|
While I have played with the new Kobo and think that it is a great device (especially for the price), I do like the Sony x50 series more.
The Kobo does have some advantages over the Sony, such as the ability to add your own fonts, and it can read a few more formats than the Sony, and it has wi-fi, which the 350 and 650 don't have (the 950 has wi-fi and 3g); you can also change pages on the Kobo using a tap instead of a swipe.
The Sony has added dictionaries (12 in total) and they can be used with any books, sideloaded or not. I use them quite a bit. You can also make notes in your books, either using a stylus or with the on-screen keyboard. The Sony 650 and 950 also have the ability to play mp3s. The Sony has a better build than the Kobo, more buttons (for those who like to use buttons to turn pages and the like), and great PDF support. You can read text in landscape mode (I think that you can only do that with PDFs on the Kobo), you can reflow PDFs and it has pre-set zoom levels for PDFs with 2 or 3 columns. I personally like the fact that the Sony device can read LRFs. Although it is an obsolete format, I sometimes convert my text with foreign characters to it, because it can handle embedded fonts, and I like the way that format is displayed even better than epub for some reason.
A choice between the Kobo and the Sony readers is tough. If price is a big issue, go with the Kobo, it is a nice device. It price isn't as much of an issue, the Sony does offer quite a bit more functionality, I think. That isn't to say that the Kobo isn't without its merits. I'm thinking of getting one as a backup reader. Also, my needs are probably quite a bit more specialized than those of most ebook readers, so the added functionality that I use on my Sony may not be important to others.
|