prs-300 or prs-600 for pdfs?

[schmolch]

Hi there,

i have seen that the prs-600 seems to be recommended for pdfs because of the zooming and panning feature that only the prs-600 has.
However, both the 600 and 300 have the same screen-resolution.
800 pixels are sufficient for almost all PDFs (in landscape) if the page margins are trimmed.
If they are not trimmed thats bad, not just because it wastes pixels but also valuable space on a small screen. And panning around in every page does not appear to be comfortable (which i would have to try to really judge it of course).

So IF i have to manually trimm page-margins with software like Adobe Acrobat and IF this would make it possible to fit the WIDTH of the PDF on the screen (in landscape) THEN would the 600 still have any advantage?
If the PDF has 800 width and 1600 height, can i comfortably scroll up and down on both the 600 and 300?

There is no information on the cpu yet, is the 300 the same speed or slower than the 600?

PS: all my books are pdf, there is no way around it. I tried converting one but it looks horrible. I dont want to read complex PDFs like magazines but there are the occasional pictures here and there.

Thanks for any replies, im very glad i found this forum :-)

[Seventh Son]

Large PDF with complex structure and tables are definitely messy on PRS-600.

I've compared book opening and page turning speed in the shop and subjectively PRS-600 seems a lot faster than 300. I've read in some review that 300 has the same hardware as 505.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by schmolch

Hi there,

i have seen that the prs-600 seems to be recommended for pdfs because of the zooming and panning feature that only the prs-600 has.
However, both the 600 and 300 have the same screen-resolution.
800 pixels are sufficient for almost all PDFs (in landscape) if the page margins are trimmed.
If they are not trimmed thats bad, not just because it wastes pixels but also valuable space on a small screen. And panning around in every page does not appear to be comfortable (which i would have to try to really judge it of course).

So IF i have to manually trimm page-margins with software like Adobe Acrobat and IF this would make it possible to fit the WIDTH of the PDF on the screen (in landscape) THEN would the 600 still have any advantage?
If the PDF has 800 width and 1600 height, can i comfortably scroll up and down on both the 600 and 300?

There is no information on the cpu yet, is the 300 the same speed or slower than the 600?

PS: all my books are pdf, there is no way around it. I tried converting one but it looks horrible. I dont want to read complex PDFs like magazines but there are the occasional pictures here and there.

Thanks for any replies, im very glad i found this forum :-)

Zooming and panning is way more efficient on iRex iLiad. For example, iRex iLiad remembers your zoom for the entire document. Meaning: You could crop the margins for one page and use the very same zooming for all the other pages. On Sony 600, when paging forward, the zoom is gone.
For me, on Sony 600, it's acceptable for checking out some occasional details. But certainly not for using it on every single page.
But still: One of the better solutions for zooming.

[schmolch]

Ok so i would have to crop the page-margins manually, thats actually not much of a problem.

What i have not seen yet on any video, can i scroll up and down on a page without using the zoom-and-pan feature?
I will adjust the PDFs to look good at 1:1 zoom, but i still have to scroll up and down.

My most important books are pdf files from scans which i did myself.
They are all black & white without OCR. They are small and render quickly.
I guess the reader will handle this fine, right?

Regarding the Irex, i considered them but i already have 2 Tablet-PCs with very good screens. They can do anything and very quickly. The screens (12" 1400x1050 s-ips) are great and i can read from them all-day without eye-strain. That and the high price of the digital reader prevent me from getting one of them. I want something smaller and more portable. And i want to experience a e-ink screen with my own eyes. Maybe i dont even really need a e-ink reader, but im just freaking curious and since i read alot i consider it to be my obligation as a human being living at this time of our technological evolution that i get one. Its like watching the moon-landing live on tv, i just have to do it.

@mgm dude, you have alot of readers, lol

[doreenjoy]

I'd go with the 600 for PDFs. Even the simpler PDFs display nicely on the 600.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by schmolch

Ok so i would have to crop the page-margins manually, thats actually not much of a problem.

I, as an example, don't crop or in any other way "manipulate" my PDFs on the PC. For me, the main idea behind PDFs would be, leaving them intact in their original format, as chosen by the provider.
For example, very often I read "professional" documents (contracts, proposals, SLAs, ...) on my readers and want to see the original layout.
But still, sometimes they are badly formatted and it may be helpful to optimise them - on the fly, directly on your reader.

If you aim for compactness and mobility, I can recommend Cybook Opus. I wouldn't recommend a 5" unit as your sole reader. But as an add-on, it's a great companion.
Most PDFs are readable without any problems on Opus. The ones which aren't won't be fun on 6" units as well. I slightly prefer it over Sony 300, mainly because its auto-rotate feature - very handy for such a small screen.

[schmolch]

The Cybook Opus does indeed look very interesting.
Very compact and light (150g), probably noticeable smaller then the Sony prs-300 and twice as fast (400MHz vs. Sony's 200MHz).
The few reports about pdf reading only complain about missing reflow, but all i need is zoom (and scroll) and that it seems to do.
No touch, notes, dictionary but a perfect screen.
What i dont like so much are the 4 levels of greyscale and only 32MB RAM.

The problem is, i cant make good judgements about many things without actually having the device.
I think i might just order one - furtunately in germany we have the right to return anything within 2 weeks.

[oncdoc]

yeah pdf is always a problem. imho conversion is still the way to go with calibere

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by schmolch

The Cybook Opus does indeed look very interesting.
Very compact and light (150g), probably noticeable smaller then the Sony prs-300 and twice as fast (400MHz vs. Sony's 200MHz).
The few reports about pdf reading only complain about missing reflow, but all i need is zoom (and scroll) and that it seems to do.
No touch, notes, dictionary but a perfect screen.
What i dont like so much are the 4 levels of greyscale and only 32MB RAM.

The problem is, i cant make good judgements about many things without actually having the device.
I think i might just order one - furtunately in germany we have the right to return anything within 2 weeks.

You'll know in 2 days whether it suits you. I briefly owned a PRS-505, and while it's assumedly a clearer screen than the 600, it's also much slower and lacks some of the zooming features, etc.

That said, I found that in landscape mode, reading technical documentation (for example, the OSGi R4 Compendium Specification, google it) was readably large, text-wise, and the various charts came through beautifully. I think, though, that while readable, I'd eventually get a headache from straining on the smallest fonts.

I did use this thing this way for about a week and was satisfied with it. In fact, I miss it. I took it back because at the end of that week, Amazon released the Kindle iPhone app and it made me decide that Kindle was the way to go. Now that Amazon has demonstrated they definitely retain the ability to remotely delete my data, for any reason, I don't want to use it anymore so I'm looking seriously at going back to Sony. I am very interested in the 600 and plan to use it similarly as you, though I won't be limited to PDF only.

I've tried the tablet PC approach to reading... that's horrible, I can't understand why anyone uses tablet PC's. They are so awkward to hold and use at the same time... but anyway, the worst part about tablet PC's is that their screens are even blurrier than the PRS-700. e-Ink is really fantastic, if you really are staring at the screen constantly it helps the eyes, but more importantly, having a 10oz thin slate with loooong battery life, that you can sit out in the sunlight and read even better is so nice to have when you have to read anything of substance, technical or otherwise.

The only reason I am hesitating on the PRS-600 right now is because I am fairly interested in the Plastic Logic reader. I'm beginning to see myself wanting two readers though, a 6" one and a 10" one. But in either case I need annotation support so that really narrows the field. Add in cost and file format support and you're not left with many choices for me (I require PDF and ePub and would like native office document support but don't require it, I can print any office document to PDF on my Mac).

So... all that said The PRS-300 is a bit smaller. I would be afraid that it's just small enough to make the fonts too small to read, as sharp as they would be rendered. If I were you, I would consider the PRS-600 over the 300, it's not much larger, most of the mass of the device is the screen, it doesn't need all the extra margin that the300 has because it hardly has any face buttons. So the result is that their size is almost negligible in difference while the featureset, particularly if you need to work with panning on a document, is much better suited on the 600.

So there's my input.