light for a touch-screen ebook Reader; about an ounce lighter than the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight, and an ounce and a half lighter than the new Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. You can get one in a red, white gloss, or black matte finish; all models have soft touch back panels.

The 6-inch E Ink Pearl V220 touch screen is a gem. Its specs are typical, at 800-by-600-pixel resolution and with 16 shades of gray. But it offers high contrast, a nice selection of sharp fonts and font sizes, and?the best part?it never blanks the screen out at all for page refreshes, which are quick and unobtrusive. Sony also smoothed out the zoom feature. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, there's no backlight, unlike the Kindle Paperwhite and the Simple Touch With GlowLight. Sony does, however, make a nice folio case with an extendable light for $49.99 and one without the light for $34.99.

The home page is a step up from what you get on the Amazon Kindle, making it easy to find your books and organize them. While reading, you turn pages by swiping a finger to the left or right, or by using one of the two hardware buttons on the bottom left underneath the screen. There are no side-mounted page turn buttons, and you can't just tap the screen in a certain quadrant to turn pages. You get a choice of seven fonts and eight font sizes, all of which look crisp. You can adjust the contrast via a series of customization options, though none of the alternatives looked great. There are also 2-column and 3-column split views, as well as a landscape mode.

Reader Store, Other Features, and Conclusions
For shopping and downloading books, you get built-in Wi-Fi; there's no 3G option. Sony's Reader Store still trails what Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer. It's not terrible by any means, but it offers nowhere near the level of discovery and top list options you get with the two leading ebook vendors. The Discover tab, for example, just breaks down genre categories and has a few lists like "hidden gems," but nothing resembling the wealth of user-created content and editors' picks you'll find on Amazon.

On the plus side, the Reader supports ePub, PDF, and TXT files; Amazon still refuses to support the widely used ePub format. With the Sony Reader PRS-T2, you can borrow books from more than 15,000 public libraries across the country. There are no ads, like the Nook Simple Touch, but unlike all of the new Amazon Kindles.

Unlike other ebook readers, the Sony Reader comes with a stylus. It lets you mark up pages, make notes, and even draw. You can underline sentences, for example, which is something you can't do on the Kindle or Nook (at least with a pen-like stylus). There's nowhere to put the stylus inside the Reader, though; I imagine most people will just leave it in the box, although if you're the type that likes writing in the margins, this is a good model to consider.

Sony includes two English-language dictionaries. There's also Facebook and Evernote integration; you can snip a passage and post it to either service right from the Reader. Sony says the battery lasts for up to two months. You get 2GB of internal storage, with 1.3GB free for your books, plus a microSD card slot that lets you expand storage up to 32GB further. The slot also make it much easier to sideload PDFs, ePub books, and other materials. Sony also includes a free offer for the first Harry Potter book in the Pottermore Shop.

Sony, who was once a player in the ebook space, now seems to be iterating within its own world, devoid of competitors. The Reader PRS-T2 is the best ebook reader the company has produced to date, but it trails the competition, and even costs more on a feature-by-feature basis. The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and Barnes and Noble Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight both have clumsier names than the Sony Reader PRS-T2, but they have screens that light up for reading in the dark, plus more robust ebook stores. The basic Nook Simple Touch without the edge-lit GlowLight screen cost $30 less, and with the lighting it's $10 more. The Kindle Paperwhite with ads is $10 less, while the version without ads is $10 more. If you're loyal to Sony, the Reader PRS-T2 is nice, but I can't see many new customers choosing it over the Kindle or the Nook.

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