Back in February I bought a Sony eBook reader, the PRS-505, and I wrote an epic review extolling it’s virtues. Well, the new one is out now, the PRS-600 or Touch Edition, and me being me I bought one almost as soon as they came out. (Oh, how I bemoan my lack of impulse control sometimes…)

The new design of the device itself and the user interface is much more polished than the old one, much cleaner, nicer, and the new features are all fabulous. It has a touch screen display which allows you to make annotations and notes on the books you are reading which, as a student, should have been a killer feature for me, and a dictionary that allows you to tap on a word and the definition will pop up along the bottom – a not essential, but very handy feature.

There is only one, tiny little problem… Actually reading books on the device  sucks.

To add the touch screen features a layer of plastic has been imposed on top of the eInk display underneath, and this layer makes the screen murky and highly reflective.

Of course I’m not daft, I read reviews of the device from other bloggers before buying and there was a consensus that the screen wasn’t as good as the PRS-505, but the verdict was around 50-50 on whether or not it was good enough. I went to a Sony store, where of course the lighting was perfect, played with their display model for five minutes and thought the screen was just fine and dandy, but once I got back home with my newly purchased one and took it out in my living room I was really disappointed. In even slightly imperfect lighting conditions I found the reflections too distracting and the screen too dull and murky to be able to read. When I got my PRS-505 out and put them side-by-side it was depressing. It’s sad when an old model so completely outshines the new, shiny one.

I want to like this device, the new design and features are impressive, but the whole point of eBook readers is the brilliant eInk display which is like reading print on paper. The PRS-600 has one of these brilliant eInk displays, but Sony have gone and ruined it by putting on the horrible plastic touch screen in front of it.

I’ll be returning mine tomorrow, and sticking with my fantabulous PRS-505 for another year.