Quote:
Originally Posted by Max Introvert
Hello. I’m a longtime lurker. The impetus of my decision may be something completely different from what you were expecting, but the overarching question is still “which one should I buy?” and so I find myself here.
To start things off, I have been a (very) proud owner of a PRS-500 since January 2007. I even went all-out and bought the Valentine’s special with the Dooney & Bourke leather cover. I have no regrets about the purchase and even credit it with rekindling my voracious appetite for reading. It has seen much use.
Time has marched on, and I am finally in a position to replace the venerable workhorse with something better. The most glaring deficiency by far of the 500 is its inability to work with Vista x64, which is on my main machine. I have managed to work around this issue, but it is still incredibly annoying.
After much consideration, it comes down to the PRS-700 and the Kindle 2. Both solve my Vista x64 problem. I am aware of the “shortcoming” of the 700 with regards to the touchscreen glare, but having never seen a 505, I do not believe that will be an issue here.
Further, from a technical standpoint, the 700 is far ahead of the Kindle in my opinion. The 700 can read many more formats, including PDF files, and with the zoom feature, that should not be the squint-fest it was on the 500. The front-lighting is an added bonus and would be extremely useful as I like to read to get to sleep -- hitting a switch is a lot easier than getting up and turning out the light!
Given all this, why is the Kindle 2 even in the running? I’ll give you one word: “Betamax”. It seems to me as though Sony is on the losing end of things here (yet again), as the Kindle media blitz has placed it front and center in the minds of the general populace. I’m afraid we have a developing “iPod/Zune” situation here (to update things), and I have a long, sordid history of picking a product because of its technological superiority, only to suffer heartbreak and ridicule (don’t ask) when it goes the way of the dodo. I’d like to avoid this happening again, if possible.
Forgive the incendiary phrasing; it is succinct. Is the Kindle an unstoppable juggernaut? I would appreciate your opinion.
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I've got both of them: Kindle 2 and Sony 700. Plus a few others.
So far, I've had exactly
2 disappointments: Sony 700 and BeBook.
I've bought the
Sony 505 as my second unit and still
love it. Great design, phantastic display. The forum had warned about the
display quality of Sony 700, but (being kind of a Sony-fan) I've expected it acceptable. Actually, I find it annoying, why I don't use my Sony 700 for now.
For comparison:
File formats:
On
Sony 700, you'll probably use 4 formats: .lrx (DRMed proprietary Sony), .lrf (Non-DRMed Sony), .epub and .pdf.
.epub and .pdf easly can be stripped from DRM and converted in whatever format you need. So it's not that big a benefit, that Sony natively can operate these formats.
.lrf is not DRMed, so it's even easier to convert.
.lrx for the moment is the only one of the major formats, that can't be stripped from DRM.
Meaning: The books you purchase in Sony's webstore usually are more expensive than the ones from Amazon. And you won't be able to port them to another reader. Here you might run into the "Betamax" phenomenon.
On
Kindle 2, you'll probably use .azw and .tpz and modified .prc (Mobipocket).
.azw is about 90% of the books from Amazon and perfectly can be stripped and converted.
Meaning: 90% of the books from Amazon's webstore can be converted, no "Betamax" scenario here. Usually, the selection from Amazon is way bigger than from Sony and the books usually are about 15% cheaper from Amazon.
As for the
touchscreen of Sony 700: I love the touchscreen of iRex iLiad or iRex 1000S, as they're perfectly supported by the OS (dictionary support, scribbling on PDFs, ..). I don't find it of any use on Sony 700. No dictionary support, no respective menu structure.
On the other hand, dictionary support in Kindle 2 and Kindle DX for me by far is best. Directly on the fly within the "footnote" of the page.
My personal suggestion:
If you care for PDF, iRex iLiad might be an option.
If you consider Sony, I'd carefully compare Sony 505 and Sony 700. The Sony 700 definitely is usable. But in direct comparison to Sony 505, the display is way inferior. The front-lighting of Sony 700 I don't like at all, you should check it out. In bed, I use the Kindle application on my iPhone instead.