I have researched and thought about buying an eReader for some time now, and had just about convinced myself that I was going to buy a Nook when I came into possession of a PRS-600 by unfortunate circumstances. My grandmother recently passed, and when she did so she left a PRS-600, less than a year old, that no one else in the family wanted. I snatched it up to see if I liked the electronic reader format, and have been using this for about a month or so now.

Out of the box

My PRS-600 is the black version (not the snappy red in the product details here) and had been used quite a bit by my grandmother. I inherited several books from her with the reader, although to tell the truth most of them I will not read. The box came with the following:

PRS-600 eReader
Black neoprene carrying case
USB charging cable
Quick Start Guide

The Reader can be charged using either the supplied USB cable (4 hour charge time from dead battery, approximately) or an optional 5.2V charger available for further purchase. The battery is reported to last for two weeks of reading without charging. I have been reading on and off for 1 to 3 hours a day, and got at least two weeks out of it in this fashion.

Physical Appearances

The PRS 600 is about the size of a paperback book, and about the same heft. It fits easily in my hands without any issues, and I can hold it with one hand and read without getting tired or sore wrists. Some of the physical dimensions and published information on the PRS 600 follows:

Size in inches: 6.9 x 4.8 x .4
Weight : 10.1 oz
Screen Size: Vizplex 6 inch (diagonal) E-Ink display with 8-level gray scale and a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels
Memory Size: 512 MB. User available capacity: Approximately 380 MB
Dual memory card expansion slots for Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD card up to 16 GB
Media formats supported: ePub (Adobe DRM protected), PDF (Adobe DRM protected), BBeB Book (PRS DRM protected), ePub, BBeB Book, PDF, TXT, RTF, Microsoft Word (conversion to the Reader requires Word installed on your PC), JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, MP3 (non-encrypted), AAC (non-encrypted)
Connectivity: USB for file transfer from PC
Power: charge with USB cable (supplied) or optional A/C adapter
Battery: rechargeable (and non-replacable) lithium-ion battery

The PRS 600 is mostly the screen on the front, with five buttons along the bottom for Page Forward/Back, Home Screen, Zoom, and Options. I generally hold the eReader in one hand and use my thumb along the bottom to page forward, although this is also a touch screen and finger flicks can make the reader turn pages as well.

The base/bottom of the PRS600 houses a hook for connecting a lanyard to, a recessed reset button, and the power ports and audio port and controls. There is the mini USB connection to connect to the computer, and the 5.2V charger outlet for power ports, and an 1/8 inch audio jack and volume rocker switch for listening to audio files.

The right side of the unit houses the stylus, while the top has the ports for either a Sony Memory stick or an SD card, neither of which I have used. Finally, on the top is the power slider.

Note: When turning off the unit, you have two choices, and which you choose will affect your battery life and experience. If you quickly slide the power button to the right and let it go, the screen will go blank, which might make you think the reader is off. However, it has simply gone into sleep mode! If you leave it in this state, the battery will eventually drain down and you might think the battery life on the PRS 600 is miserable. If instead you slide the slider to the right and hold it there, a popup message will ask if you really intended to turn off the reader. Click yes, and the unit will turn off completely, thus preserving the battery life as intended. I had to find this out by trial and error, and it didn’t seem to be very well documented at all.



In Use

I have used this reader to read several books in several different formats. I have switched back and forth between the different font sizes (five in total for PDF’s, for instance) and found my own sweet spot. Your experience will vary, but I am sure that like me you will be able to find settings that work well for you. Paging forward and backward is easily done by moving your finger from one side of the screen to the other or using the hard buttons at the bottom of the screen. Default page forward is to move your finger from left to right, which seems backwards to me, and so I tend to use the buttons. The touch portion of this reader really doesn’t get much of a work out by me!

The screen uses the proprietary eInk technology, which seems to be pretty much the standard and therefore not much of an advantage or disadvantage to this unit when comparing. That being said, the technology is very good at rendering text and appearing to be ‘real’ text on paper, and not computer generated images. The only down side to this technology is the fact that when you switch a page the screen has to go black for a short period of time, as it needs to reset the image generation. Not a big deal, and not a long transition, but it is surprising at first.

The biggest downfall of the PRS 600 in comparison to other readers is also the selling point of the unit; it was sold as a touch unit, which meant that it needed a touch-sensitive membrane over the screen. While this is a selling point for the unit, putting it into service caused a certain blurriness to the screen as well as created glare when used with an overhead light. Understanding that this unit doesn’t have backlighting indicates that you will be using this with external lights often, and this has led to many complaints of glare on the screen.

While I don’t dispute that there is a glare with the touch screen of the PRS 600, I have only ever used this unit in practice and therefore don’t have any experience to compare to. All I can tell you is that the glare, which was the primary reason Sony came out with the PRS 650, doesn’t bother me personally. Again, it may be due to my ignorance and lack of use of other, better units, but I don’t have issues with the glare.

Along with the ability to load eBooks onto the reader (and many other electronic print items) the user can highlight, take notes, and create collections. Using the highlighting function, the user can look words up in the dictionary which comes loaded on the unit out of the box. While I haven’t used this often, it is a nice feature to have when I remember it is there! I haven’t personally found a use for the notes or collections, as I generally read books for pleasure as opposed to for study, etc. That being said, my grandmother had notes associated with her reading of the bible, which are still on the eReader. These are not saved in the actual book, but as notes tied to the book. I can see this being a pretty neat feature for folks who would use this for studying, etc.

Additionally, the user can personalize the reader experience by adding pictures and audio files. Again, I don’t use these features at all, as an 8 tone grayscale screen gives no where near the rendering my other electronic toys have, and my Zune HD 32GB audio player gives me more than enough audio options. I think these are probably cheap and easy features that Sony added for the ‘neat’ factor, but considering they don’t really explain how to use them or even supply a cheap set of ear buds, my guess is that they didn’t think they would get used much either.

Conclusion

As I mentioned, I got this reader for free by circumstance. For that price, I really like it and would take it again. However, if I were going to be shelling out $150-200 for an eReader, I would definitely pay up for the 650, or even the 950, which have eliminated the glare issue. Many people complained loud and long on the internet about the glare, and the fact that Sony was quick to release the 650 tells me they were listening. All that said, I don’t find the glare to be too big of an issue and I like the format friendliness and cheap price tag (free!) for the PRS 600 I currently own. If you can get it like I did for free or cheap, it is worth using. If not, consider paying up for the 650.

Recommended: Yes