Aileen, my wife is a fast reader and was happy with the 500. She’s even happier after I upgraded her to the 505. But the primary reason is the more ergonomic placement of the buttons on the 505. I wouldn’t worry about “missing out” on the 700.

Great. I just bought the Sony 505 – literally ordered it a week ago. I agonized for months over it too. Sigh. Does the 700 have a much faster page turning? I am a fast reader and it can be annoying to see that black screen so often.

Kevin, what are you looking for? Quite honestly, I’d rather see the price go down than them adding more features. $300 – $400 isn’t exactly appealing to the broader masses consuming paperback books.

For instance, I DO NOT care about wireless on my reader. It’s not a burden for me to sync the documents I want on it from my computer. There are plenty of places I go to that don’t have Sprint EVDO coverage anyway, so the Kindle would have no advantage (and can you add books to the Kindle via computer in those cases?).

I was disappointed with the 700 – not a whole lot there to justify its larger price. The 505 isn’t exactly a laggard when it comes to page turning.

Kevin, they’re also claiming faster page flipping. Which I’m taking to mean it has a faster processor for the extra $$$ as well.

Oliver, you’re correct; that’s the virtual keyboard I mentioned in the post. I guess I’m picky: I’d like to see a little more functionality in the upgrade. It seems like Sony has gone from a leader in this space to a follower and they’re not quite catching up with the 700.

Kevin, I am too lazy to look into this right now, but I thought the touch screen also gives you a keyboard and enables search capabilities. That I would consider a major benefit if you use the reader to hold reference manterial (without search, it’s pretty pointless… even with search, it would be nice if you could follow links in the books).