PRS-650 Comparison between PRS-650 and PRS-505

[Romiman]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Anyone have a 350 and a 500 or...?

No 500 or 505,
but a fine comparison from the PRS 300 to the new 350:

http://picasaweb.google.com/squirsie...instThePRS300#

[eswarjj]

wow! very good photos indeed. I sure can see the difference in the contrast. And I thought the 300 was not bad.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, the 505 has 8 shades and very good dithering routines.

Agreed that Sony has some of the best dithering routines (that are actually turned on all the time, unlike the iRex). With with double the colorspace to work with, those same routines produce better images. The dithering effect becomes less noticable.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

I recently purchased a 505 at e-bay, and have been reasonably pleased with it, although frustrated at the Overdrive Epub/PDF conflict. My other issue has been that I find it a bit heavy; does the 650 "feel" lighter?

The 650 is noticeably lighter. But then, I've not held a 650 with a cover where the 505 always has a cover.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

Agreed that Sony has some of the best dithering routines (that are actually turned on all the time, unlike the iRex). With with double the colorspace to work with, those same routines produce better images. The dithering effect becomes less noticable.

I've noticed that the 650 looks quite nice when looking at photos. So because of these dithering routines, it may be one of the best for photos.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've noticed that the 650 looks quite nice when looking at photos. So because of these dithering routines, it may be one of the best for photos.

Yeah, the iRex has the same dithering routines available (nothing magical, really). As do a lot of devices. They just don't use them when rendering ePub which makes me sad.

It's actually also pretty sad that they don't use any filtering on pretty much any device when scaling images in ePub. Means edges and text in the image are hard to read.

[flyingpostman]

I miss the 505 in some ways. The directional pad and 'enter' key comes in handy for foot/end notes, I don't like to touch the screen with my finger as I don't want fingerprints, and having to hold the stylus is a little annoying. Holding the 505 without a cover is easier than the 650 without cover as the 505 has more space at the bottom to hold and has the side page forward/back keys. I also miss the PRS+ hack that allowed me to have percentage and time in the status bar, that really came in handy. Hopefully a hack will be released for the 650 at some point. Also, some epubs are not justified on the 650, I can't figure out why. Calibre doesn't have much settings for modifying epub output.

[IvoSenden]

JSWolf is correct, the PRS-505 has 8 shades of gray, my bad. Still though, photo's look a whole lot better on the 650.

Originally Posted by MerLock

Is there no longer an issue with glare ... How about battery life? ... Any idea if the sensors constantly draw power or only if the screen is touched?

Merlock, the PRS-650 still has some glare, but similar to the 505 and far, far less than the 600 series.
My guess is that the infrared sensors constantly draw power. This might be a reason why the 650 goes into sleep mode after being idle for 10 minutes (in default setting). But the PRS-505 has a battery life of 7000 page turns, and the 650 has 10.000 page turns, so I guess that evens things up. By the way, I don't know any person who's reader actually made it to 7000 pages on one battery charge. Mostly the PRS-505's or PRS-300's we've used are empty after about 1000 to 1500 page turns. Keep in mind that there are more power consumers than just the screen. For instance, formatting the font size of an LRF book, browsing through a library, loading a book, using an SD card, etc. etc. all affects the power consumption. Maybe that's why Sony now talks about a battery life of "2 weeks" besides the 10.000 page turns that are mentioned somewhere.

[Kolenka]

Well, the page turn numbers are measured in a way that doesn't make it a useful metric. They load up a book and hit page turn until it runs dry (or run a bit of software that does this). This removes all the other power consumers you mention out of the equation.

For me, if it can last a couple weeks of regular reading, it meets my needs. So far, the 650 is looking like a winner.

[Jezzamk]

I am on my 2nd PRS-650. Much quicker than my old PRS-505.

Both 650s demonstrated slight ghosting of book covers on the menu screen. However, the first one had very bad ghosting of the previous page when reading. It happened on somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 page turns.

Hopefully the replacement will work better.

Overall a very nice ebook but a shame the cover is extra as the 505 cam with a cover.

[Vienna01]

Love Sony 650. Wife uses it instead of her old but serviceable Sony 500. The many "hacks" developed by 3rd parties added to our enjoyment of the 500. We finally needed replacement of the 500 as the life after a battery charge decreased greatly.

Wife loves new screen and touch control of the 650. I will continue using my Pocketbook 301. It has some great features not available [yet] from Sony. One is ability to add different dictionaries and use them all when reading a book. Any Sony "hackers" see how to add that?

[IvoSenden]

Originally Posted by Jezzamk

Both 650s demonstrated slight ghosting of book covers on the menu screen.

I have to agree. Same problem here, although it doesn't happen while reading regular text, just flipping pages between menu's and book covers. I got my hands on a second PRS-650, due to a delivery mistake from the store where I bought my first one. I had to send one of them back, but I had the chance to compare them and they both had the same ghosting issue with the menu's, so it appears to be an issue of the new screen they used (or maybe a large batch of these screens).
It doesn't bother me all that much though. The reading experience is great. So far, I don't miss my PRS-505, which was a beautiful device to begin with.

[alecE]

Thanks for the comparison - I'm soooo tempted by the 650. Only problem is that it feels a little disloyal to my 505. Do you think a ménage à trois would work?

[fafaforza]

What's the situation with the covers? I like to carry my 505 in the back pocket of my jeans. But the Premium cover I see on Sony's site seems to come with a light, and is sure to make it too wide. Or is it an error on their end?

Is there a cover for the 650 like the one that came with the 505 that you clipped into? I want one that just covers the front and back, not a whole carrying case that holds the reader with diagonal straps.

[grooks]

Originally Posted by fafaforza

Is there a cover for the 650 like the one that came with the 505 that you clipped into? I want one that just covers the front and back, not a whole carrying case that holds the reader with diagonal straps.

Sony makes a cover for the 650 that holds the reader in by the standard spine clip but does not include a light.

If looking online the model numbers are PRSA-SC65R and PRSA-SC65B where SC stands for standard cover.

The covers with the light are numbered PRSA-CL65R and PRSA-CL65B where CL stands for cover with light.