Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader by Sony
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Digital camera reviews of Sony PRS-505/LC Blue Digital Book Reader
Digital camera Review: Excellent reader
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned my 505 for several months now, and I love it. For those that have raised complaints about 64 bit and Mac compatibility and the general ineffectiveness in the Connect software - I agree. I too had the same problems, but solved them by downloading a community supported peice of software named libprs500 (google it). It works with PC, Mac and *nix including 64bit. Also you can convert various formats of books into PRS accepted formats, and you can also use it to fetch various newspapers and periodicals for viewing on the unit.
With the expansion card I have several hundred books installed. Enough to keep me occupied for a very very long time.
Digital camera Review: Excellent!
Summary: 5 Stars
I got my reader about a month back. Based on most reviews, I was a little worried about reading PDF documents on my reader but it turns out it can handle PDF documents quite well. The opening time is reasonable and page turns aren't annoying at all. The text size can be enlarged at the push of a button and the reader re-formats the page nicely. However, reading image based PDFs can be a pain because the page turn time really takes a dive with those. You would be better off using some OCR software to convert those to text based PDFs. It comes with 100 free sony ebook classics. You can also download good classics from google books (already optimized for the this reader). The battery time is excellent. With an hour or two of reading every day mine lasts anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks on a single charge. Overall an excellent product, I'm very satisfied!Digital camera Review: Expensive, but a good idea
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought the sony prs-505 digital reader because I like to travel and I like to read. I have taken some longer trips and had to find something to read because I couldn't carry along enough books, and in some places it is difficult to find books in English. So I thought the digital reader would be a good idea for me. It costs more than I wanted to pay, but I finally talked myself into it.
Point one, a good point in my opinion: One thing that some readers found annoying but I think is good is the fact that the screen is not backlit. I have tried reading from my PDA and from my laptop and the backlighting irritates my eyes after a while. I work on a computer all day long and my eyes don't seem to suffer, but I have other things to look at besides my computer screen, whereas if I am reading a book I concentrate wholly on the screen for quite a long period of time. The sony reader is not backlit so it is more like a real book. If it is dark you will need a light if you want to read. In my opinion, the contrast between the page and the letters on the page is almost as good as a book. Not quite, but almost.
Point two, mostly a good point: the reader is about the size of a paperback so it fits easily into almost any sort of carrying bag or jacket pocket and, although heavier than a paperback it is much lighter than a hard cover book. The bad thing about this is the size of the screen. I would like it a little bigger but that might make the reader a little too big.
Point three, some good some adequate: there are free electronic books available on the internet. Three sources that I know of right off hand are sony's free books that come with the reader, Baen books [...], and Project Gutenberg [...]. The books that come with the reader are all classics, many are very good classics, but nothing modern. These books are usually top quality and seem to be made for the sony reader. Project Gutenberg books are all out of copyright. There are lots of them and it will take a long time to see what is available. Baen Publishing offers their authors a chance to offer a free electronic version of their books, but the down side is that some of the free books are part of a series and you might have to purchase other books from the series. The bad part of the free books is that, other than the sony classics, the books are not formatted for the sony reader. The Baen books are pretty good, but the Project Gutenberg books, although very readable, could be better. There are probably other sources for free books, but I haven't had enough time to search for them yet.
Point four, a pretty good point: I have so far only used .txt, .rtf, and .pdf files in the reader. The .txt and .rtf work pretty good, turning the page is about as fast as if you had to turn a paper page. The only .pdf I have looked at is the user guide and the pages sometimes take several seconds to turn. I don't have enough experience with the .pdf to say whether they are all like that or not.
Point five, something necessary: You have three different font sizes. Some free books are pretty good and the three font sizes work very well, but some free books have a very small font so even at the largest size offered, it could be difficult for some people to read.
Point six, a very good point: you can add memory with memory cards, there is a slot for an SD memory card and a slot for a Memory Stick Duo. I don't use these for the books because I have had just under a hundred books on the reader with pleny of room left on the internal memory. What I use the extra space for will be explained in:
Point seven, a very good point IMHO: You can listen to MP3s while reading. This is where I use the extra memory cards.
Point eight, an unnecessary feature IMO: you can look at pictures in black and white on the reader. So what.
Point nine: I recommend buying the extra charger so you don't have to use the USB plug to charge it. I think charging it with the USB plug is a pain in the neck.
My final analysis: I would probably give it four and a half stars rather than five, but I would recommend the sony reader to people that can afford it and that would use it. And buy the extra charger.
ADDITION TO THE REVIEW: Okay, I have had the PRS-505 for quite a while now. I still say it gets five stars.
[...]
Sony has an update available that the Sony ebook software on the PC will suggest installing. Do it. The one thing that I really noticed is that it helps with the PDF format. Note, however, that your ebook must be attached by USB and it should be fully charged before downloading the update.
[...] has started putting their free ebooks into several formats including Sony's .lrf format. It helps make them easier to read.
There is some free software available that converts several formats into the proprietary .lrf format. [...]. I have used it with PDF files as well as files with the .lit format and it does a pretty good job. It also works with files from the Gutenberg.org site, .txt, .rtf, and .htm files. Using the .htm files you can also get pictures when available. The pictures are black and white, but sometimes they add quite a bit to the story. There might be other software available, but this was the first I found and it does the job for me.
If you search the net you can find free copies of copyrighted books. They might be in the wrong format, but Calibre might be able to help with that. Keep in mind that it is illegal to download free copies of copyrighted books without the author's permission. Also, earlier I mentioned project gutenberg. Australia and Canada also have their projects gutenberg. If you are from those countries, check them out. They have different copyright laws than the U.S. so they might have some books that the U.S. doesn't offer.
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Digital camera Review: Fantastic Product - An iPod for Book Readers !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this Sony PRS-505 after reading several reviews comparing it to the other PRS-700 reader with the touch screen, however the reviews I read were accurate about how clear the screen is for this device.
My wife is an avid book reader and she has found this device easy to use, easy on the eyes and a great boon as she can have several books with her at any time and choose what she wants to read next whilst on the beach or at work ( In her lunch break of course ;o) )... she never runs out of reading material, she is never seperated from her iPod Touch for music and now she is never seperated from her Sony reader, as she said it is an iPod for books...
I did look at the Amazon reader, however it was out of stock at Christmas and it was also ugly in comparison, but it had a great wireless feature that the Sony lacks, but I feel this is more of a luxury to have the wireless connection, after all we still mainly connect iPods to update via iTunes... I just wish that Amazon would partner with Sony and use Sony's Style of reader mixed with Amazon's reader features and that it could link in to both the Sony & Amazon website for downloading books, that would blow away any competition.
Highly recommended, by both a non book reader and an avid book reader !!
Digital camera Review: Few days in possesion, love it!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this ebook reader now 2 weeks ago, and i must say that i love it. I had looked around for quite a while for ebook readers, and finally settled for this Sony prs505. the main reason for buying this one is price-quality ratio's. This is a really good product when you want to read your books and files on something other than a computer screen, but it doesn't have all the gadget's. Quite frankly though, this is all you need. there have been a lot of complaints that it should have the ability to wireless sync with a library, but who needs that if you can already put hundreds of books on the device?
this device is really good value for money and i would really recommend this a lot to anyone that loves reading.