The Princess and the Pixel Pea

BuddyBoy · 11-19-2008, 01:22 PM

OK, so my PRS-700 arrived this morning - kudos to Sony, just one day later than promised when I placed the order a month ago.

With trembling fingers and trepidation I opened the box and reluctantly turned the power on, expecting a muddy and gray display.

As my niece might say, OMG.

It's perfectly readable, and looks great. I even took it into the bathroom, shut the light and put the internal lights on and it was quite readable there too, though I would have preferred a more even light as the dimming in the center can be distracting at first. The again, I disliked the unevenness of the light wedge, so this may prove to be a better solution for me.

I did notice that at certain angles, the reduced contrast is very noticeable. It resembles the 500 in that for each lighting condition, there's a sweet spot where the display looks best.

Of course, the huge secret to it's readability is that I've been so busy this last month, I haven't had time to read with my 505, so I'm not really comparing it to the 505, I'm tackling it as a fresh device. As a fresh device, it's quite nice.

Objectively, I can say that I not overjoyed with the reflectiveness of the screen - in very bright lighting conditions (i.e. like right this second where I am sitting in a sunbeam) the sweet spot is a little more complicated to find because I would also like to avoid staring at the reflection of my own sun-washed face.

But, overall, my first impression is remarkable positive. I'll continue to play with it for a few days and update my impressions as required.

splanchnic · 11-19-2008, 01:26 PM

Thanks for the report. I must say that each time I visit MR forums my 700 vs. 505 dilemma becomes more complicated. I'm getting a bit sea-sick going back and forth. The solution is just a few blocks away at the Sony Style store... if I can just sneak out of work early...

sarah7700 · 11-19-2008, 04:24 PM

That's awesome! Now I really can't wait to get mine!

Liviu_5 · 11-19-2008, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

With trembling fingers and trepidation I opened the box and reluctantly turned the power on, expecting a muddy and gray display.

As my niece might say, OMG.

It's perfectly readable, and looks great. I even took it into the bathroom, shut the light and put the internal lights on and it was quite readable there too, though I would have preferred a more even light as the dimming in the center can be distracting at first. The again, I disliked the unevenness of the light wedge, so this may prove to be a better solution for me.

Hear, hear!! Completely agreed with the above about the screen.

Regarding the light, to me it looked a bit eerie in pitch darkness at first, but then I started liking it a lot and you adjust easily to the bright-shadowy-bright screen pattern either left-right or up-down depending on orientation.

DixieGal · 11-19-2008, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Regarding the light, to me it looked a bit eerie in pitch darkness at first, but

I don't have the 700, but my reader does have a backlight. Every now and then I spook myself when I'm reading in the dark in bed, and it flashes off a mirror.

dhbailey · 11-19-2008, 05:42 PM

My reaction originally was just like Buddy Boy's only I'm having less of a problem with the glare -- maybe it's just the situations I read in, but I don't have any problem finding a good angle to read at.

I can sympathize with Splanchnic -- before my 700 arrived, but after I had ordered it, I too was getting seasick with all the "it's fine, it's horrible" postings.

I've been reading mine for a week and I haven't gone blind, I haven't returned it, and I am overjoyed by the vastly improved interface and the internal light -- I have hated having to use a clip-on light these past 18 months with my 500.

slh17 · 11-19-2008, 06:08 PM

Hurray - very relieved to hear such a good report. Still waiting for mine to be delivered, and I don't think I would have gone for the 505 even with the better screen (the lighting, touch screen and bigger capacity were big sells for me). But it's still been painful to read through all the negative posts ... crossing my fingers that I like mine as much.

quietrvr · 11-20-2008, 02:35 AM

I'm really getting tempted now..heheh. The light is the thing. It would be so nice not to use a clip on light.
Russ

asabz · 11-20-2008, 03:06 AM

Hey. That sounds good to hear. I've been worrying about it and I want to definitely see it before I commit to it. I would have ordered one by now if it was available at the sony store and I could check it out.

Do you still live in Vancouver? I know this is a little weird

but in the spirit of e-readership, I wonder if I could meet you sometime to see how it looks in person? I am a UBC law student and I live at UBC, but I go downtown and around Vancouver often.

Cyndall · 11-20-2008, 11:22 AM

I love my new 700. I have no real problems with glare. It's just a bit different from the 505. I have about 500 books on an memory card. I converted all to the sony format and bought many from Sony. It still takes forever to load. My battery seems to run down a lot faster using the light too. This is after less than 24 hours using it. I LOVE the light. I can read while hubby sleeps without a bulky clip on.

DaleDe · 11-20-2008, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyndall

I love my new 700. I have no real problems with glare. It's just a bit different from the 505. I have about 500 books on an memory card. I converted all to the sony format and bought many from Sony. It still takes forever to load. My battery seems to run down a lot faster using the light too. This is after less than 24 hours using it. I LOVE the light. I can read while hubby sleeps without a bulky clip on.

The Sony specs on battery life with the light on are 4 hours on bright and 8 hours on normal.

Dale

dhbailey · 11-20-2008, 07:28 PM

With lots of books loaded on the reader and the memory card, it does take a while to read all the data into memory but nowhere near as long as it would have taken my 500 to load the same number of books! And once the data is loaded, the instant-on is terrific, and the big difference between the 500 and the 700 with the same number of books, using a memory card, is that it significantly slowed the 500 down. Even setting a bookmark on the 500 took a very long time when I had a lot of books on a memory card. Not so with the 700!

BuddyBoy · 11-21-2008, 04:34 AM

Ok, I've had a chance to go hands on for a couple of days with the 700 and thought I'd share my experiences.

First of all, while the reduced contrast and screen reflectiveness makes the overall reading experience less sharp than the 505, it is by no means unusable or a technical failure. The contrast is about what you might experience on the PRS-500, and remember how revolutionary that was compared to the Gemstar 1150.

Personally, I find the screen reflection to be more of a bother, but, interestingly, it's actually not as reflective as the PRS-505 with the lightwedge cover.

The lighting is handy, though in anything less than total darkness, I need to put it on high to not have too much side to middle contrast and that will drain the battery in only 4 hours. I do much prefer the lighting of the 700 to the 505 lightwedge, both for shadowing and the darn annoying specks of dust and scratches that end up glowing like neon lights on the underside of the lightwedge.

The touch screen I'm 50/50 on - it's nice to have search capability, but I find the touch sensitivity to be a bit uneven, resulting in me tapping multiple times. I don't use the page turn gesture at all since I hold my book by the bottom left corner and just tap the page buttons with my left thumb.

All in all, I'm pleased with the 700, BUT, and here's the big BUT, for my particular needs, I'm not sure if the upgraded features are worth the trade offs. You see, other than on cruises or in hotel, I rarely share a bedroom. The nightlight need for me is not a daily one, more of an occasional use when traveling or when I want to read in a low light situation like a restaurant. In those cases I can grit my teeth and live with the lightwedge I've already purchased.

The touchscreen I thought I'd love, because the Gemstar 1150/ eBookwise 1150 were my two favorite pre-eink platforms with, what I consider to be the best operating systems. Well, Sony isn't there yet, I'm afraid. It's better than the 505, but not leaps and bounds better - at least not yet. Software upgrades during the year may just pull me back to the 700, especially if they add category sorting and the like. Personally, I'd just love it if they ripped off the whole 1150 UI.

So, for me, the 700 is a fine machine, but not a compelling upgrade yet. If it was a sharp as the 505, I'd say "What the heck, it's just money" but trading money and sharpness for a built in light, more memory and faster processing isn't the right formula for me.

The 700 is great:

if you aren't a regular 505 user, or
if you need faster processing to handle your largest files, or
if a good book light is essential to you, or
if you want extra on-board memory, or
if you need to be able to search in large reference books

Finally, regarding to 505/700 clarity controversy, I'd like to share my own Princess and the Pixel Pea memory. The year was 1985 or 86. I was working in publishing and design at the time and a number of local designers were invited to a demonstration of the new 300dpi Apple Laserwriter, a device that was going to solve our design problems with this new thing called "desktop publishing."

So a room full of designers shows up and the Apple guys start their chat, with printing out a sample page at 300dpi, typical laser printer resolution. The page gets passed around and immediately, about 75% of the room gets up and walks out.

You see, up to that time, typesetting was all done photographically using spinning strips of type and photo sensitive paper. The equivalent dpi would have been 3000 or more. All these designers took one look at this laser printer copy and to their eyes, it looked like something chiseled out of stone or tree bark, and they knew it wouldn't work for them. As far as they were concerned, Apple was just wasting their time.

Of course, 20 years later, that same laser printing resolution looks pretty darn good. And considering web pages, which we all seem to read regularly, are produced at 72 dpi ... well, it does start to look like the Princess and the Pixel Pea.

As for me, I'll probably be sending the 700 back or offering it to someone outside North America who wants it. I like it, but it just isn't a compelling upgrade for me at this time.

11-19-2008, 01:22 PM	#1
BuddyBoy eBookin' Fool Posts: 310 Karma: 1008360 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Vancouver, BC Device: Kindle Paperwhite, KK, iPad (Ex Prs 505, 500, Reb1100-2150, Rocket)	The Princess and the Pixel Pea OK, so my PRS-700 arrived this morning - kudos to Sony, just one day later than promised when I placed the order a month ago. With trembling fingers and trepidation I opened the box and reluctantly turned the power on, expecting a muddy and gray display. As my niece might say, OMG. It's perfectly readable, and looks great. I even took it into the bathroom, shut the light and put the internal lights on and it was quite readable there too, though I would have preferred a more even light as the dimming in the center can be distracting at first. The again, I disliked the unevenness of the light wedge, so this may prove to be a better solution for me. I did notice that at certain angles, the reduced contrast is very noticeable. It resembles the 500 in that for each lighting condition, there's a sweet spot where the display looks best. Of course, the huge secret to it's readability is that I've been so busy this last month, I haven't had time to read with my 505, so I'm not really comparing it to the 505, I'm tackling it as a fresh device. As a fresh device, it's quite nice. Objectively, I can say that I not overjoyed with the reflectiveness of the screen - in very bright lighting conditions (i.e. like right this second where I am sitting in a sunbeam) the sweet spot is a little more complicated to find because I would also like to avoid staring at the reflection of my own sun-washed face. But, overall, my first impression is remarkable positive. I'll continue to play with it for a few days and update my impressions as required.

11-21-2008, 04:34 AM	#13
BuddyBoy eBookin' Fool Posts: 310 Karma: 1008360 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Vancouver, BC Device: Kindle Paperwhite, KK, iPad (Ex Prs 505, 500, Reb1100-2150, Rocket)	The Day 2 review Ok, I've had a chance to go hands on for a couple of days with the 700 and thought I'd share my experiences. First of all, while the reduced contrast and screen reflectiveness makes the overall reading experience less sharp than the 505, it is by no means unusable or a technical failure. The contrast is about what you might experience on the PRS-500, and remember how revolutionary that was compared to the Gemstar 1150. Personally, I find the screen reflection to be more of a bother, but, interestingly, it's actually not as reflective as the PRS-505 with the lightwedge cover. The lighting is handy, though in anything less than total darkness, I need to put it on high to not have too much side to middle contrast and that will drain the battery in only 4 hours. I do much prefer the lighting of the 700 to the 505 lightwedge, both for shadowing and the darn annoying specks of dust and scratches that end up glowing like neon lights on the underside of the lightwedge. The touch screen I'm 50/50 on - it's nice to have search capability, but I find the touch sensitivity to be a bit uneven, resulting in me tapping multiple times. I don't use the page turn gesture at all since I hold my book by the bottom left corner and just tap the page buttons with my left thumb. All in all, I'm pleased with the 700, BUT, and here's the big BUT, for my particular needs, I'm not sure if the upgraded features are worth the trade offs. You see, other than on cruises or in hotel, I rarely share a bedroom. The nightlight need for me is not a daily one, more of an occasional use when traveling or when I want to read in a low light situation like a restaurant. In those cases I can grit my teeth and live with the lightwedge I've already purchased. The touchscreen I thought I'd love, because the Gemstar 1150/ eBookwise 1150 were my two favorite pre-eink platforms with, what I consider to be the best operating systems. Well, Sony isn't there yet, I'm afraid. It's better than the 505, but not leaps and bounds better - at least not yet. Software upgrades during the year may just pull me back to the 700, especially if they add category sorting and the like. Personally, I'd just love it if they ripped off the whole 1150 UI. So, for me, the 700 is a fine machine, but not a compelling upgrade yet. If it was a sharp as the 505, I'd say "What the heck, it's just money" but trading money and sharpness for a built in light, more memory and faster processing isn't the right formula for me. The 700 is great: if you aren't a regular 505 user, or if you need faster processing to handle your largest files, or if a good book light is essential to you, or if you want extra on-board memory, or if you need to be able to search in large reference books Finally, regarding to 505/700 clarity controversy, I'd like to share my own Princess and the Pixel Pea memory. The year was 1985 or 86. I was working in publishing and design at the time and a number of local designers were invited to a demonstration of the new 300dpi Apple Laserwriter, a device that was going to solve our design problems with this new thing called "desktop publishing." So a room full of designers shows up and the Apple guys start their chat, with printing out a sample page at 300dpi, typical laser printer resolution. The page gets passed around and immediately, about 75% of the room gets up and walks out. You see, up to that time, typesetting was all done photographically using spinning strips of type and photo sensitive paper. The equivalent dpi would have been 3000 or more. All these designers took one look at this laser printer copy and to their eyes, it looked like something chiseled out of stone or tree bark, and they knew it wouldn't work for them. As far as they were concerned, Apple was just wasting their time. Of course, 20 years later, that same laser printing resolution looks pretty darn good. And considering web pages, which we all seem to read regularly, are produced at 72 dpi ... well, it does start to look like the Princess and the Pixel Pea. As for me, I'll probably be sending the 700 back or offering it to someone outside North America who wants it. I like it, but it just isn't a compelling upgrade for me at this time.

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11-19-2008, 01:26 PM	#2
splanchnic Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 64 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: PRS-505, Ipod Touch	Thanks for the report. I must say that each time I visit MR forums my 700 vs. 505 dilemma becomes more complicated. I'm getting a bit sea-sick going back and forth. The solution is just a few blocks away at the Sony Style store... if I can just sneak out of work early...

11-19-2008, 04:24 PM	#3
sarah7700 Enthusiast Posts: 37 Karma: 115 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: PRS700	That's awesome! Now I really can't wait to get mine!

11-19-2008, 05:42 PM	#6
dhbailey Guru Posts: 604 Karma: 733 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: HP iPAQ211 / PRS 500, 700 and 505	My reaction originally was just like Buddy Boy's only I'm having less of a problem with the glare -- maybe it's just the situations I read in, but I don't have any problem finding a good angle to read at. I can sympathize with Splanchnic -- before my 700 arrived, but after I had ordered it, I too was getting seasick with all the "it's fine, it's horrible" postings. I've been reading mine for a week and I haven't gone blind, I haven't returned it, and I am overjoyed by the vastly improved interface and the internal light -- I have hated having to use a clip-on light these past 18 months with my 500.

11-19-2008, 06:08 PM	#7
slh17 Ardent beginner Posts: 14 Karma: 176 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Canada Device: Sony PRS 700	Hurray - very relieved to hear such a good report. Still waiting for mine to be delivered, and I don't think I would have gone for the 505 even with the better screen (the lighting, touch screen and bigger capacity were big sells for me). But it's still been painful to read through all the negative posts ... crossing my fingers that I like mine as much.

11-20-2008, 02:35 AM	#8
quietrvr Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2007 Device: Sony reader	I'm really getting tempted now..heheh. The light is the thing. It would be so nice not to use a clip on light. Russ

11-20-2008, 03:06 AM	#9
asabz Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Vancouver Device: none	Hey. That sounds good to hear. I've been worrying about it and I want to definitely see it before I commit to it. I would have ordered one by now if it was available at the sony store and I could check it out. Do you still live in Vancouver? I know this is a little weird but in the spirit of e-readership, I wonder if I could meet you sometime to see how it looks in person? I am a UBC law student and I live at UBC, but I go downtown and around Vancouver often.

11-20-2008, 11:22 AM	#10
Cyndall Member Posts: 19 Karma: 50 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Southern California Device: sony 505 and 700	I love my new 700. I have no real problems with glare. It's just a bit different from the 505. I have about 500 books on an memory card. I converted all to the sony format and bought many from Sony. It still takes forever to load. My battery seems to run down a lot faster using the light too. This is after less than 24 hours using it. I LOVE the light. I can read while hubby sleeps without a bulky clip on.

11-20-2008, 07:28 PM	#12
dhbailey Guru Posts: 604 Karma: 733 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: HP iPAQ211 / PRS 500, 700 and 505	With lots of books loaded on the reader and the memory card, it does take a while to read all the data into memory but nowhere near as long as it would have taken my 500 to load the same number of books! And once the data is loaded, the instant-on is terrific, and the big difference between the 500 and the 700 with the same number of books, using a memory card, is that it significantly slowed the 500 down. Even setting a bookmark on the 500 took a very long time when I had a lot of books on a memory card. Not so with the 700!

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