The Sony Reader Daily Edition is Sony's latest eBook reader which was released in late December 2009. It is actually a pretty good reader which offers many improvements over their prior readers. It is also one of their more expensive eReader products, at ?399.99. Here are some things you need to know before buying the Sony Reader Daily Edition.

1. Wireless

It took Sony quite a while to catch up with their competitors, but now you can finally download books and newspapers directly to the device without the need to sync it with your desktop computer. Of course, you can still sync it with your computer if you'd like, but it isn't necessary. The wireless 3G service is provided by AT&T, and it usually connects fairly quickly. A good aspect of the Sony Reader compared to the Kindle would be that the wireless doesn't affect the battery nearly as much. The Sony Reader defaults to standby mode whenever you aren't using it, which helps to preserve the battery.

2. Touch Screen

This is another advantage that the Sony Reader has over the Nook and the Kindle. This is a touch friendly device. It includes a stylus, but you do not need to use it more often than not. You should use to stylus to highlight text, make annotations, or even draw maps directly on the device. This can be a great feature, especially you need to write something down but can't look for a pen.

3. Physical Specifications

The Sony Reader Daily Edition has a 7.1" screen, which is much larger than most of Sony's previous readers. It is plenty big enough for reading most text and newspapers, but the Kindle DX is much better for viewing PDFs. The screen is framed in brushed black metal which looks very nice. Like the Ford Model-T, you can get this device in any color you want as long as you want black. On the exterior of the device is an AC adapter plug, a micro-USB port for connecting to your computer, a standard headphone port, an on/off switch, volume controls, and a hidden SD port. Although this device has 1.6 GB of internal storage, a chance to store on an SD card is useful if you have a huge amount of books or music.

The Reader fits snugly directly into an included plastic cover. The cover looks quite attractive. A material other than plastic would be nice, but it's important so that the wireless signal can successfully reach the Reader while the cover is on.

4. Reader Store

The Reader Store is what Sony calls its marketplace where you can buy books and newspaper subscriptions. It usually takes about 20-30 seconds to connect to the store if you begin with the wireless turned off. It'd be nice if it could connect faster, but it is comparable to the amount of time it takes the Kindle to connect.

The store itself is quite intuitive. You can browse books by category, and you can also perform a search by author or book title. You can also browse newspapers by geographic area. This makes it simple to identify local newspapers which might interest you.

5. Reading

This is the real test for an eBook device, since this is presumably its primary function. The Sony Reader Daily Edition is pretty good in this regard, though not necessarily particularly spectacular. The readability is related to prior editions of its Sony Reader line. It is possible to choose whether you want the text on the screen to be displayed from edge to edge or if you'd prefer margins. A great improvement is that beginning with this reader, Sony has completely switched from using its own proprietary book format to the open source ePub format. Even all books that you have previously bought through Sony is now able to downloaded in ePub format. Hopefully Amazon soon follows suit with this.

PDF reading is a mixed bag. It is possible to zoom in on PDFs, which you can't do on the Kindle. Zooming in makes the PDF text more readable, but it messes up the formatting. You can also switch to landscape viewing mode, which enables you to zoom in a bit without losing the original formatting of the PDF.

Where this device excels is with newspapers. This is probably no mistake, considering the name of this device. The Wall Street Journal looks much better than on the Kindle version, or on any other eBook reader for that matter. It has a very attractive graphical display which looks like the actual publication.

6. Extras

The Sony Reader Daily Edition has a few extras which are worth mentioning. An mp3 music player is included, so you can listen to your music as you read. Also included is a photo viewer. Considering that the device has a 16-greyscale display, this isn't that exciting, but it is still nice to load up pictures of your pets and your family when you wish to.

The included dictionary is the Oxford American dictionary, which is well implemented. You have access to the dictionary directly from the tabbed home screen, or you can access it when you are reading a book. Tap on any word in just the dictionary to be instantly taken to the definition of that word.