Sony Reader PRS-350 Pocket Edition review

While the paperback-book size of most eBook readers suits most people, they’re a little too large if you just want to slip your reading into a coat pocket and carry it everywhere with you. Fortunately, for people that want that kind of flexibility Sony has its Pocket Edition readers.

The new PRS-350 is a big improvement over the previous Pocket Edition, in much the same way that the new full-size PRS-650 Touch Edition was a big improvement over its predecessor. For starters, the PRS-350 is made of light-weight aluminium, giving it a reassuringly tough feel.

The 5in screen may be a bit smaller than the 6in screen used on the PRS-650, but it has the same 600×800 resolution. In practice, the Pocket Edition’s screen looks sharper, as the pixels are closer together. Thanks to the new E Ink Pearl screen, which has 16-levels of grey, the contrast is fantastic and text is easy to read under all types of light.

As with its big brother, the PRS-350 has a touchscreen. Sony’s done a great job making sure that it’s responsive and easy to use. Turning pages requires a single swipe of a finger or thumb on the screen, which soon becomes second nature.

The homescreen lets you access your books using a variety of criteria including Author and Date. You can also create Collections, so you can gather together related books that you want to read for ease of finding. With 2GB of memory this can be incredibly useful, as you can fit hundreds of titles on to the device. There are no memory card slots on this model, although the built-in RAM should prove to be enough.