Description

With the Reader Daily Edition, you get a top-notch e-reader with support for multiple file types, great battery life, and a seven-inch touchscreen. But, this e-reader is extra-special, since it offers you free 3G access (where available) so you can download books while on the go!

Features

• Free 3G wireless access - Wirelessly browse, purchase and download content on the go or while lying in bed.
• Elegant 7 display with touch screen - Simple, easy-to-use touch screen navigation.
• Access books & newspapers wirelessly on the go - Approx. 1.6GB of onboard memory lets you carry hundreds of your favorite books
• Portrait or landscape viewing - Read comfortably in either portrait or landscape orientation
• Six adjustable font sizes to customize your reading - Ability to resize text

Reviews

Excellent compatibility with various file formats

by Jennifer K. from on 2010-07-26
What I like most about this ereader is how easy it is to use it. I simply drag and drop files through the USB cord to the ereader, and then all of the pdf, epub, and Word (.doc) files show up on the reader without any problems, and all the formatting remain intact (even for Word files). And, in landscape mode, the fonts look bigger w/o any adjustment of the font size itself. Additionally, if you "turn off" the reader by sliding the power thing on top of the reader just briefly (w/o holding it in the "turn off" position), then it turns back on right away to the last page you read. It doesn't appear to consume battery juice in this mode when you are not using it.

New Sony Reader

by Simonrasin from on 2010-07-13
The product is a good use of your money - for real. Easy to use, but fancy and sophisticated enough. Wireless connectivity is hard to set.

Sony Daily Edition - My Deal Breaker Chart

by Alan G. from Brooklyn, NY on 2010-07-11
Sony Daily Edition vs Pocket Edition - My Deal Breaker Chart
[3 images posted on product page]

DAILY EDITION / POCKET EDITION
Somewhat dim screen / Bright Screen
Grey-green background / Off-white background
Low contrast / High contrast
Dark font, but with soft edges / Slightly darker font with crisp edges
High glare; some reflection / Very low glare
Un-useable in low light / Minimally useable in low light
Heavy, 14.4 oz with built-in leather cover / Light, 7.8 oz, foam slip case is removeable
1 week to accept living with quirks / 10 minutes to enjoy using
Return / Keeper

Daily Edition pros that just don't outweigh the deal breakers above:
- 7" screen for more text on page.
- Designed not only for books, but periodicals and note-taking.
- Touch screen, although it needs a somewhat hard swipe to recognize a page turn.
- Upscale, pebbled leather jacket
- 3G Wireless; works great in metro area, but coverage is poor to nonexistent in suburbs.
- AC adapter included.

Unsatisfactory for PDF files

by Bernard Oppenheim from Bloomington, IN USA on 2010-07-04
I bought the Sony Reader Daily Edition to serve as a small portable device for reading the many PDF files which I have downloaded to my computer. I returned it after I had downloaded one PDF file to the Reader. The main problem is that it formatted the file in an unreadable fashion, with words at various levels above and below the line and too close together. Also the Reader was quite slow in going through the file, and the name it assigned to the file in its directory was not the name that I assigned but the one internally assigned by Adobe. It was much worse for reading PDF files than my laptop, which is too large and heavy to be portable. I now feel that a notebook computer will better serve my purposes.

Offers great features, but some of them don't work very well.

by Teperith from on 2010-07-02
I purchased the Kindle2, the Nook, the Sony Reader Touch Edition, and the Sony Reader Daily Edition (all of whose companies offered terms for easy returns) and, within a few days, I ended up returning everything except the Kindle2. Of all these devides, the Sony Reader Daily Edition offers the most wonderful features -- especially, a splendid note-taking capability. Using the reader, you can highlight text passages or write on the text page with the stylus, or you can write separate notes using a touchpad. Then, the notes are stored both in an "All Notes" section and also in a separate Notes section set up for each book. In addition, there is a Text Notes section where you can enter text notes about anything at all -- either subjects relevant to your books or just whatever subject you choose. So, you can also use the device as a memo pad.

In view of the excellent note-taking capability, I believe that I could have put up with a screen that is less easily readable then that of either the Kindle2 or the Nook; however, it turns out that some of the parts of the note-taking capability just don't work very well. In particular, the highlighting capability is very poor. When I tried to highlight a single line or group of lines, other highlights created on the page would often disappear; or, big squares of highlight (which actually appears as shade), encompassing lines and words not highlighted, would appear on the page. It is easy to bookmark text, and, by tapping on the bookmark you have created, you are supposed to be able to open the window where you can write your own notes; however, I often had to try tapping five or six times before I was able to open this section. When I tried to tap in this fashion, the device would sometimes send me to an altogether different page, so I would have to start all over again.

Regarding the note taking capability, the Sony system offers less of an opportunity to capture notes and edit them on your computer, itself. The desktop edition of the Reader offers a way of showing the notes, but they cannot be cut, pasted, or otherwise manipulated on the PC. The Kindle2, though, collects all your notes into a .txt file called Clippings, and, from there, you can edit them on your PC. In my opinion, the ability to manipulate notes on the PC is important, especially for writers. If you are reading a book and taking notes on it, you may want to organize those notes into a review or an essay or an academic paper, and manipulating the notes on the PC can make paper writing a lot easier.

I also found that the Sony device was slow to load and to turn pages and that the search function was quite painfully slow, especially when I was reading a book stored on my SD card. The search function is not case sensitive, so that when I entered "authors" when searching for the word "Authors," the device came up with no results. When I started a search on the Kindle2, the device quickly created a page containing all the instances of "authors" (or "Authors") occurring in the entire book, and I could then go to any instance of the word shown on that page. With the Sony Reader, however, the device slowly went to the first page, and then the next, and then the next, so that I had to page through everything until I arrived at the instance that I was looking for.

One thing that I keep reminding myself is that these lovely reading devices are also very clever vending machines! The makers of these devices have certainly taken some of the hardships (heavy books, use of trees) out of reading, but the 3G installation also makes it very easy for you to spend a little money here, a little there, and, it all adds up. It bothered me that the Sony device allows you to connect *only* to their store (where no books are sold for free). If you go to the Sony Bookstore website using your PC, you can click on a link to Google Books or to their library-borrowing site, but you cannot connect to those free sites directly using the device, itself. Thus, the 3G connects you only to a store where you will obliged to pay money for anything that you want. The Kindle2 allows you to connect wirelessly not only to the amazon website (where there are a great many free offerings) but also to other websites, like Wikipedia, that may be relevant to what you are reading.

I have to say that, in view only of all the features that it offered, I liked the Sony Reader better than both the Kindle2 and the Nook; however, I returned it because a good many of those features just did not work as well as I would have liked: If I am going to pay over $300 for a product, it just has to work. What I like about the Kindle2 is that it does what it purports to do and does it well. It provides clear, readable text; it allows me to look up information on Wikipedia if I need to; it allows me to take notes (although not as pleasurably as with the Sony Reader) that I can call up when I need them and also capture and edit on my PC; it has an efficient search function; and it allows me to download books quickly. I have experienced few, if any, glitches or difficulties in just getting things to operate properly. For me, using the Nook was somehow distracting, and the device also had features that I just don't want or need: I don't need to play chess, see my book jackets in color, or obtain daily information from Barnes and Noble, and I don't really need to keep every book I own on an SD card (the Amazon archiving function takes care of this matter rather well.) The Sony Readers, especially the Daily Edition, have marvelous features and are very well conceived, but, as I have explained above, many of the features (such as the highlighting feature and the search function) just don't work very well. So, I returned both Sony Readers (and the Nook also) and went with what works.