[johanp]

Hi all,

I'm looking to upgrade my e-reader, the Sony PRS-600. I'm extremely disappointed with the Sony screen with it's dark grey text on light grey background (seems to have got worse with time), and currently I use a tablet or smartphone instead. Now however I want to get an e-ink reader again, since the technology seems to have improved so much. So my prime requirement is a very good contrast and super crisp text.

I walked into Sony Center today and looked at the PRS-T2 and I was very pleasantly surprised. It seemed, at least with the store lighting to have very good contrast and crispness (although a bit yellowish, perhaps this was the lighting). I had my PRS-600 with me to compare and it was really night and day. The PRS-600 to me is basically unusable, but the PRS-T2 looked really good and booklike. Since this was in a well lit store however, I don't know what it would be like in a less luminous enviroment. Of course the T2 is so much more responsive and faster also, which really improves the experience. The T2 (and T1) are really the only current readers I can check out in stores. So I now have two questions.

Firstly, are there siginificant differences in screen quality (especially contrast) among the 800x600 Pearl screens from different manufacturers, or can they all be considered basically the same? Specifically I'm interested in comparing Pocketbook Touch to the PRS-T2 here. I would prefer to get the Pocketbook due to dictionary support but I'm concerned about screen quality. I have been watching numerous Youtube videos and it seems like the Pocketbook does not have as good contrast as the Sony but it is so difficult to judge from a video. I know that the Pocketbook uses capacitive touch and the T2 infrared. Does this make a difference for contrast?

Secondly, would contrast and crispness be significantly improved by going to the new 1024x758 screens with lighting (i.e. Kindle PW, Kobo Glo, Cybook Odyssey HD), while using in a well lit environment?

Thanks in advance.