[dameuna]

I was psyched to get a V3 and actually placed an online order. I was just waiting for their reply. In the meantime, I decided to go to the Sony store and look at their reader. One word sums it up: disappointment. The contrast on the screen is terrible. The background is a muddy gray and the characters are not quite totally black. It was not comfortable reading on it --- in spite of the fact the books on it were only 40 characters wide. There was just one book on it that was 60 characters wide.

There was a poster next to the Sony reader with advertising on it. The difference between the print on the poster and the print on the reader was like night and day. The lighting in the mall store was pretty bad and I asked the clerk if he would disconnect the reader so that I could move it to where the light was better. But he refused to do this. I don't know if more light would have helped the contrast. The clerk said that there was no way to change the contrast on the reader.

The Sony has an "Size" button that is supposed to enlarge the font. But it must only do this for specially tagged files, because this only worked for a couple of books. When it did work, it helped but the low contrast still made in uncomfortable to read. The Sony does not allow you to read in landscape mode like on the V3.

I assume that the screen in the Sony that I saw was non-vizplex. Is the contrast in the vizplex significantly better? I am now hesitant to complete my order.