There are various online retailers that are continuing to sell old Sony e-readers. Ebay and a number of other companies are selling the Sony PRS-T1, PRS-T2 and PRS-T3 at huge markups, but sometimes you can find one for as little as $20. If you purchase one of these devices there are a few important things you need to know.
Older e-readers often have battery issues, such as not holding a proper charge or diminished battery life. The Sony PRS-T1 came out in 2011, the T2 came out in 2013 and the T3 hit the market in 2014. If you are going to buy any of these models, go for the T3, you will still have a few years left before they default battery completely dies. If you purchase one and the battery is dead, you can buy a newer battery off of Ebay.
Sony exited the e-reader business and the PRS-T3 was the last model they made. They closed down the Reader Store and sold all of their customers to Kobo. Kobo provided firmware updates and support for the entire PRS line of readers and opened up the Kobo Store to buy new ebooks and download existing ones. Kobo officially ended support for Sony e-readers at the beginning of 2019, which means you cannot access the Kobo bookstore anymore.
If you buy an older Sony E-Reader, whether it is one of the older PRS models or maybe something even older, like the 650, you will not be able to buy ebooks on it anymore. You will however, still be allowed to use Adobe Digital Editions to load in books you have purchased from other bookstores, or sideload in your own collection using Windows Explorer or the MAC file manager.
Sony e-readers were built tremendously well, most were made of aluminum and had physical page turn buttons, in conjunction with a touchscreen. They were really popular for their time and people are still nostalgic for them. Just keep in mind if you are thinking about buying Sony ebook reader on Ebay or another vendor, you have to keep in mind the battery might not hold a full charge anymore and you can’t buy books on the device.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
