Hi all, long time reader, first time poster so please point out if I've made mistakes in the post.
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So, after my K3 arrived for 1 week, finally Sony store told me to go pick up my Reader. They have over one hundred back orders and only 2 arrived and I was the lucky 2nd person who got it.
Brought it home and did some quick comparison and here are some of my observations. I'll try posting pics later. Hopefully this will help people in the forum.
first things first.
Yes, the god damn film over prs600 is gone and the eink on Reader look just as good as the Kindle. Horray!
-touch screen is very responsive, as noted by some early review sites. The fact that you don't have to "push down" to register a hit is great!
-the new organization method gives you a quick access to a few recent books you read or uploaded. However you have to go through a few clicks to get to the rest. I don't have a big selection right now so it's hard to judge how this will work out when you have hundreds of books.
-PDF still doesn't work well, mostly because the screen is 6in and zooming is still not convinient. People who want to read primarily PDFs should still consider 10" device
-to my naked eye, Reader seems to have whiter background, by like 1-2%. this is by no means a scientific measure.
-However, not sure if it's because of the font choice, k3 fonts are DARKER and EASIER to the eye compare to Reader (damn you sony)
-tested with a gray scale graph over at here, htp://homepage.mac.com/davechalmers/iblog/C956576061/E316950848/index.html, and all scale show up nicely. Again I'll try to upload some picture later.
-i have epub book which I coverted to mobi for K3. The graphics inside the book is substainally worse on K3 than on Reader. Could be a converstion issue?
-Reader has no Chinese support (GAAAH I HATE YOU SONY!) However, K3's traditional Chinese support is spotty, where both my mobi and txt file dropping approximately 10% of the characters. So both are losers. :P
-quick EPUB Chinese fix still works (by referring to res:///Data/fonts/) so I can fix the missing character problem on Sony. Tough luck on the K3. score one for open format!
-Manga looks much much better on the Reader using EPUB than either in mobi or directory on K3 (using ChainLP)
-screen refresh rate is pretty much the same (test by pushing the button at the same time) so it's just a rough estimate
-I noticed Reader seems to have a bit more ghosting when you go from a full page of text to a half page of text. However, you have to look really, really hard to see it. K3 doesn't seem to have this problem (or much less visible)
-there is a contrast adjustment, but it's freakin' useless, because when you increase the darkness, the background turns to grey too... once again, it's freakin' useless and it's frustrating.
-settings/options contains almost exactly same selections as last time
-new version allows a screen saver, instead of going blank entirely like prs600 (never understand why it was like that in prs600, it's not like it's using electricity to display screen saver) and yes, you can customize the picture (Damn you amazon, why would I look at fugly wood cravings of authors? and not to give us customization? just plain stupid)
-Sony's protective covers (which now has a version called delux edition) pretty much as the exactly same design as before. The front is still way too thin to be of any serious protection. The leather is only like a small piece in the front (30%), most likely real but the rest is synthetic material(70%), and it COST THE SAME AS LAST TIME. Man it's such a rip off, but i needed a cover...
-the pen is smaller and flimsy-er, with much more plastic parts. PRS600 pen actually feels substaintial. This one felt like a tooth pick and I am afraid it'll break.
-last time the pen contains a reset pushing head if you unscrew the top. This time, it's nothing...
-the unit itself is definitely lighter and thinner but still have that nice metallic feel for it. K3, of course, is all plastic
Oh and finally, the "about" screen does say this is a "Vizplex" display. Some people say perhaps sony forgot to update it, or that "pearl" is not registered trademark, but I seems to remember when I first turn on K3 it says "Pearl" screen...
Oh yeah, firmware version now says 1.0.00.08100. I am not hacker so I can't try or dare to try and see if old rooting method still works.
Anyways, it has turn into a long "short post". The above sounded like a rant, but I actually really like the Reader so far and I am probably selling/returning my K3 and keep the prs650... Now only if someone can come up with a chinese font hack for menus soon so my TOC and book title shows up correctly... it would be perfect!
I'll try to upload some pics later.