Sony PRS-505 Portable Digital e-Reader System (Silver) by Sony
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Digital camera reviews of Sony PRS-505 Portable Digital e-Reader System (Silver)
Digital camera Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had my 505 over a yr now. It has been an excellent unit. If you are looking for a moderatly priced e-ink device, this is for you. It supports a variety of formats including PDF. Sometimes can't get the font large enough, but landscape view takes care of the problem acceptably. I am upgrading to the 700, but only because I really need the ability to highlight and make annotations as I am a full time college student. I notice some people do not like the Sony program which supports it, but I personally do not find it a problem. So, if your looking for a nice e-ink device and don't need the other stuff, I recomend it highly.
Another concern people express is the number of titles at Sony's site. They have gotten more since they began and also there are other places where you can download books they don't have. In addition, some sites offer some of the same books at a little cheaper price.
Richard
Digital camera Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the very best gadget I've ever bought. I use it every day. It's an excellent product.Digital camera Review: Excellent quality, very easy to use
Summary: 4 Stars
I am very satisfied with the Sony Reader PRS-505, it has such a nice screen and the buttons are conveniently placed for easy reach with your left or right hand. Reading an ebook is a pleasure. The quality of the screen is faultless (there is a flicker when switching pages, but it's fast).
Reading a PDF is tricky though, which is a shame because it was one of the main reasons I bought the reader in the first place. I wanted to read PDF white papers and A4 documentation on the go, but the text is too small and unreadable so it's not an option. On PDF files with unusually big text (like the included user guide) it works nicely. It was clearly designed to display native ebook format and RTF files and it does that very well.
Viewing pictures is nice and the quality is amazing, but the interface for browsing them is awkward. It doesn't remember the last picture you viewed, so when you read a comic you have to remember the page, and going back to it is difficult. It's best if the pictures are in the right aspect ratio (4:3).
The Sony Connect website is average but it has a large selection of books. Sony has recently announced a partnership with Borders to provide a new online ebook store, which sounds very promising.
The battery life is excellent, a single charge will take you through a whole book easily even considering all the messing about viewing pictures and other documents in the meantime and you'll have plenty of battery left. Charging is fairly quick even using the USB cable.
Copying new files to it couldn't be easier: plug it in using the USB cable, it shows up as a drive on your PC or Mac. On Windows it comes with a library software which makes it easy to manage the books, but even without it you can simply drag and drop files into it. It will update the Reader menu as soon as the USB cable is unplugged.
Overall a great product, especially for its main purpose of reading ebooks. I use mine all the time on the train and in the evening, I love it.
Digital camera Review: Excellent... to a point
Summary: 4 Stars
I received this a couple weeks ago from my husband for my birthday. I LOVE to read and am not always happy with having to fiddle around with an actual book; keeping it propped up while in bed or even worse, paperbacks that you spend more time trying to keep open than you do actually reading them. So I was thrilled to get this. As I said, its fantastic, to a certain point, that point being, it kind of sucks to have to use a book light with it. It glares off the screen if it's not positioned *just right* and there are just NO book lights out there anywhere that will light a whole page at once so that you don't have to mess around with them almost constantly while reading. (Well, the LightWedge is great for books but does NOT go well with the eReader; I tried it and it's more of a pain than anything.) That being said, I do understand why there is no back light. Someone mentioned it seeming to "lock up" while loading large files, and yes, mine has done that, with one particular book file. My solution was to just dump that file. The thing with TINY fonts on PDF files also stinks but I solved my problem with them by simply converting them to RTF and the font size adjusts just fine after that. It would be nice if they made some kind of "light bar" type book light for this thing that would cast light over the whole screen instead of having to use the "spot light" type that is just about all you can find otherwise. I don't know how long the battery will hold a charge as I am still using it on the first charge up and I read in it every day, some times longer than others but it held up through 6 hours reading on a trip last weekend and only dropped the power bar by one "notch". And it would be nice to be able to use it while it's plugged into the A/C thus saving the battery but it doesn't allow for that. Overall, it's GREAT, but minor little things kept me from giving it 5 stars. If you like to read, and especially if you LOVE the classics, I would suggest this eBook reader! Sony is offering free classics downloads from their library for a few more months. I am loaded up on Austen, Twain, and Dickens.
EDIT: I used the comment space to mention this before I realized I could edit right here. I made a mistake in saying that you cannot use this while it's connected to A/C power; that is wrong. You CAN read while it's on A/C but NOT while it's charging via USB connected to your computer. I am sorry for any confusion this may have caused! Also, I will assume Sony is shipping this product with the updated software that now works with Windows Vista 64bit. If not ,you will have to download it from the Sony site. I was not able to use my reader on my new computer for a couple months late last year until they released an updated version of the eReader library software.
Digital camera Review: Extremely terrible software
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this item one month ago and love it so much.
Frankly speaking, Sony software really sucks! That why I just bypass Sony software and using card reader instead to manage my ebooks.
One the other hand, Prs-505 industrial design is fantastic!