[Quoth]

It probably has IR touch like the Sony PRS-350 (mine has Pearl screen) and the Aura H2O original. A capactive touch system uses transparent tin patterns and thus makes blacks less dark and whites less bright. So Pearl with no touch or IR touch is nearly as clear as Carta with capacitive touch. But also Carta has a different refresh system so less ghosting. The Carta 1200, 1250, 1300 are incremental improvements on the original Carta and maybe the 1300 has part of the capactive touch on or under the light pipe layer.

The light pipe layer for front lighting also reduces brightness and contrast slightly in ambient light, so the bare Pearl with no frontlight or capacitive touch is pretty good.

Also the 5″ has the same 800 x 600 as the 6″ siblings then so is much sharper / better DPI.

The earlier Viziplex is pretty poor compared to Pearl. I saw one once.