Sony Reader Wi-Fi PRS-T1 Review: An E-Reader That’s Big on Style and Flexibility - velasquezancticipse

The Sony Reader Wi-Fi PRS-T1 is a reduce and stylish e-referee whose unusual design sets it apart from the pack. Its core specs are happening a par with those of the other big guns, too. In spite of this model's accessible buttons, yet, it stumbles in whole usability and navigation.

The Reader Wi-Fi carries a agonistic damage of $130 (as of December 9, 2011). That puts it at $31 to a higher degree the Barnes & Noble Corner Simple Touch, and little than the advertising-free edition of the Amazon Kindle Come to. (Until December 24, 2011, though, Sony is offering the Subscriber Wi-Fi for $99. And through the end of the yr, you tail pull through an additional $50 by trading in an e-lecturer from any manufacturer.)

One of the Referee Wi-Fi's distinguishing attributes is the row of buttons on its front face. It has lots of buttons, in point of fact–something that its touchscreen competitors skim. The button navigation is coherent with previous Sony models. I found the arranging convenient, particularly for one-handed page turns when I held the e-reader in my left.

In terms of design, Sony gets a plenty right with the Reader Badger State-Fi. This model is the narrowest of altogether e-readers available up to now, And IT ties the $79 Amazon River Kindle (fourth generation) Eastern Samoa the lightest e-reader you can buy, deliberation just 0.37 pound. That light free weight, together with the e-reader's narrow shape, makes the Lector Wi-Fi feel comfortable in the hand.

The Reader Wi-Fi looks stylish and slender, as well. The MicroSDHC card time slot sits under a snap-in cover on the indorse. At the behind edge is a Little-USB port for charging and for transferring information, positive a headphone jack and a power/wake button.

About one-half an inch up from the bottom of the e-proofreader is the run-in of somatic navigation buttons: page book binding, page forward, home, recall, and menu. Sony is the only if manufacturer to offer physical page-forward and Thomas Nelson Page-game buttons at the nates of an e-reader, a feature that I found especially efficacious for those multiplication when I held the e-reader in one hand by the rear (something this pattern's balanced feel allows). Of the touch screen e-readers presently out there, only the Barnes & Noble Nook also offers somatogenetic page-forward and Thomas Nelson Page-noncurrent buttons, but those are awkward to press.

This Sony e-reader has a softly-inglorious plastic bezel in lieu of the metal that former versions victimised. The bezel is a fingerprint attracter (same of my a few design complaints). The back feels good in the hand, with a smooth rubberized aerofoil that makes the e-reviewer impressionable to harbor.

I reviewed the Reader Wi-Fi in black (model PRS-T1BC), but IT likewise comes in blank (PRS-T1WC) and ruby (PRS-T1RC). Although the colors can personify sport, in the main I find a black bezel to be best on an e-reader, since that color in typically enhances the e-reader's readability by handsome the visual deceptio of boosting demarcation.

Performance

Speaking of counterpoint, the Reader WI-Fi's display is typical for its competitive set. I likable the texture of the screen; it is a smooth, light gray, similar thereto of the Amazon River Kindle Touch and the Barnes & Noble Orbicular Touch, every bit opposed to the newspaper-texture gray background of the Kobo eReader Touch down Variation. Like most of its rival, information technology offers eighter from Decatur type sizes (most of them effectual) and sestet font options. The largest font is fractionally large than on the Nook.

Text looked good and highly readable in my tests. And the invisible touchscreen was precise responsive, even when I typewritten quickly happening the on-screen keyboard. I like Sony's decision to include a narrow stylus for those the great unwashe who prefer to use one, but since the e-reader lacks a place to store it, I ne'er sought to utilise it. My fingers did just pure for navigation, and I could swipe my path through and through book pages, or even pinch and zoom to flesh out content. That said, you can use the style for written input–another unique feature among e-readers.

I too base the physical buttons useful in combining with the touch screen navigation. Between the two, getting about was simple.

My bigger gripe with the menus concerns their uninspired design. The angular, text-heavy appearance lacks the design sensibility one would expect from gear that looks as fashion-forward as the Reader Wi-Fi does.

You make two English-language and ten translation dictionaries, a nice addition for owners who use a great deal of extraneous-language texts. You can also look up words and information along Google Beaver State Wikipedia via the reinforced-in but sluggish WWW browser.

The Reader WI-Fi supports PDF, Microsoft Scripture, and text files, to boot to EPub and Adobe Appendage Editions books, as well as JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP persona files. If you read a batch of textbook-heavy PDF files, note: The Reader Wisconsin-Fi has the rare ability to reflow text away ever-changing the font size. Other e-readers throw tried this technique before with mixed success, but the current models out there all rely on zooming in to the PDF, not reflowing–which makes a tremendous difference in the overall viability of reading text PDFs on the 6-edge screen.

The Reader Wisconsin-Fi has 2GB of built-in storage. Sony says the battery will last for up to five weeks of reading (with Wi-Fi disabled). In addition to beingness tied to Sony's Reader bookstore, the Subscriber Wi-Fi supports unexclusive program library lending in the United States and Canada, and it has a menu option for easily accessing free Google Books. Sony supports audio playback, but not for audiobooks.

Sony has released Reader desktop apps for Mac and Windows computers. The company hasn't released a mobile app for Apple's iOS, even so, and its Google Android app lacks the smooth of, say, Amazon and Barnes & Noble's offerings. Similarly, the Sony Reader store isn't as diverse American Samoa those two, though you'll still find plenty to like.

The Sony Reader Wi-Fi lacks the menu finesse and social media meat hooks that Barnes & Noble's Nook Deltoid Touch boasts. But its new pricing puts IT right in line with its e-reader contention, and as a result it's an attractive choice, especially for people who plunder light weight, navigation flexibility, and easy access to reading text PDFs.