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.

While the touchscreen interface is slick it’s the PRS-350’s handling of documents that’ s the stand-out feature. As well as the ability to reflow text, there’s also an option to zoom into documents, so that you can scroll round them. If you’ve got PDFs on your Reader, it means you can reformat them to make them easier to read or zoom in to view the finer details in a diagram.

As well as that, you can set the Page Mode. This lets you view the document in its original format, cut-out side margins (useful on a few paid-for books) or view in columns. This latter mode is particularly clever and turning pages first takes you to the bottom of the first column, then to the start of the second column and so on, to a maximum of a three-column layout. In terms of text handling, the PRS-350 is way better than any other eReader on the market.

A stylus stored in the top-right of the Reader can be used to draw notes on texts, although you can also type notes using an on-screen keyboard. It’s handy if you’re planning on using the Reader for text books.

The PRS-350 is also one of the few devices that can handle library books. These let you ‘rent’ a title for a set period of time, after which it’s deleted from the Reader. All you need is a membership of the relevant library. There are currently 50 in the UK, and they’re all listed on the Sony Reader website. The only restriction to the service is that each library has a set number of each title for rent – when all are rented, you have to wait until one is ‘returned’.

If you want to buy books, there’s a decent range available from a wide range of book stores and encrypted ePub and PDF files are supported. You can manage books using the Sony Reader Library or through Adobe Digital Editions. The latter still requires Sony’s software to be installed, so that you have the correct device driver on your device.

The PRS-350 is an elegant reader that’s a great choice if you portability is the absolute requirement. It’s fantastic handling of all documents, slick interface and brilliant screen make it a joy to use. The only potential problem is that the Amazon Kindle 3 costs the same for the 3G version and more than £40 less for the WiFi version. With the Kindle store easier to use and with cheaper prices than the disparate stores for other eReaders, the Kindle’s a better choice for people that want the latest titles at the best prices.