Comparison photos of new Sony 350 and Kindle 3

[TallMomof2]

After having wifi in a reader I would not want one without it. I have Calibre set up to download various feeds and automatically send them to my K3. And it's all sent via the wifi and as long as it's sent wifi it costs me nothing extra. I also *love* Wikipedia access. It's really enhanced my reading experience. Even in novels I will look up words in the dictionary or look for more information in Wikipedia. And the new webkit browser is a huge improvement on the older versions. It's still not a big enough improvement to distract from actual reading.

There are a good selection of dictionaries available for the Kindle, twenty five the last I checked, that work well. My personal favorite is WordNet. It's definitely easier to pick out the word to be defined on the touch Sonys but it's not that onerous on the Kindle.

I also don't get the wifi hate but it's easy enough to turn off on the Kindle. For me the lack of wifi or 3G is more than enough to keep me from purchasing the 350 or the 650.

[mdmorrissey]

Wireless and touchscreen are both (almost) useless and certain not worth paying for. What I want is a 6-9/10" reader that will present all the texts I want to read most effectively, which means good quality screen presentation and ease of use, as well as reliability (which in turn includes replaceable batteries if necessary). In short, screw everything that everybody seems so hot about and just concentrate on the quality of getting the basics right: do what a cheap paperback will do. F everything else and get that price down to below $100. Then you'll have a winner. I have spoken.

[yakuzaboss]

Great review! I'm eagerly waiting for my black 650 that I have on pre-order.

[iReaderReview]

Apologies for the delay. Here are some answers to various questions.

******porkupan.

1) Kindle 3 has added a lot of PDF features. There's search, there's highlighting (which only works for some PDFs), there are 5 contrast settings, there are 4 zoom levels, there's panning and incremental panning, and it generally handles PDFs very well.

I've also noted that the point has to be confirmed as haven't tested PDFs on Sony 350. However, Sony doesn't mention anything new and on the 600 the PDF reflow wasn't very good at all.

2) Browser support becomes important because all the email services work and there's Article Mode which is like Readability - read just the text on a page.

3) Yes, valid on both counts.

4) That's true - Sony has better fonts. That's why put up a lot of photos.

5) Don't know much about this.

6) Have to test dictionary support on Sony 350. Will update the review if it's better.

7) You can't really compare wireless on battery life with wireless off.
Kindle 3 is 3 weeks with WiFi, 10 days with 3G though some people aren't seeing that much. Haven't really tested that properly.

The point about fonts is very valid and a few things have to test out more.
Thanks for your comment.

****************soondai

There's no mention anywhere of a replaceable battery and the case certainly doesn't have any openings. Will confirm this if I find something - a quick search didn't show anything.

********************charleski

'Wireless' and 'WiFi' occur 9 times.
'Touch' occurs 11 times.

For some people wireless is worthless and for some touch is worthless - However, each is a hugely important feature and differentiator.

I have to mention everything since have no idea what particular features are important to a particular user.

*****************************Richey

Sony does get its fonts right. Not sure how they manage to get such delicate edges in the medium sized fonts.

Price is going to be a bigger factor than Sony realize.

***********************************Pskhe

Great question.

Haptics of the case. Will be reading a few books on 350 in the next few days and will then be better placed to answer your question.

You couldn't really get tired holding either - they are both very light. Sony 350 is incredibly light. It's literally a thrill as it seems physically impossible.

Kindle 3, after reading a lot on it, is very comfortable.

A few Kindle owners have complaints about the page turn buttons being placed where you would hold it. You can avoid this by holding at the back side edge. However, it is a slight issue.


Next Page.

Response time is indeed almost the same.

Kindle - 9/10
Sony 8 or 8.5/10.

Doing the touch based page turn is a tiny bit more effort. You could use the page turn buttons on Sony 350 but they are placed awkwardly.

Kindle 3 you can hold it such that your thumb is on the page turn and then all you would have to do is push.

**A few things for Pskhe

Note that there is a rumor that Amazon will extend free Internet browsing to outside the US.

Sony 650 has option to upgrade space but 350 doesn't.

** Basically, for the two things you mention i.e. handling and page turns they are pretty much a tie with Kindle having slightly better page turns (easier/ less effort) and Sony 350 having lower weight.

It really is a tie from what you're saying your needs are. Keep in mind that at some point of time the Kindle App Store will expand. Sometime this year or early next it'll debut in US and some time after that it'll probably go world wide so if you have interest in reading related apps (which will possibly be out) and games (which are quite likely) that's a small factor.

****************** WT Sharpe

thanks for the points on the PDF. With my 600 when a PDF font size is changed the tables and images often disappear. Which makes it readable. What do you do to avoid this?

***************************

Thanks for the comments everyone - it's given me a good idea of what to keep in mind when playing around with the 350.
It's good to see solid competition - hopefully Nook 2 is also very good and we get another round of price-cuts and features.

[901hw]

I would love to know the amount of zoom settings for the sony? I find the 3-4 zooms on the kindle slightly inadequate. I need a 125% setting!! Also can one really choose between zooming and reflow on the sony?

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Unfortunately, though, if you have more than a few hundred books on a Sony the library scan that occurs every time you add new books makes the system essentially unusable.

"Unusable"? To you maybe.

I just added 4 books to my memory stick, which was already loaded with 2,199 books. Yep, it took a whole 15 minutes for the reader to rebuild its book list. So I did a "snack run" and topped off my soda. Checked email. Took a quick look here to see what's new.

Then I went back to my very usable reader and opened up the book I wanted and started reading.

Yes, I make a choice between truly "instant access" and the greedy and selfish desire to have such a large selection of books on hand at any time. So I generally choose to load books at the end of the night, right before I go to bed (I charge the reader at the same time).

But it's my choice - and I'm glad to have it.

Quite a few people at work have come to me, asking for "which is the best reader", because they see me reading on my reader at lunch time.

And I give them an overview of the various readers and ask them what they want from their reader. And I try to steer them toward the one(s) that best meet their needs/desires. Because I don't think there is a "best reader" - I think there's a "best-for-me" reader.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

"Unusable"? To you maybe.

I just added 4 books to my memory stick, which was already loaded with 2,199 books. Yep, it took a whole 15 minutes for the reader to rebuild its book list. So I did a "snack run" and topped off my soda. Checked email. Took a quick look here to see what's new.

People have reported library scan times of many hours. My point is, though, that the Sony Reader is unique in having this, er, "feature". Why have a reading device which claims to allow you to store many thousands of books which, in reality, there are significant obstacles in doing so? There is no other reader which has this issue - it's something that's unique to Sony.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by HarryT

People have reported library scan times of many hours. My point is, though, that the Sony Reader is unique in having this, er, "feature". Why have a reading device which claims to allow you to store many thousands of books which, in reality, there are significant obstacles in doing so? There is no other reader which has this issue - it's something that's unique to Sony.

I'll agree, this took lots longer on my 505. But it was lots worse on the Cybook Gen 3 I owned for a short time (and sold because I just couldn't stand to use it). The eBookwise took a long time to load lots of new books at once - but you were limited by the 128K SmartMedia card ceiling.

You say this doesn't happen on other readers - do you suppose it could be because of the "collections" feature? (Real question, not a sarcastic comment). Aren't collections (or their equivalent) new on the latest Kindle? Has anyone noticed a difference with those new Kindles to the old ones?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

You say this doesn't happen on other readers - do you suppose it could be because of the "collections" feature? (Real question, not a sarcastic comment). Aren't collections (or their equivalent) new on the latest Kindle? Has anyone noticed a difference with those new Kindles to the old ones?

I don't believe it has anything to do with collections. When I had my Sony PRS-600 I noticed a significant slow-down with more than about 300 books on it, and I didn't use collections on that.

I currently have 500 books on my Kindle 3, on which I am using collections extensively, and there's no start-up delay on that.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by 901hw

I would love to know the amount of zoom settings for the sony? I find the 3-4 zooms on the kindle slightly inadequate. I need a 125% setting!! Also can one really choose between zooming and reflow on the sony?

The PRS-600 offers two choices when viewing PDF documents. You can zoom and pan, or enlarge the font, but you can't do both at the same time. Enlarging the font enables text reflow, and is a much better way to view PDF documents in my opinion. The Kindle doesn't do text reflow, which is why I never use it for viewing PDF documents. Zoom and pan is clumsy and awkward on either device.

[901hw]

Thanks WTsharpe but my question was how many different zoom options does the sony have? I dont need both features at the same time: zoom and reflow. I was just wondering what zoom percentages there are as the kindle has 150%,200% and 300% plus one which doesnt really work which is called fit to page.

[HarryT]

It doesn't have a fixed number of zoom options - at least on the PRS-600 it's just a slider on the screen that you can set to whatever value you want.

Its problem is that it "resets" every time you turn the page; you can't set a particular zoom value and then have that "stick" throughout the book.

[L.J. Sellers]

This are terrific photos. I just bought a new Kindle and love it, but this is the first time I've seriously considered another e-reader. Lack of wifi is still factor though.
L.J.

[astra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Its problem is that it "resets" every time you turn the page; you can't set a particular zoom value and then have that "stick" throughout the book.

I have read in some review that this problem has been taken care of.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It doesn't have a fixed number of zoom options - at least on the PRS-600 it's just a slider on the screen that you can set to whatever value you want.

Its problem is that it "resets" every time you turn the page; you can't set a particular zoom value and then have that "stick" throughout the book.

Originally Posted by 901hw

Thanks WTsharpe but my question was how many different zoom options does the sony have? I dont need both features at the same time: zoom and reflow. I was just wondering what zoom percentages there are as the kindle has 150%,200% and 300% plus one which doesnt really work which is called fit to page.

Harry's right, and I made a mistake: you CAN resize the font and still use the zoom and pan function on the Sony simultaneously.

Sorry for the wrong info.