[DougFNJ]

Today I received the PRS-900. I posted in another thread the unboxing photos. After playing around the past couple hours with the 900, I figured I would post a preliminary review on the 900 vs the 600.

The size difference is not as drastic as I initially thought it would be, and that was a pleasant surprise. The only hesitation I had when purchasing the 900 was that I would be sacrificing the great portability of the 600, I would say it is like the difference of carrying a small paperback, and moving to a thin hard cover book. With the Sony leather cover on the 600, it is wider and shorter, the included cover with the 900 has it appearing to be taller of course but have a smaller width. In reality, the 900 and 600 share the same exact width, 900 is just a little thicker in depth, and of course about an inch and a half taller. I find the buttons on the 600 to be a bit spongy vs the nice tactile feedback of the buttons on the 900, and I also like that they condensed the button area to be thinner so you have more screen.
The speed of page turns is exactly the same. If I'm not mistaken, they both use the same exact processor, so there is absolutely no difference between the 2 there.

I do like the added features of the 900 that I have found so far. The nice thing about having more screen real estate is obviously fitting more per page, but I like the landscape option of the 2 pages, it really does feel like reading a book. I also like that you could remove the margins to fill MORE per page. I also feel that with more screen real estate with higher resolution, magazines and periodicals will format much better, and to prove it to myself I downloaded the NY Times which has a better newspaper reading experience fitting photos and more writing per page.

The part that I was personally very curious about and I am sure many are sitting on the fence deciding which to go with based on this info....the legibility. The glare is of course still there, and as reported many times, due to the layer for the touch screen, it is exactly the same for both. Just move the angle a small bit removes it. I tried to take some good macro shots of each, and side to side. The legibility difference is not HUGE, but it is noticeable to a small degree. I don't know if it is because there is more screen, so the words appear clearer as a result, I don't know how much difference the higher resolution makes, but I can confirm a shade better clarity on the 900 vs the 600. I hope the photos show what I mean.

Thats it for now, I will post more after more time with the 900. So far I am liking it. The sign in was easy, the newspaper purchase was simple, I downloaded a previously purchased book with ease.....knock wood, no issues.

Photo 1 both units side by side with covers open (darker screen was just due to lighting)
Photo 2 devices sitting right next to each other
Photo 3 600 on top of 900
Photo 4 Full screen of 900
Photo 5 Full Screen of 600 Both full screen shots were shot in the same exact spot same exact lighting.
Photo 6 Screen side by side 600 on left, 900 on right
Photo 7 closeup of screens 600 on left, 900 on right