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I have been reading with my Sony-505 for over a year now, and received my Kndle-2 on the 24th and have been reading away. Love them both - and can only wish I had the best of each on a single device. Just a few unbiased comments on my reaction to my new Kindle.
First the negatives - of which there are few:
For the life of me I simply cannot get used to not having page numbers. Having the system tell me I am currently reading locations 21-29 out of 1642 with a scroll bar at the bottom showing me the percentage of the book I have read. I never had any issue on my Sony with the page numbers changing if I modified the font size - which I never did. The locations concept is bizarre and unnatural - it is NOT like reading a real book. And in a really long book it is simply formidable to think of 6,500 locations rather than say 650 pages.
Give me folders so I can store items rather than seeing everything in one huge list - especially since this baby can store up to 1,500 books - good grief that is mindboggling. The Sony uses "Collections" to make it all more manageable.
The Sony has an explicit Bookmark key which toggles the current position in a book to be a bookmark or turns off the exiting bookmark on that page. This is an awkward multi-step process on the Kindle. In addition, on the main Sony menu there is a Bookmark option which will show you all the books bookmarked and let you jump right into a book at a given bookmark. The closest thing on the Kindle is the "MY Clippings" and it is poor approximation of the Sony feature.
Unlike my Sony, there is no control over which music selection you listen to. The Kindle plays whatever it wants to play. On my Sony I can see which music files are out there and select the one I want to hear. But this feature is listed as experimental on the Kindle so it is somewhat forgiven.
Here are some things shared by both devices:
A non-replaceable battery. While I am sure both companies have good reasons for their decisions (disposing of used battery considerations?), it is darn annoying for the end users. To be forced to pay about $60 plus shipping to return the unit for a new battery (once it is out of warranty) is really aggravating. Let alone losing your reader for a week or so.
Some have complained that the background is more grey than their original Kindle. Never having seen one I can say it looks about the same side-by-side with my Sony. I assume they would since I believe the same company makes the screens for both devices.
OKay, now for the positives for my new Kindle-2:
The device is lightweight thin, sits in my hands comfortably and the buttons are well positioned for ease of access.
Oodles of memory - though I can appreciate many of the comments aobut the lack of an SD card.
I thought I wouldn't like the screen in the middle of all that white plastic (I have the dark blue Sony-505), but actually I find it to be attractive and not at all distracting while reading.
To my eye, the Kindle-2 is marginally quicker changing pages than my Sony.
The Kindle offers six font sizes - the Sony-505 offers three.
The 5-button controller is nifty. I find it functional to use when moving around in most situations.
The Kindle uses fewer buttons to execute commands. The Sony-505 is covered with buttons required due to the way the system is programmed I assume.
While most of the books I tend to read are out of copyright and therefore available for free on the Internet, I do like the idea of immediate wireless access to the Amazon digital bookstore. It works quite nicely. And needless to say, the vastly greater number of titles available on the Kindle knocks the socks off the Sony bookstore.
I like having WhisperNet deliver my favorite newspapers and magazines overnight. This feature is fantastic. Without a wireless feature, my Sony sadly lacks newspapers, magazines and blogs. The new Sony-700 went with a touch screen - they should have gone with wireless!!!
Love the keyboard for searching. It is real handy when reading a lengthy novel to be able to backtrack where a character that shows up later in the book was first mentioned earlier. The new Sony-700 added this feature but the keyboard shows up on the touch screen. I rather like the physical keyboard on the KIndle-2.
I don't tend to read books that would require the highlighting or notation features, but I can appreciate those that do and it certainly executes those functions handily.
After hearing all the complaints about the page turn keys and book cover clip issues on the original Kindle, I have to say I find the Kindle-2 to easy to manipulate. I purchased the basic Kindle-2 cover and it holds nicely and is easy to handle when reading.
Like the dictionary, although I rarely have to look up any words. The few that I tried in some 18th century English novels were not in the dictionary - which is what I figured - but a few were and that was nice to have.
Wikipaedia is okay but very slow.
Web access is sort of nice, but brutally unusable - I'll stick with my laptop. Then again it is experimental still. And honestly I didn't buy the Kindle to browse the Internet.
The text-to-speech experimental feature was of interest to me for a friend who is very visually impared - not great but usable. She currently buys a lot of new audio books, but cnanot find them for a many of older novels. I see Amazon is going to disable this feature in books they sell when the publisher objects to having this capability.
Overall both of these devices are focused on making reading digitally an enjoyable experience. And they both succeed admirably. They both have their good points. And they will both improve in future designs. I intend to keep and use both devices for readers in the houselhold.
The great thing is that thanks to these two companies (and a few lesser known ones), digital books are here to stay. The future has arrived. And eReaders might even get more people to read books again - wow what a concept.
Bob
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