It is now undisputed that e-book readers will one day replace paperback books. This revolution is spearheaded by Amazon's Kindle a couple of years ago. The Kindle was the best-selling digital book reader since its launch and shows no sighs of waning in its popularity. Early this year, Amazon released the highly anticipated follow up to the highly successful Kindle, the Kindle 2. The new model not only features many improvements in function and design, but also a whole new host of applications.
To date, no digital book readers in the market come close to rival the popularity of the Amazon Kindle. But if you have to pick the best alternative to the Kindle 2, it will have to be the new Sony PRS-700 e-book reader. Since the launch of Kindle, Sony has worked very hard to grab a market share with the launch of the Sony PRS e-book reader series. Here is a quick look at how well these two popular models fare against each other.
Pricing: The price of a product is always one of the biggest factors in influencing a decision to purchase something. At the time of writing, the Kindle 2 costs $359 while the Sony PRS 700 cost $399. Although not a great price difference, the $40 gives Amazon's model a slight edge over Sony's model.
Features:The new model from Amazon feature tones of new features. One of my favorite new features is the dictionary function. Just glide the cursor over a particular word and the meaning automatically shows up in a pop-up box. There is no dictionary function in the Sony PRS model. Nevertheless, Sony's reader does have some features not found on the Kindle 2. For example, it has LED backlighting that allows you to read in the dark. In totality, although the Sony reader does have some unique features, Amazon's model has much more functions that are not found on any other digital book reader (e.g. free wireless capabilities through Whispernet, Wikipedia access etc).
Battery Life: Both these models have similar battery life spans. On a single charge, both models can last up to two weeks (with the wireless function off).
Storage: The Kindle 2 has 2 gigabytes of built in memory, while the PRS 700 only has 256 megabytes. Nevertheless, the Sony model supports memory cards and can handle up to 16g of memory.
Design: The Kindle 2 has a white casing with soft, rounded corners. The Sony PRS on the other hand, sports a black casing with hard and squared edges. Amazon's reader has a little keyboard below the screen and a 5-way controller for easy navigation. Sony's reader large depends on its touch screen to access the various functions. I personally prefer Amazon's design. It has a sleek 'cool factor' to it and the strategically placed buttons adds to the convenience of use. It seems that the designers at Amazon gave the design a lot of thought compared to Sony's designers.
For more reviews and product info on the Kindle 2 and other digital book readers, visit http://e-book-readers.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment