Amazon Kindle 2 vs. Sony Reader PRS-700 Video

Amazon Kindle 2 vs. Sony Reader PRS-700 Video Transcript

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>>[Background music, bells, cheering] What's up Price Five Fans? I'm Brian Tong and with Evil Greeters getting a lot of buzz, we're throwing the top two contenders in the price five ring. It's a battle between the Amazon Kindle Two and the Sony Reader PRS700. Our judges for this fight are CNET reviews executive editor David Carney, executive editor Tom Merritt, and yours truly. Now we're going to take all three judges scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round. And the final price fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system. Let's get this throw down started, round one is all about the [inaudible]. The Kindle Two is a huge improvement over the original with its thinner body. It looks like an iPod from the back, but a Commander 64 from the front, a [inaudible] is sexy, dude that's really forcing it. Now the Sony Reader has a clean and elegant design and its touch screen eliminates the need for so many buttons. Its leather case also adds to the book life feel. The Reader gets a 4.7 and the Kindle Two gets a three. Next round is readability. These guys are trying to replace an actual book, so how easy are they to read? It might be because of its touch screen, but the Sony Reader adds a glare and a fuzzy haze to it. It also has a backlight, but that thing hurts more than it helps. Now it's really not that bad, until you look at the Kindle Two. Amazon's Reader, nailed it. The contrast is great and there's almost no glare issues. And I know my parents would have no problem reading this thing. We flip flop scores for this round. The Kindle Two gets a 4.7 and the Reader gets a three. We're tied after two, the next round is connectivity. The Kindle Two's killer feature is its built-in EBDO wireless connection. That allows you to download books directly from the device. It's only available in the U.S. right now, but it's juicy. And if you buy a book from your computer's web browser, your Kindle wirelessly sinks the purchase. Now the Sony Reader uses a USB connection, and you have to manually transfer the content to the devise. If you want a book, you have to purchase it using their eBook library software, and it's PC only. Why Sony? Now the Kindle gets a 4.7 and the Reader gets a three. Next round is content. The Kindle store has a superior collection with over 240,000 books, but it still doesn't have everything. You can subscribe to newspapers and blogs, even if they aren't cheap. And it's support for Word and PDF files is a pain. Now the Sony eBook store has about 100,000 books, and it's getting better, but it's still behind. A big plus is its native support for Word and PDF files that look the way you would expect them to. The Kindle Store just edges the Sony in this round, 3.3 to three. After averaging four rounds the Kindle Two leads by just half a point. The final round is additional features. The Kindle Two comes with a built in dictionary, MP3 play back, text to speech which is more of a novelty. And a web browser that reminds me of my Motorola razor, that's not a good thing. And where's the case? Well the Sony reader comes loaded with an MP3 player, that is better to use while reading. There's two SD card lots for expansion. And we told you about its not so hot backlight. But it comes with a case that looks good and protects it. But there's no way you can overlook its touch screen, which makes the device ridiculously easy to use and navigate. In the final round, the Sony Reader gets a 3.3 and the Kindle Two gets a three. So let's average out the scores. And after five rounds, the Amazon Kindle Two just takes this battle, 3.7 to 3.4 and is your Price Fight winner. Both of these eBooks excel in different things, but they still have plenty to work on before I get one. I'm Brian Tong, thanks for watching. We'll catch you guys next time on another Price Fight. ^M00:04:06 [ Music ]