TRE 26 Unboxing the Alex
Thursday, April 29th, 2010Unboxing an Alex by Spring Design and comparing its size factor with a nook, a Kindle, and an iPad. Plus: a fire alarm.
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Unboxing an Alex by Spring Design and comparing its size factor with a nook, a Kindle, and an iPad. Plus: a fire alarm.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This is the unboxing video for my Sony Reader Daily Edition, which arrived today, with side-by-side comparisons with my Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble nook. (Don’t worry about the black screen; if you click on it the video will play.)
My wife Darlene and agreed that, on first impression, the Daily Edition’s screen readability is markedly inferior to that of the Kindle and nook. Of the latter two, we found that the nook’s contrast seems slightly better, because the background to the text is lighter. See for yourself in the video.
The Daily Edition is gorgeous, but it feels like a different animal in the eBook jungle. It feels like a machine, a handsomely designed machine, but one better suited for a corporate road warrior than a bookish reader. For example, I doubt there will be a big market for pretty skins and fancy covers for the Daily Edition, whose official name is PRS-900BC. It’s just not that sort of device. Plus, it already comes with a cover that’s attached to it, and I haven’t figured out yet if you can remove it to make way for something that, say, Oberon or M-Edge Accessories might create for it.
That said, I’m looking forward to playing with the Daily Edition. The touch screen seems much more responsive to that of the nook’s lower panel. It failed to find the Sony Reader Store tonight while we were in the dining room. Just to check the competition, I fired up the Kindle and it found the mothership in seconds.
The Daily Edition isn’t cheap. At $399 it bears a hefty $140 premium over the Kindle and the nook.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download