helps you find the perfect gadget. ver. 1.2

"There's a lot to like about the Sony Reader Touch Edition. It's slim, relatively lightweight, more compact than the Kindle 2, and it is classy looking."

"Take the brushed-aluminium edge crafted to resemble the spine of a book, or the magnetised stylus that clings to the case when you're not using it. It's Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's Bond in his tuxedo. It's utter class."

"The design is...the best so far, as less buttons equals a sleeker and more minimalist look that really shows off the sexy aluminium finish at its best."

"When it comes to design, portability, and simple functionality, the Touch Edition is a market leader. Unlike other e-book readers, the Touch Edition has an all-metal frame and feels very solid in your hand."

"Like the PRS-505, the PRS-600 is hewn from metal rather than the plastic used by most of its rivals and as such feels much sturdier."

"The back of the PRS-600 is covered in soft touch material so you get a better grip on the Reader. Sony uses metal around the front and on the spine and it just feels fantastic in your hand."

"Typically, resistive touchscreens are as much fun to use as a pillow stuffed with razorblades, but this one is surprisingly good."

"I am finding the display to be quite responsive to my finger presses and like using touch on an ereader."

"Although the touchscreen generally works pretty well, it's certainly not perfect. For starters you have to press harder on this display than you would on a normal LCD screen to make sure your input is registered."

"Miraculously, the screen doesn't get murky with fingerprints…. Glare is there but minimal-- it's nothing like the PRS-700 or a notebook monitor."

"Don't expect the touch screen to be anywhere near as responsive as that of the iPhone or iPod Touch--selecting stationary menu items is fine, but the gestures require you to press pretty hard."

"You can also write notes using an on-screen QWERTY keypad, although because of the refresh rate of the E Ink screen, it is rather slow and cumbersome."

"As the eInk display is very slow to update, you'll often find yourself waiting for it to catch up with you when you're typing on the onscreen keyboard or drawing freehand, which is quite disconcerting and takes a while to get used to."

"With the included stylus--or your finger--you can highlight words and add annotations via a virtual keyboard or just draw freehand on the page/screen using the stylus."

"Previously you could drop bookmarks, either to help you re-find your place or return to a notable position in a text. Now you can highlight passages, bring up the definitions of words and even doodle/annotate on your ebook."

"The stylus allows you to annotate pages - a useful feature for researchers and students - although the half-second it takes the reader to register an input makes it impractical for extensive notes or transcription."

"Like the PRS-700, the touch screen interface is very intuitive and well done. Swipe your finger left or right across the screen to move forward or back a page. Swipe and hold to move through several pages quickly."

"The touch layer means that you can now press directly on the screen with your finger to select the titles you want to read or move through the various menus. This makes the device much faster and easier to use than most other eBook readers."

"Like the iPhone and other next-generation touch-screen phones that have been appearing lately, the PRS-600 incorporates some gesture-based commands. You can swipe your finger across the display to page forward or back (you can choose between a left or right swipe to advance pages in the settings menu)."

"The UI is completely different though with navigation focused on the touch screen while still have a few selected buttons along the bottom of the display for quick navigation purposes."

"I found that I could navigate through many of the menus without the stylus because the items were large enough to permit accurate fingertip input. Tapping a return icon at the top of any screen returns you to the next-higher-level menu, until you're back at the home screen."

"The interface isn't going to win any awards, and the dictionary doesn't know a lot of words that it should, mainly past participles…. But if those were the only issues, I'd say jump in—it's a nice enough player priced well under the Kindle."

"There's a glossy sheen that covers the screen in order provide those laudable touch capabilities. It just makes the display a lot harder to read."

"Lying in bed, with just my reading light on, I can see the perfect out line of my face. Sure, I am handsome, but when I read a book, I expect to be staring only at words on the page, not my own lovely mug. In a well-lit room, the glare from all sides is positively frustrating, and it shifts with every minor adjustment of my hand."

"The Touch Edition displayed ePub and BBeB volumes flawlessly, and it turned pages briskly."

"When it comes to page turns...the PRS-600 is up there with the fastest eBook readers."

"The quality of the screen is degraded when compared with the PRS-505 and the PRS-300. It is darker, the contrast is worse and it is more reflective. For us this is something of a problem as actually reading the text on the Touch Edition is not as pleasant as on the other editions."

"One of my big worries was the clarity of the text and so I was quite pleased to find it is almost the same as the PRS-505, which is the best eInk display I have ever seen."

"I found the five font sizes good: I settled on using the middle one, but the largest one was big enough for a vision-impaired friend to read comfortably."

"We found it to be zippier than the [last year's e-reader from Sony] and turned pages a fraction of a second more quickly. Its faster processor also is helpful when accessing PDF files, particularly larger ones, and using the zoom feature on those documents."

"Page turns are quick thanks to the 532MHz Freescale CPU (same as the PRS-700) with Sony native BBeB format being the fastest, followed by ePUB then PDF."

"These devices are designed to go several days or even weeks without needing a recharge. According to Sony, you should get up to 7,000 page turns or about two weeks of usage from a single charge."

"The company says you can get 7500 continuous book turns on one charge, and my informal tests back that claim. Expect the rechargeable Lithium-ion battery to last a week or so between charges. "

"It uses incredibly little power, so the reader can go 2 weeks on a charge. In fact, it only uses power to turn the page."

"The Touch, which I've been using primarily, has a lot of flaws but battery life isn't one of them: I charged it 11 days ago, and it's only now starting to die."

"While I have been able to jam my Kindle 2 into an inside suit pocket, the Touch Edition slides in much more easily. "

"The metal chassis does add weight making it heavier than competing devices like the Bookeen CyBook. Whereas the similarly sized Cybook Gen3 weighs 174g, the Touch Edition is heavier at 286g and certainly feels more weighty when you hold it in your hands."

"Measuring 6.9 inches tall by 4.8 inches wide by 0.4 inch thick and weighing 0.63 pounds, the PRS-600 has a 6-inch screen (diagonal) and looks to be about 20 percent bigger than the 5-inch Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300."

"The built-in MP3 player was the best of any I've listened to on an e-book reader, with decent-quality audio and a good range of volume over earphones (the Touch Edition has a standard headphone jack)."

"The audio player is extremely basic, but you can play music in the background as you read and although no headphones are supplied with the device, the audio output quality is a lot less hissy than other eBook readers we've used."

"Beyond its 440MB of usable built-in memory--good for storing about 350 e-books--there's a set of dual expansion slots on the top of the unit for both SD and Memory Stick Duo memory cards."

"The PRS-600 has 512MB of ROM onboard, and 380MB is left free giving you space to store around 350 books. However, there are also slots for Memory Stick and SD cards, so it's easy to add additional storage if you feel the need. "

"Sony has made efforts to catch up with Amazon in terms of the number of books it has available and on competitive pricing.... With the addition of thousands of free public domain titles from Google (which includes many pre-WWI classics), Sony boasts more than 1 million titles in its e-book store, and that number continues to grow. "

"Sony's desktop application, now available for both Windows and the Mac, works much like iTunes: you'll use it to copy books to the device, sync notes and purchase books from Sony's reasonably large selection of titles (if you wish)."

"Sony continues to be a class act in the digital book realm; and since it now supports ePub, it should rival Amazon in the breadth of available content."

"One of the Reader's strengths is its capability to read other formats besides encrypted Sony e-books from the store. The Reader is capable of displaying text, RTF, Word, BBeB Book files, and EPUB files, as well as PDFs."

"Along with BBeB, it also handles EPub and Adobe Digital Editions for eBook purchases, alongside other non-DRM formats like PDF, MS Word, RTF and TXT files. "

"Let's hear it for openness and standards, something we'd never expect from Sony given their past behavior in the music industry. Sony Readers are compatible with the million public domain books offered for free by Google (forget paying for George Orwell's 1984!)."

"Getting books and other files on to the reader is pretty straightforward. This is partly because the installation software is stored on the eBook reader, so as soon as you connect it to your PC the installer automatically launches....The software also acts as a gateway to the online book store where you buy commercial titles.

"To get books onto the device, you need to go to to Sony's Web site, download the eBook Library Software (v 3.0.01), connect the device via the included USB cable, and drag and drop your books."

"While the process of transferring content to the device isn't as convenient as downloading books wirelessly to the unit as you can with the Kindle (as long as you can get a signal), Sony's improved its software to the point where it's become fairly easy to use and is not the liability it once was."

"Like the Pocket Edition, the Touch Edition supports Adobe's ePub format with Adobe Content Server 4 encryption (along with Sony's BBeB format), so you don't have to purchase books from Sony's online bookstore as you did with earlier Sony Readers."

Sony rated in the top 25% of a Zogby/MSN 2008 survey of customer satisfaction. 70% of survey respondents rated Sony's customer service excellent or good, while 30% rated it fair or poor.

"Based on BBB files, this business has a BBB Rating of A+ on a scale from A+ to F."

Sony received an 8 out of 10 in a 2009 survey of PC Magazine readers, which measured companies across 23 criteria to determine customer satisfaction with their portable media players. Sony ranked 3rd out of the 6 companies in the survey.

On its website, Sony's return policy states: "Sony's return policy allows for Products purchased directly from Sony and shipped to locations in the United States to be returned by you after obtaining a Sony return authorization number (RMA) during the 30 day period following date of shipment by Sony for a refund of purchase price actually paid.... The RMA number may be obtained by going online at www.sonystyle.com/returns or by calling Sony's Customer Support at 1-888-900-9872.... Products must be returned in the original packaging. Shipping and handling charges are not refundable. Damage and missing part restocking fees may apply. RMAs are valid for only 14 days from issuance.... If you return Product to Sony (i) without a RMA from Sony or (ii) beyond the 14 day issuance period, or (iii) without proper packaging, Sony retains the right to either refuse delivery of such return or charge you a restocking fee."

On their website, Sony's warranty policy states: "In the event of a defect, these are your exclusive remedies. LABOR: For a period of 90 days from the original date of purchase of the product (“Limited Warranty”), Sony will, at its option, repair or replace with new or refurbished product, determined to be defective. If Sony elects to replace the product after this Labor Warranty has expired but while the Parts Warranty below is still in effect, it will do so for the applicable labor charge. PARTS: For a period of 1 year from the original date of purchase of the product (“Parts Warranty”), Sony will supply new or refurbished replacement parts in exchange for parts determined to be defective."

Sony scored a 5.1 out of 10 on Greenpeace's January 2010 Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks the top electronics manufacturers on their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Sony was tied with four other companies for 5th out of the 18 electronics companies in the guide.

Sony received a B- on the Electronics Takeback Coalition's 2009 review of TV manufacturer recycling programs. Sony was tied for 1st out of the 18 TV manufacturers scored for the review. The ETC says that “Sony was the first TV company to launch a national takeback program."

Sony scored a 62 out of 100 on the November 2009 Climate Counts survey, which measures companies across 22 criteria to determine their commitment to global warming. Higher scores are better, and Sony was 8th of the 12 electronics companies measured in the survey.