Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
I've never owned an e-reader. I have a Motorola Xoom, but it's way too heavy to read books (plus it's LCD and I would rather have eInk).
Unfortunately I'm not near a store that sells either (at least, I think so), thus I'll be buying my e-reader online. Price does not matter right now because T1 is on sale for 99$ on the official site right now.
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That's a really good price. Here, the Sony is GBP40 (USD60) costlier than the Kobo. Had there been no difference, I might have made a different decision - read on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
I am really leaning towards T1 because of the hardware buttons to navigate between pages. The only cons I don't like are the reflective screen - can someone confirm how bad it is?
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The hardware buttons are nice (I have an older Sony 600, and they make it easy to use one-handed - useful on the packed London Underground). I found the Sony screen a little bit more reflective than the Kobo. The 2 devices have the same screen, so there shouldn't be a difference, but it's definitely there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
Also I heard that the page refresh is for every page while for other readers, you can set this to 6 pages or something. Have they updated this in the newest firmware?
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Page refresh is a trade-off. Refreshing less frequently makes page turning a bit quicker, but at the cost of less crisp text. The manufacturer seem to think refreshing every 6 pages is a good compromise. On the Kobo, you can change it - I have mine set to 2 pages. The difference in text quality i noticeable; the difference in page turn speed isn't. I don't know whether the Sony allows you to change this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
What are the best supported formats for either e-readers in terms of smoothness and quality?
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ePub all the way
Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
Also, how is the availability of books from Kobo compared to Sony? I will likely get mainly free books but I've heard that Kobo books are more expensive. Also, I hear that Kobo leaves out features for non-Kobo books, is this the same for Sony?
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In the two year I've had my Sony 600, I've never bought a single book from the only Store. It's expensive and, if you're not in the USA, painful. The Kobo store has a better selection.
But with ePub, you can buy from loads of different places. You can even use Amazon, if you want to go to the little bit of effort needed to remove their DRM.
I don't believe Kobo leaves out features - I think they may add minor things to one of their own books, but nothing that matters (not to me).
Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
I also will probably be reading PDFs often for school - but I've heard that the experience isn't that great on either device. Can anyone give some input into this?
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If the pdf are standard pages sizes and mostly text, they're both OK. I expect your Xoom is far better. The e-ink green in't rest for pdf, or any image, and the 6" screen is too small. They're both usable, but not great,
Quote:
Originally Posted by aimango
I will likely not be getting a case at all. Any input on either device accumulating dirt/dust w/o a case?
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My 2-year-old Sony hasn't collected much dirt or dust. I used it in a case for a while, and then just a push (to protect the screen from garbage in my satchel. I think they'll both be much of a muchness
Oh yeah, and if it helps I'm from Canada, but I'll be in the US for a few months.
Thanks![/QUOTE]
Final comment: I went for the Kobo because, although I slightly preferred the Sony build and the buttons, I couldn't see it being worth another GBP40. Also, as I said above, the screen seemed to have a but more reflectivity. Had they been the same price, I might have chosen differently