[Psykhe]

Firstly, great photos. Thanks for that.

The one thing which keeps me on the fence between The Kindle 3 and the Sony 650 hasn't been handled in your comparsion, though: the handling (pun is entirely accidently; from everything I've seen the 350 and 650 should be apart from the weight identical in this aspect).

With that I mean two things mainly:

- The haptics of the case.

I assume the Sony 600 and 350 cases are apart from the size and weight pretty much identical, right? If you compare the Sony 600 and the Kindle 3, which feels better in your hand after you've hold it for an extended period of time?
Ignoring the weight, since the Sony 600 is about 20% heavier than the Kindle 3, while the 650 is about 5-10% lighter. Just how the case feels and where holding it feels more "natural". Like is the hand still relaxed or does it cramp slightly since you have to hold a case tighter because it is more slippery. Or does one case warm up to an uncomfortable level while the other doesn't. Stuff like that.


- "next page"

Since that is the thing you'll do for 99% of all time as input. How do the buttons of the kindle and the touchscreen & buttons of the 350 compare in this aspect? Which is less of a "bother"?
Not from the response time (that seems to be virtually the same, right?), but from the manual action aspect.


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Just to give you my complete reasoning (although it is not really important and a bit wall-of-textish, so feel free to skip):

I am living in germany which modifies a few points:
- the 3g Version is worthless here since the only site you can browse is the american wikipedia.
- Kindle wifi is after shipping and tax 155€, sony 650 after student discount 205€. I am quite willing to pay the extra 50€ for the smaller size *if* the handling is at least equal.

Wifi web browsing is meaningless to me since I'd rather use my netbook or main PC for that.
PDF support doesn't really matter either since for books I do not see it often and other PDFs (like Uni lecture stuff) I much rather use my Netbook for.
I do not plan to take any notes on books so I do not need a keyboard (or the sony sketch tool for that matter).

File formats do not matter to me. If needed I'll just strip DRM and convert. It is no real bother to me technically and I have about as many qualms to do that as when converting a copy protected CD I own to mp3 for my Ipod. Aka none.

The only extras which are of any use to me are those directly connected to reading and there the Sony seems to have the edge (slightly lighter, better dictionary, better collection support, option to upgrade the space (although I do not think I will need it, but I know how it is with hard disks, you always have too little space) and faster book selection with the touchscreen (although that will save in the end very very little time, so that advantage is largely academical)). Amazon has a longer battery life as counter-advantage.
All of these advantages fall into the "nice, but not really a deciding factor" drawer, though.

Advantages of Sony which I do not care about are any "better style" points (not that I mind them, but I rather have 5% better handling than 100% better style) and the touchscreen (unless it improves the handling).

The screen quality and response time is of cource very important, but from what I have seen so far that one is virtually identical on both devices.