I've been holding off on upgrading my nearly-two-year-old PRS500 until seeing what Sony would announce. And now I'm still waiting.
I don't care about the touch screen. The on-screen keyboard, search, light, etc. are nice, but not key for me. The three things I care about IN ORDER are:
- Higher resolution. Much higher resolution.
Sony doesn't control the display hardware itself, so I knew not to expect this one. Although if asked to choose between color and 3x the dot-pitch with the current gray-scale, I'd take the higher dot-pitch in a heart-beat.
- Physical ergonomics. No reader I've seen comes close to the design of the REB1100 (now 1150). I'm talking button layout, fit in the hand, and so on, not screen quality here.
On this front, the 700 appears to be a qualified disappointment. I'd hoped for a huge improvement--closing 1/2 the gap to the REB1100, maybe?--but I guess I can be grudgingly satisfied with it not being worse than the PRS-500.
- Support for LOTS of books. I want folders. Or a deeper branching of the hierarchy they now provide on the 505. Or something. There's no reason I should have to use more than 3 button presses to select any one of 1000 books!
Nobody has commented on this issue yet. If, in fact, it's commandingly better (perhaps in "expert user mode" -- hint hint) that'd be reason to switch right there.
- Faster processing. As a Mac user, I don't get the sole useful benefit of Sony's library software: pre-formatting of lrf files for the device. Instead, I have to wait while the slow processor on the PRS500 does the work. Since Sony appears unwilling to support the Mac directly, I care quite a bit about processor speed.
Early reviews say it's faster. I'd love to see timing of how long it takes to format a large, free ebook. That way I could compare with my 500 (and with a friend's 505).
A significant win on any of these fronts would be enough to get me to upgrade.
Xenophon
P.S. That's three things, for large values of three.
