The Sony Digital Reader PRS600

The Sony Digital Touch Reader PRS-600 is Sony's bestselling portable ebook reader. It's an upgrade of the PRS-505.

The Sony Digital Touch competes with Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook and of course Apple's iPad.

In my opinion it's the best ereader of the lot, and I'll be explaining why on this page.

Here's what you get with your Sony Digital Reader PRS 600:

• It holds 350 books
• It has a battery life of 2 weeks
• It has a 6 inch display (600 x 800 pixel resolution)
• uses the paper-like eInk technology
• touchscreen navigation
• built-in USB port
• supports ePub format
• reads PDFs, Microsoft Word docs, TXT files and RSS feeds
• notation can be added via a stylus (included) or via the virtual keyboard
• plays MP3 and AAC music files
• Built in Oxford American Dictionary
• Built-in library finder

It doesn't have wi-fi connectivity - you load books onto it by connecting the reader to your PC via the USB port, and then connecting to the Sony ebookstore (or other book stores) via your PC web brower, and transferring the books.

The Sony Digital Touch scores over the Kindle in several ways:

• The Kindle doesn't have a virtual keyboard or stylus, it has an actual keyboard which is uncomfortable to use use
• The Kindle only allows you to read books from Amazon's bookstore - the Sony Digital reader allows you to buy and read books from anywhere.
• The Sony Digital Reader has a built-in library finder - this means that you can borrow ebooks from your local library using it
• The Sony Digital Reader also allows you access to Google's public domain bookstore which has 300,000 free books, including the works of George Orwell, which on the Kindle you would have to buy (and could get deleted at Amazon's whim).
• The Sony Digital reader just looks better, it's aesthetically cooler.

The Sony Digital Reader scores over the iPad 2 as well, because it uses eInk, which is glare-free and allows you to read in bright sunlight without tiring your eyes. If playing games and browsing the web are more important to you, then purchase an ipad. But if you spend a lot of time reading ebooks, you are much better off with the Sony Reader.

It you want freedom of choice from your ebook reader, then the Sony Digital Reader is the one for you.