Just got my Sony 600, Sony 300 has been delivered on Thursday last week.
Sony 700 I've got 9 months ago, Sony 505 15 months ago.
First impressions:
Design/housing:
Sony 300 has "plastic sidings". See a picture in my thread
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...=49817&page=12.
It looks a bit cheap, having 2 different materials with slightly different colors.
Sony 505, 600 and 700 look quite similar, whereas Sony 600 is available in more colors. I've got the red one.
Display quality/glare/reflection:
There have been discussions, whether Sony 600 will have glare. Or whether it's actually glare of reflection.
Well, I don't know about the correct wording/definition.
But display quality of Sony 600 clearly significantly is below Sony 505 or Sony 300. But it's slightly better than on Sony 700.
I've said it before in my thread, comparing all my readers: If you own just one reader, each of them will be great, eInk simply is phantastic. A friend of mine for example absolutely loves his Sony 700, although admitting that Sony 505's display is superior.
But when comparing various displays, differences in quality are quite significant.
UI:
Sony 600 and Sony 700 can display thumbnails of book covers. I absolutely love it. I have no idea, why Sony 300 doesn't support that. Has nothing to do with touchscreen.
Concerning touchscreen: Of course it's way more comfortable, to scroll pages via touchscreen then actually touching buttons.
A small partition on Sony 300 and Sony 600, recognised as a separate drive, contains eBook library 3.0. It either starts it or (when initialising) downloads the newest version and installs it.
Dictionary support:
Probably all of you have read it before. But briefly: Sony 600 is the only one so far with dictionary support. I find it quite convenient, each reader should have it. For every file format.
Thumbnails obviously are saved. Building the thumbnails for the first time takes about 10 seconds per page, after that it's more or less instantly.
Speed in turning pages:
Someone stated, Sony 300 and 600 would have the very same processor as Sony 505 and Sony 700.
Didn't check that.
But Sony 300 and Sony 600 are slightly faster in turning pages as Sony 505 or Sony 700.
But it's hard to compare, I've only got about 100 books on the new ones, maybe size of the library or fragmentation of the database or whatever may have an impact...
eBook library 3.0:
It's crashing, when copying books to Sony 300 or Sony 600. Other users did confirm that. It has been working with Sony 505 and Sony 700 before.
I'll check, whether it's still working with the older readers.
Adobe Digital Editions is working flawlessly, drag and drop via Windows explorer is doing the job for all file formats as well.
Personal ranking:
I didn't use Sony 700 very often, although I find it a "smart" unit. But I prefer the display quality of Sony 505 or iRex iLiad. So it ranks last of my Sonys.
I don't like the "plastic sidings" of Sony 300 (which i didn't see on the pics on Sony's website), so it ranks third of my Sonys. In direct comparison, I slightly prefer Cybook Opus to Sony 300 in the 5" division.
Sony 505 and Sony 600 are even. Sony 505 still got the better display quality, Sony 600 got the touchscreen and the dictionary. Ranking depends on demands and permanently changes...