Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
5" is way too small for me.
I played with 300 in the local store, didn't like screen size.
All my ebooks have base font 10. I would prefer to read it at medium size, but I do it only if I have no other choise, otherwise I read small size. Although, the letters are a bit too small it is still the preferable font size for me because I get more text and a better page look/feel in general. With the medium font size the page "frame" is almost lost, just a bunch of text. That is how I felt about 300 even with small sized text.
Then again, there are people who read on 3" screens and enjoy it.
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When I set my books, I would really like to have around 60 characters per line, preferably closer to 65. Naturally different typefaces vary a bit in line length, but for the PRS-505's screen with a 1mm margin, a desirable line length to me requires between an 8pt and 9pt font.
Of course, I can tolerate shorter line length and larger fonts (when I started doing my own PDFs, I opted for text as big as 10-11pt), but the effective page height makes it impossible to pull off well, especially when I want to avoid widows and orphans or excessive hyphenation.
I'm not sure how small I'd need to go to fit the text on a PRS-300 with fair results. I just finished Huckleberry Finn in 9pt Arno Pro Small Text. I did, however, set some poetry in larger typefaces as the line length was quite short and I didn't want too much white space. I'd guess a 7.5pt to 8pt font would do for novels on the 300, but I wonder how many people would want to read at that size.
Of course, ebooks generally are not made to be readable, much less beautiful. Most people will have 10-14pt faces stuffed into badly formatted epub or other webpage formats. Some people will read essentially just text files devoid of any formatting at all. If a person is generally satisfied with that kind of ebook quality (they are, if this site is any indication), there's not much disadvantage to dropping to 5 inch screens unless they have serious eye problems or smaller devices to read on. If a person reads on their smartphone, they may find the jump to a 5" screen a little lackluster, but would appreciate 6" or bigger.
For the more snobby, a 7" or 8" screen with a slightly narrower aspect ratio would be close to the sweet spot for portability and readability (close to paperback size, if not quality). Of course, that's assuming it isn't surrounded by a big frame.
So for the original poster, I'd say the 300 is a fine device if you aren't a type snob. If you ARE a type snob, you may want to reconsider an ebook reader in the first place, but you'll probably want the 505 if you need to choose one. The 300 lets you read if your typographic demands aren't high, is cheap, is more pocketable, and sits a little better in the hands. Biggest downside is probably the lack of a card reader, though some here don't care about that.
Neither one is particularly bad, and neither one is particularly good. I'd say consult your wallet first and get whatever's most convenient.