Side by Side Comparisons of 505, 600, and K2 screens

[Kostas]

Originally Posted by duskdawns

Sounds like the ideal would be a Sony reader married to the Kindle store.

Life would be very simpler if Amazon was willing to open its store to other formats and to everyone, not only to kindle owners.

[duskdawns]

Originally Posted by Lilly

You're so right, if you say anything negative about the Kindle, half of the Amazon board will bite your head off! I love the Amazon store and I can't wait to get my hand on the Sony Daily Edition. If the Amazon store was open for people who do not own Kindles then I would only have a Sony.

So Lilly, do you agree with Jack's assessment of the Kindle vs. the Sony? Do you find the letters sharper and clearer on the Sony or the Kindle?

[Lilly]

Originally Posted by duskdawns

So Lilly, do you agree with Jack's assessment of the Kindle vs. the Sony? Do you find the letters sharper and clearer on the Sony or the Kindle?

I don't know about the new PRS-600 or Daily Edition, I've seen the PRS-600 for about 10 minutes in my local SonyStyle store but I only had my PRS-505 with me; did not think to take the K2 with me. The PRS-505 font was sharper but not a huge contrast to the PRS-600. There was a slight glare when I held the 600 at certain angle, which I never noticed with my PRS-505. With that said, I would have bought a PRS-600 if Sony did not announce the daily Edition which I'm definitely buying. Neither the K2 or PRS-505 suffer from readability issue in my opinion. I also felt that was not an issue in the case of the PRS-600 for the brief period I got to play with it. In a nutshell I would give up the K2 before I give up my PRS-505 because I like the page number format because it allows you to shuffle through pages of your ebook like a real book and that's 1 of the most important thing to me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by duskdawns

I have not seen any other eink displays, so I don't know how they are in comparison.

There was another discussion in another thread where one poster commented that the text looked like soggy newsprint, while another one declared that the eink looked as sharp and clear as his paper books.

Keep in mind that while some people are blessed to have perfect vision, others are afflicted with farsightedness/nearsightedness/astigmatism/etc. that does impact their reading experience.

It's not an issue of not liking any eink display. It's more trying to find the best/most readable one out of those available.

But, the screen on the 505 is as sharp as you'll find. There isn't a screen that is more sharp yet. The 5" screen is similar just smaller. All 6" eink readers are using the exact same screen as the 505. So if you don't like the screen on the 505, there won't be any 6" sized eink you will like.

With the 600, you can also page through a book at rapid speed. Plus what's up with the Kindle's pagination?!? It uses meaningless section numbers rather than page numbers like the Sony Readers.

I too have been flamed and challenged on the Kindle forums many times. When I posted that I am currently on K2 number three due to two returns for defects including screen fade in direct sunlight and that lousy Whispernet that often takes 30+ minutes to download a typical book, I was called a liar. Having said that, the Kindlephiles are not as fanatical as the the iPodophiles (pun SO intended) on the Apple forums. Not only are the iPodophiles religious zealots who worship Steve Jobs, but the Apple employees will edit and redact any posting that doesn't praise Apple and its products. I kept getting flamed for stating facts until one day I called a certain poster who mercilessly, and often vulgarly, flamed me an "iPodophile". Then Apple banned me from their forums! Apparently Apple tolerated the f-bomb but not "iPodophile."

I'm a straight shooter and I'm not loyal to any brand. The reason I keep my K2 is because of the superior catalog of books on Amazon. But I've been burned at least twice by not trying out a book first. Many of the books, even recently published best sellers, or OCRed from the printed books and are virtually unreadable. They look like a 20th generation xerox copy. In other words, make a copy, then use the copy to make the next generation copy, then use the last copy to make the next, and so on until it is unreadable. Amazon allows the publishing houses to get away with this. And how do I know they were OCRed? Because of stupid non-edited text where lowercase "L" is consistently replaced by the numeral "1", and many other such typical, oft recurring OCR mistakes like "cl" in place of "d".

BTW: I just listed my 505 for sale because I am happy with the 600 and it is replacing its older brother at my house. I suspect the Kindle might get listed for sale sooner than later.

EDIT: I listed both my PRS-505 and my Kindle 2 in the Fleamarket section of this forum. To read Kindle books I will use my iPod touch.

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by Lilly

You're so right, if you say anything negative about the Kindle, half of the Amazon board will bite your head off! I love the Amazon store and I can't wait to get my hand on the Sony Daily Edition. If the Amazon store was open for people who do not own Kindles then I would only have a Sony.

And they know this which is why they refuse to sell their digital books to non Kindle users. Crazy, but to me that seems to be the only way they're able to keep their lead.

When I bought a second reader, I almost bought the Kindle because they have such a good e-book selection with good prices, but I just couldn't do it. Kindles were just too ugly and cheap looking. I held my ground hoping that other stores would soon have competitive pricing and that Sony would offer dictionary support on the 700 in the future. We'll see about that, but in the meantime, I'm waiting for my 600 to arrive.

[DrMoze]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But, the screen on the 505 is as sharp as you'll find. There isn't a screen that is more sharp yet. The 5" screen is similar just smaller. All 6" eink readers are using the exact same screen as the 505. So if you don't like the screen on the 505, there won't be any 6" sized eink you will like.

Yes, but... The 5" 300 screen is actually sharper than the 6" 505's screen. This is from looking at the outlines of characters at high mag. Sharper black edges as opposed to some gray shading n spots on the 505 (nowhere as bad as what's shown on the "Kindle Optimizer" pages though!) And these screens display text at the same size for a given ebook--there's just about 2/3 of the text displayed at a time on the 300 as compared to the 505. And the 300's background is a bit whiter than the 505's. [Can you tell I've been looking at this? ]

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by DrMoze

And these screens display text at the same size for a given ebook--there's just about 2/3 of the text displayed at a time on the 300 as compared to the 505.

This means that the 300 is using more pixels per character, so it isn't surprising that they are sharper.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by jswinden

With the 600, you can also page through a book at rapid speed. Plus what's up with the Kindle's pagination?!? It uses meaningless section numbers rather than page numbers like the Sony Readers.

There location numbers (not section numbers) and they stay the same no matter which of the 6 font sizes you use. So, they are actually more meaning full than the page numbers the Sony uses. The same page number of the sony refers to different text at different font sizes.

BOb

Originally Posted by pilotbob

There location numbers (not section numbers) and they stay the same no matter which of the 6 font sizes you use. So, they are actually more meaning full than the page numbers the Sony uses. The same page number of the sony refers to different text at different font sizes.

BOb

I'm pretty sure they ARE "section" or "paragraph" numbers. At any rate, no matter what you call them--location, section, paragraph--the idea is the same. For the average user they make no sense. Books use page numbers. Books are designed by writers and publishers. Programmers do NOT design books, thankfully, or they would be unreadable. So using a location system designed by programmers makes no sense. They should use page numbers. Almost all the eBook reader software I've used for PDAs, smartphones, iPods, etc. has used page nmbers which are recalculated if you change font sizes or fonts. That makes sense to the average reader, not location indicators.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by frozennorth

I noticed that the Sony's display 3 more lines than the Kindle. The Kindle seems to waste a lot of screen real estate with big left and right margins although the justification makes the text look nicer.

I don't consider the 'real estate' wasted, because the large next page buttons on either side of the K2 screen make one-handed reading easy no matter which hand you are using. You may have a few more pages to turn, but the trade-off is well worth it.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The keyboard on the Kindle is a joke, IMHO.

I'll give you that. It's not the K2's most user-friendly feature. One of the few things that bug my about the K2 is that if you type a note and wish to capitalize the first letter of that note, you must first type the letter, then delete it, and then capitalize it. Also, some of the functions that require holding two buttons can be a bit awkward. That being said, I still love my K2. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven't tried the competition .)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I'm pretty sure they ARE "section" or "paragraph" numbers. At any rate, no matter what you call them--location, section, paragraph--the idea is the same. For the average user they make no sense.

The location equates to a specific word, not section or paragraph. That makes sense to me.

That said, what sense do they have to make? All you need to know is if I tell you to go to a location number it will bring you to a specific point in a book. Isn't that the point? That won't work on a Sony... I have to tell you both the page number AND the font size. So, the location numbers on the Kindle are more meaningful than the page numbers on the Sony, by definition. mean⋅ing⋅ful

–adjective full of meaning, significance, purpose, or value; purposeful; significant: a meaningful wink; a meaningful choice.

It isn't an opinion.

Of course, you are welcome to say "they don't make sense" as much as you want. That is much more correct than "they are not meaningful".

BOb

[Lemurion]

I've read on various different devices for years - and in my experience the best equivalent to a page in a book is a screen on a Reader. It serves the same function when you're reading.

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I'm pretty sure they ARE "section" or "paragraph" numbers. At any rate, no matter what you call them--location, section, paragraph--the idea is the same. For the average user they make no sense. Books use page numbers. Books are designed by writers and publishers. Programmers do NOT design books, thankfully, or they would be unreadable. So using a location system designed by programmers makes no sense. They should use page numbers. Almost all the eBook reader software I've used for PDAs, smartphones, iPods, etc. has used page nmbers which are recalculated if you change font sizes or fonts. That makes sense to the average reader, not location indicators.

Even if they didn't change the page number with the fonts I think it would still be more useful than location numbers. In my mind it would just mean I'm still on pp. xx but I've enlarged the font so it'll take more than one page on my reader to get through it. That's fine and totally makes sense to me, but locations?? Isn't that something you'll find in geography??