SONY make.believe

Wish I Had Bought the Daily Edition First

Pros: Easy to use; Very functional design; Taking notes is great

Cons: The charger seems way bigger than it needs to be

I bought the Daily Edition as a result of not being happy with the Nook that I had purchased several months ago. When reading I constantly jump back and forth in a chapter looking up things along with taking notes and making highlights. The Nook was a great reader but its highlighting and note taking was almost worthless. The Sony Daily Edition is a dream to use. I can easily either type or "write/draw" notes. Many times I like to jump around in the book. I might go to the appendix or to the table of contents or to a specific page. The Sony makes "lite" work of this type of activity. It's great!!! Downloading books is straight forward. I do not miss not having Wifi at all. The wireless connection works without a hitch. Downloading is extremely fast. A neat feature that I plan to use is borrowing books from my local library. And when I am at work without my Daily Edition I can easily download a book to my computer and then copy the book over to my reader in the evening. I have compared the cost to buy books on the Nook and Sony. One can find deals on both sites. Some books are only available at Sony and visa versa. E-reader book prices are changing all the time. I highly recommend the Sony reader especially if you are one that digs into a book by probing and exploring as you read.

The product I've been waiting for

Pros: Nimble, responsive touchscreen; open ePub format; excellent PDF navigation; memory expansion to 16GB

Cons: Price

I've never taken the time to write a detailed product review of anything, but I received my Sony Reader Daily Edition about 5 days ago, and I have to say that so far I am EXTREMELY pleased with the design and functionality of this device. In fact, it's really pretty amazing ? I think I may soon be wondering how I ever lived without my Sony Reader. I find the menus and commands to be for the most part very intuitive, so I don't have to spend hours reading the manual in order to figure out how it works. My biggest worry before it arrived at my doorstep was the potential screen glare issue, which I know a few people have commented on. I find, however, that the screen is very comfortable to read, even for long hours at a time. It offers excellent contrast and sharpness, and what little glare there is can be easily eliminated with a very slight tilt of the screen plane in relation to the eyes. For me, screen glare with the Sony Reader DE is simply not an issue. I've downloaded 4 newspapers so far, and I find the organization, navigability and appearance of the NYT and WSJ digital editions to be just really impressive. (And when I downloaded the Sunday NYT yesterday, I could hardly believe I got essentially the WHOLE paper for less than a dollar!) I've downloaded two books so far ? one from the Sony Reader site and the other one from ebooks.com. (The latter only because Sony didn't have the title I was seeking.) As it happens, there are several online vendors out there who offer digital books in ?ePub? and other Sony-compatible formats, so I'm confident that my eclectic reading tastes will not go unsatisfied even if the Sony store doesn't have it. I added a 16GB SD card which offers plenty of room for loads of books and all my music. Listening to my Coltrane, Getz and Davis while reading philosophy was quite the experience! I have always been a very active annotator of my paper books (especially the non-fiction volumes), so I was really pleased to see that the Sony Reader DE has a very natural, straightforward method for adding bookmarks, highlighting and freehand notations to my readings. Not like the Nook or Kindle which I saw in video demos online ? for those devices the annotation method seemed downright tedious, as far as I could see. The very responsive touchscreen on the Sony makes annotation a breeze. Besides the 2 books I bought, I also sideloaded nearly 200 PDFs that I've had for some time on my PC but rarely looked at because I don't like to do lengthy readings on a computer screen. Most of these are technical references that I get from government agency websites (like EPA). So far I find the PDF navigation to be very slick and responsive -- and rotating from portrait to landscape mode on the fly is quite handy. This will be great for my work, as I can now carry 200+ technical references with me on the road! I can't wait to borrow a few books from my local public library network, as their website shows they have quite a few titles of interest to me. But it turns out I have to get a new physical library card first, so I guess I'll have to stop by in person later this week. (For library loans using the Sony Reader, YMMV, since different local networks probably each have their own rules.) BTW, the leather cover and faux-leather back are really handsome, and beautifully integrated. And the size of the Sony Reader DE is just perfect. The Kindle DX seemed way too unwieldy, and most other ereaders I looked at seemed too small. Bottom line: The Sony Reader Daily Edition, though a bit pricey, is the product I've been anxiously waiting for ever since e-readers first came out. It seems to fulfill all of my reading needs, and then some. Though Sony needs to add magazines like The New Yorker, and others, to its Reader Store.

Grand Disapointment

Pros: Large Screen

Cons: Horrible Glare, Sluggish Touch Screen

I ordered the Sony 900 with great expectation based on its large touch screen. However, I was sorely disappointed. The screen is too dark and reflects light regardless of the angle. I was unable to find a reading angle that did not show glare. Also the touch screen is very sluggish and requires 2 or 3 touches sometimes to work. I like the idea of displaying my books in icon format but about a quarter of them were unreadable. It may have been that I had a Kindle to compare this screen to that demonstrated its deficiencies so clearly, but for $400 I simply expected better; especially from Sony.

Pressdisplay support the real killer app

Pros: Nice looking item, touch screen, Sony Quality

Cons: No support for pressdisplay

I would buy this item in a heartbeat if it supported PressDisplay - the largest aggregator of digital newspapers including my favoured titles. But without it - no chance! It'll have to be the iRex Iliad - in spite of it being an ugly design and too chunky... Also - why no wifi?

Perfect ereader

Pros: 32GB storage, free hand notes are unique features in this price

Cons: Not Global, No wifi

LOVE IT

Pros: Lightweight, great storage, easy to travel with, holds a charge forever.

Cons: glare on the screen, wish it was backlit like the iPad

I have been a longtime lover of books - PAPER books. I belonged to 3 book clubs and read voraciously. My husband got me the Reader for Christmas and I was very skeptical..not for long. Downloading? It's a breeze and it's instant. If you turn off the wireless, the battery lasts for a very long time. It so light and easy to hold, I absolutely love it. I can check out (albiet limited titles) books from my library online, so those are free. And purchasing ebooks is certainly cheaper than buying paper ones. Bestsellers run around $12.99. I took the reader on a trip and wow - what a difference NOT having to pack 4 books made. I wouldn't trade the Reader for anything, I am truly a convert. I'm about to buy my husband one for his birthday! :-) Purchase this - treat yourself. You will not be sorry.

All That I Need

Pros: Great size, wifi, clear crisp screen

Cons: Price, a little sluggish

I love my ereader. I would have rated 5 stars but price was a big factor. I researched for almost 2 years and decided on the Sony. I have read countless reviews with people whining about a browser, etc... Operative word here people is READER... There is something out there to please everyone; find what fits you; why put a product down just because it doesn't do what you wish and only does what is was made to do... I can read 2-3 books a week when time allows and I love that fact that I don't have to carry heavy books on my person (2-4 when traveling), no need to get in the car, drive to the book store and/or library, unless I would like to do so. I do not need a browser or the ability to edit Word or PDF docs. That is what my laptop is for; my reader is for the pleasure of reading; period... When I am reading I could give a flying !@# about docs, emails, facebook or shopping online.

Screen too dark

Pros: multiple formats, large screen

Cons: very dark screen, diffilcult to read

overall fine but the dark screen makes it very difficult to read