[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by ifonline

I'm not saying that comments/complains are pointless in general. What I was referring to in my responses was your suggestion that comments/complaints without substance are likely to be ignored by Sony. And my response to that is that while they may listen with more detailed comments/complaint, money talks louder than anything. So, if sales are good (and at or beyond where they wanted them to be), all the complaining in the world isn't likely to amount to much of anything because Sony can simply tell themselves that "hey, we sold X number of units with a profit of X dollars, so we did it just fine."

Take the 700 for example. I have absolutely no idea what the sales were like, but my guess is while they might have heard the complaints about the screen issues, they were more likely focused on the lack of sales (I assume, of course, that the sales didn't reach what they were expecting). So, they make some changes and sell the 600. It is better than the 700, but still not good enough in my opinion. However, if sales of the 600 hit their mark, I wouldn't expect Sony to be actively pursuing "fixes" when sales indicate that there is no real issue.

The PRS-700 was on the market less than eight months before getting canned; I suspect the PRS-600 was rushed in to replace it after the initial complaints, which may have indeed affected sales. "The sidelighting washes out the text" is a pretty definite, and valid complaint that can be easily demonstrated, and something that can be fixed. Being able to look at how people are using the devices, then pointing out why Sony's dropped the ball with regards to the design is something that can be used to persuade people to skip the PRS-600, because you can demonstrate the benefits are outweighed by the disadvantages, especially when you can show WHY some people don't have the same issues you do, so you sound more like a reasonable human being with a valid comment rather than a curmudgeon with an axe to grind.

Originally Posted by ifonline

This I don't quite understand. Why is it better for me to figure out why something doesn't work? I don't care why it doesn't work, because I am neither an employee of Sony nor an employee of a competitor. I am an end user. So, if something doesn't work the way I want it to, I am going to find something else that does. I won't be wasting my time deconstructing the device just so I can post a blog entry or a forum post about why I think it doesn't work.

The reason is one I've stated again and again, but I'll repeat myself in plain language: if you can point out why it works for some people but not for you, you sound like a normal human being with a real complaint rather than someone with an agenda or someone with an unreasonable bias whose brain goes into neutral the moment they see the keyword 'PRS-600' show up in a thread. If you want someone to not buy something, just saying 'it sucks' is less useful for a prospective buyer; saying 'Sony has some real glare issues with the PRS-600, since they appear to have intended it only to be read by someone holding it in one position in a very brightly-lit area without a lot of light fixtures that can cause glare' is better, and more likely to sway an opinion. That's why review sites like to go into detail about what makes a device 'broken', since otherwise they sound like a talk show radio host preaching to a brainless fanbase.

Plus, it might actually get read by someone who might deliver a better reader - either at Sony, or elsewhere. Someone else pointed out the iRex DR1000S doesn't have similar glare issues despite being a touchscreen-enabled device, confirming that this issue with glare is not inherent to the technology itself, but rather with what materials or methods Sony used to implement it, and something they haven't apparently changed from the PRS-700 (although without the sidelight layer that caused even more glare).

Either way, there are still issues with the reader, and just trotting out gems like this in any thread where people happen to disagree with your opinion... well, somewhat less helpful. To quote for irony's sake:

Originally Posted by ifonline

Why do people insist on believing that their experiences define what others must experience?

You've had a bad experience with the reader - I've had less of one in the time I got to use it, as did others. I was looking for commonalities within the community of people who didn't have issues - lighting conditions, how they held the readers, where they were trying to read, and so forth. Looking for why those people didn't have the issues that other people noted was my way of looking for things that could either be improved... or at least, provide data for those sitting on the fence so they could decide for themselves whether the disadvantages were enough to offset the improved CPU speed and slightly better PDF support over the PRS-300 or the PRS-505 before it.