Kindle Touch or Sony PRS-T1, any suggestions?

[J-O-Jou]

Hi, I'd like to hear some advice from more experienced users. Kindle Touch or Sony PRS-T1?
I 've had Kindle Keyboard for half a year, now that there are so many new toys, I'd like to switch to some touchy-one. What I need is nice E-ink display for my eyes, wi-fi + browser for some instant online access (e-mail, university pages, information), stability(no "freezing" or supra-sensitivity) and good PDF handling, for I read quite a lot of scanned matterials for school. I don't really care for libraries yet, my country is not that developed, nor do I care for 3G or smartphone features, games or apps, I'm happy with my dumb phone. As for storage, Kindle Keyboard has 4GB, and though those PDF are sometimes quite large (100MB) and I carry some music with me, I never used as much as 2GB for books. Why to carry thousands of books with you, anyway?

After some research, reading reviews, comparing features etc. I found out that Kobo Touch and Nook Simple Touch do not meet my requirements as for web browser, my Kindle Keyboard is not that good with PDFs (though otherwise indeed satisfactory), so in this price category best choices are Kindle Touch and Sony PRS T1.

BUT they say that:
KT is too touchy, the slightest unintentional touch will turn the page.
-has no landscape mode, so PDFs are not so great (how much can I zoom, though?)
-is not so easily operated one-handed(perhaps just too large hands..?)
-some problems with Home button?

Sony, on the other hand,
-still has freezing/skipping pages issues - some users claim it maybe caused by dust collecting in corners, some claim it can be fixed by a new firmware (how long can it take to develop an upgrade, half a year? two years?),
-has more reflective display?
-not much user-friendly environment

Any recommendations, experiences, comparisons, other features that i should notice?
Thanks all for help.
go badgers

[J-O-Jou]

BTW, if there is a review out there comparing Kindle, Sony, Nook or any other such device(e-ink, touch, wifi) , even of some obscure hipster brand, russian, asian, indian, whatever, let me know, 'cause I've searched all over the internet and, though it's been a couple of days since releases, all they compare is Kindle Fire X Nook Tablet X iPad or Kindle Touch X Keyboard.

[HarryT]

All the current range of touch-screen eInk devices use the same infrared touch screen technology, hence they are all equally sensitive. It's not actually necessary to touch the screen at all; the invisible grid of IR beams is about a mm above the screen - all you need do to turn the page is to break the beam.

It's more a matter of whether you're happy with a purely touch screen device, like the Kindle Touch, or whether you also want hardware page turn buttons.

[pholy]

Apparently Sony will have a fix for the flipping/freezing problems around the end of this month. I do like having the buttons, and I like the ease of bookmarking and annotations on the Sony T1. I think the 'Sony environment' is currently only a problem for those in the USA and Canada; others can't use the Sony Store and have to use Adobe DE. I've been just copying books to my T1 from my ADE directory.

[gatemaze]

Considering that I have the Sony PRS-650 and a friend of mine has the Kindle Keyboard 3g which I have also used quite a bit I can say that (from what I read in the t1 is not that much different than the prs650 other than the wifi):

-- Regarding pdf. You should be a bit cautious regarding pdfs. I bought the PRS over the kindle because I read it has better pdf viewing support, and I also wanted to read pdf scientific papers on it. After comparing both of them as I forementioned my personal opinion is that the PRS is better than the kindle on this respect. Now it depends on what pdfs you want to read. If these are pdf books for example then it is fine, even font resizing works if the pdf is text pdf and not a scanned pdf. Obviously you have restrictions with the line wrapping due to the pdf format. If you want to read scientific papers though like I did then there are a few issues. Firstly font resizing messes up the mathematical equations. Also the 6 inches screen is not big enough for two column papers. So you have to zoom in and scroll frequently, which is the best you can do but still not the most convenient way of reading a pdf paper. Still though the PRS is much better than the kindle in pdf reading in my opinion.

One thing you should be careful though is that scanned pdfs tend to be large files, ebook readers tend to have slow processors which result in slow loading times...

-- Regarding the e-ink they both use the same screen and they are both brilliant in this respect.

-- Also I very rarely had my prs freeze (maybe 2-3 times in the last year of very frequent use and this with the old firmware). In any case pressing the reset button fixed it instantly.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by gatemaze

-- Also I very rarely had my prs freeze (maybe 2-3 times in the last year of very frequent use and this with the old firmware). In any case pressing the reset button fixed it instantly.

This is of no relevance to the device under discussion - the PRS-T1. As you will know, if you've been reading the Sony forum here at MR, it has major freezing problems which Sony have not yet addressed.

[J-O-Jou]

Thank you, good people, very helpful indeed (especially you, gatemaze)!
I think I will enjoy touching, for navigation, search, zoom etc, but once i get to leisure book-reading, buttons are just buttons and no-one can take those from me
My PDFs are mainly a) my country's journal, which is acceptable to read on Kindle 3, but for some reason it can't be reseized, rewrapped or anything, it's just like a picture and not a text, so i could only zoom, and zoom is not one of the strong points of K3. b) Scaned copies of modern or ancient Chinese texts from my teachers, most of the texts are hard to find in electronic versions, and I dont want to print them due to "save my planet" issues. So yeah, they are quite large and "zoom it and move it" is the easiest (or the only) solution. well, they don't stuff e-readers with duo-core processors yet, so i'll have to be content with slow pace...
BTW, I just downloaded Chinese Duokan OS for Kindle. It's not far from awesome. Not perfect though, but it shows what is any Kindle capable of, given the right insides. I wish all those small features were included from the begining, not by a third party.
I guess I'll try the PRS-T1, then. Thanks again for your opinions.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Do you plan to keep your Kindle Keyboard? If so, then I would probably go with the Sony T1. Then you would have both EPUB and MOBI ereaders without having to strip DRM. I think the T1 has better PDF support than my Kindle Keyboard. I really like the multi-column viewing options. Sony has announced that they plan a firmware update for the end of the month to fix the freezing issue, and I hope it really does fix it.

[HonzaK]

Regarding PDFs:
I had the chance to test Kindle Keyboard and T1 side by side this week and I must say I was impressed with Kindle PDF capability (because everyone says it sucks) and less then impressed with T1's PDF capability (becaus everyone says it's good).
- Major point for Kindle: the darker/darkest font option for PDFs makes them way more legible than on T1, I could almost comfortably read them without any zooming at all.
- They can both display PDFs in landscape, which is very much ok for reading
- I don't compare panning when zoomed because it is useless anyway (on all e-ink readers)
- Major (sort of) point for T1 - it supports bookmarks (as in "Table of Contents"), but this has a drawback - whenever you click on a bookmark the reader (T1 I mean) stops respecting the PDF CropBox, therefore any white margins you cropped beforehand on PC reappear. This is apparently a bug/feature in the firmware which will never be fixed.
- Slight point for T1: it supports two-column view. I don't mind a little PC preprocessing with Briss or something similar so this isn't really all that importatnt for me.
- I don't compare reflow because it's useless anyway (for "real" layout-rich PDFs)

All in all, I think Kindle's support for PDFs is not much worse that T1's and because of the much better legibility, I actually prefer Kindle. So I would say - don't expect any big improvement if you migrate from KK to T1.

[J-O-Jou]

to Bookworm_Girl: I plan to try working with a touch device, for as i hear you folks talking, there is not much difference between K Keyboard and PRST1, after try out i will keep one for myself and pass the other to my girlfriend, also a student and a book-oholic.

to HonzaK: You are right about preprocessing, I should learn how to do it properly, instead of leaving everything to the e-reader... Might save lives.

, good people of the Internet, I appreciate your help.
Guess this thread may be deleted, if no-one else needs it.

PS: I hope someone will start production of "ePads" for common people, my first PC had about the same specs as my first reader, and it could do more, not only because of the displays. Where is the e-ink pacman, tetrix and arcanoid?

[cadmus]

Sorry to bump this old thread but I am quoting from it and it matches my questions.

Originally Posted by gatemaze

I bought the PRS over the kindle because I read it has better pdf viewing support, and I also wanted to read pdf scientific papers on it...

YEAH. This is 99% of why i want an E-ink reader. Few of the books i read are on ebook. Most of what i read is professional journal articles, in PDF form, with many tables, graphs and equations. And my eyes can not stand laptops or tablets anymore.

I also need to be able to take notes on the PDF.
After playing with the kindle 3 or 4 with keypad, i fount that it lets you take notes with the keypad but I was unable to see these notes and highlights when i transferred the PDF back to my PC. Notes in my science reading are of no use if i can not retain them in a format that is tied to the comments in the article text. I am not going to keep all 5,000 PDF files on an ereader and i certainly will not be writing my next paper on a kindle so I need to get these notes and highlights to my PC.

IS THERE A WAY TO RETAIN (or reattach) NOTES IN THE PDF file when using...
...the kindle keypad?
...the kindle touch
...the sony?

scribble (hand written notes and markup) is a plus of the sony. does this work well? I am guessing i can not search for text from notes that i scribbled in windows explorer. But it is how i think. Is the scribble retained on the PDF file or is it somehow reattached to the PDF file when i remove it from the e-reader and view it on my PC in adobe pro?

does the kindle touch allow for scribble notes or is it just the Sony?

Does the sony also support text based notes in PDFs? is this retained in the document when deleted from the ereader and moved to my pc?

also

Originally Posted by pholy

Apparently Sony will have a fix for the flipping/freezing problems around the end of this month....

Did they, was this resolved?

Originally Posted by gatemaze

... Regarding the e-ink they both use the same screen and they are both brilliant in this respect.

Is it? so the claims that the Sony has more glare is bogus?


Thanks so much for the help.
Pete

[ProfCrash]

It appears that the page flipping thing has been resolved. The Sony glare issue is suppose to be due to the fact that the Kindle uses a matte finish on the frame and the Sony uses a shiny finish. Some folks think that the shiny frame causes a glare problem. Others are fine with it. I think it is a matter of personal preference.

[jojoba]

The last software update solved the pages flipping/crash issue for me. I'm loving my T1 now, and I've never thought of any glare issue with it.

[cadmus]

Thanks ProfCrash and jojoa for the update.


I have been doing some snooping and it sounds like SONY exports its notes (scribbles) in a RTF. But weather or not these files include the original publication's/PDF's text i do not know.

[luvshihtzu]

I just ordered the Kindle Keyboard 3G/WiFi with Special Offers. Am going to put my new Kindle Touch up for sale, because I want to have turn buttons available for when I am just reading. I love having the Special Offers and find them very useful and the screen savers are very pretty. The Kindle Touch is annoying when most of my page turn swipes or taps end up being highlighted and or a dictionary definition instead of going to the next page.

I do have the Sony PRS 950 and think its Touch screen is great and it does everything well plus it has turn buttons for when you aren't wanting to do the swipe motion. To me this is the best Touch screen available next to an iPad. One person from another Forum says that she loves the way her Sony T1 screen works, so I assume it is as good as the Sony PRS 950