A Newton killer? Actually, the eink displays are incredible, much better than the dim, grey Newton's screen. True, you don't get a backlight with the eink displays, but the contrast is just so much better than the Newton, and the clarity too...
With a touch screen (finger gestures) and a stylus for making notes, it is compelling. The fact that it is so thin and light is also incredible. Long battery life (measured in page swipes, 7500?)...
This is the best slate going: because of the touchscreen and stylus, in addition to the fact that it supports many different formats (i.e. MS Word, Open Office, PDF, etc.) it is more than just an ebook reader, although still not a full fledged tablet computer.
I really wanted to buy the Sony PRS-700, the previous generation Sony eBook Reader (touch model), but the contrast was poor compared to the Kindle and the Sony non-touch screen PRS-505 - they had to add an extra layer to the screen because of the touch/built in lighting, which made it blurry.
Why did I not buy the 505? Because I really liked the touch screen, and decided to wait until they improved the 700. Well, now that they have, I might go for this one.
Again, where Sony really comes out on top is that not only do you get a stylus for drawing pictures and making annotations (most all other eBook Readers don't have this functionality), you also get the touch screen with finger gestures (again, most all other eBook Readers don't have this functionality either). The two of these combined put Sony on top in my opinion. It is just so much more natural to touch buttons on the screen and navigate that way instead of using dated, byzantine directional buttons.
Sony really has a home run product here, and I don't say that about much out there. And they surprised all of us too with the release of these new eBook Readers. We all thought they were going to be coming out at the end of the year or even early next year. Unfortunately, demand is so high that they can't keep stock.
Other than availability problems, well done Sony.
Ryan
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The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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Received on Tue Sep 1 17:21:35 2009
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