Stopped by a Sony Store today and was pleasantly shocked. I didn't expect to love the T2, but I do. Some of the things that are different from the T1:
Buttons: The photos of the T2 are very misleading. Something about the buttons must make them hard to photograph, because they look awful in the photos, but in reality, they didn't bother me at all. In fact, I thought they looked quite nice. In the photos, the buttons on the matte black T2 look painted-on white; but in reality they are brushed silver buttons. As for how they feel when you push them, they feel very similar if not identical to the T1's buttons. So all I can say about the buttons is, you have to see and feel them in person before you judge.
Black, Red, White: The matte black is wonderful. The finish is similar, if not identical, to the soft backing of the T1s. I totally love it. The red and white have a hard, shiny case, like lacquer.
Bold/Italic Bug: Despite what the User Guide says, I suspect this has been fixed. When you go to change the font, you don't get the warning you did with the T1. Instead it says something about some books not being able to change fonts (I presume this refers to books with embedded fonts), and that handwritten notes only show when using the Original font. I then proceeded to spend 20 minutes testing all the fonts over and over again on different books, and the italics came through each time.
Home Screen: The 3 buttons at the bottom of the Home Screen are: Books, Reader Store, and Applications. This differs from the User Guide, which shows Books, All Notes, Applications. (It also differs from the photos posted on
ebouqin that shows 4 buttons: Bibliotheque, Reader Store, Plus de contenu, and Applications. Not sure if this is the difference between the French and U.S. models, or if ebouqin had a prototype.) All in all, I rather like the streamlined home screen as well as the navigation.
Dictionaries: Sadly, there were only 6 dictionaries: Oxford American English, Oxford English, English-French, French-English, English-Spanish, and Spanish-English. However, I'm in the U.S., and according to
post #226 here, the European version has the same 12 dictionaries as the T1: New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford EN-ES & ES-EN, Oxford-Hachette EN-FR & FR-EN, Collins EN-DE & DE-EN, Collins EN-IT & IT-EN, Van Dale EN-NL & NL-EN
Screen: The screen looked really sharp and white to me. I couldn't do a side-by-side comparison because they had the T1s on the other side of the store, but looking at one then walking over to the other, the T2 screen looked whiter, which in turn made the contrast sharper, making the text look sharper.
Refresh: There's an option not to refresh the display at each page turn. I was pleasantly surprised to find no ghosting when this is selected. Page turns felt faster and there was a flicker as the text changed, but no full flash. The flash never bothered me to begin with, so this is a non-issue for me, but for those who are bothered with the flash, you'll probably like this feature. There is also less flashing in the Web Browser.
Reading Navigation: This is pretty much the same as the T1.
All in all I love the T2. For me, the soft, glare-free, matte black finish is enough to make me abandon my T1. It's no longer a question of if, but when ...
P.S. For follow-up impressions, including screen comparison, see
post #220 on this page.