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 as good as it gets... May 14, 2008
It is a better buy than the kindle because: 1) screen is better technology(8 grays instead of 4) and it is stylish, cute, inconspicuous (when closed, with its leather like cover).
Also: eink is the solution if you want to read electronic books, and carry your books collection around, like me.
LCD is VERY POOR, compared with the e-ink screen that this reader has.
There is an mp3 player, which works, and audio quality is very good (although there is no eq / audio control other than volume).
Pictures: You can see pictures, which are quite ok (but on b&w).
PROS:
You are offered 100 clasical books with your sony purchase, but also you can throw in almost any electronic document (either by converting it or by included native support).
There are TONS of free books in the net, from project guttemberg, universities, etc.
There are also lots of ebook stores around the globe.
You will not contribute with conventional paper industry, so less trees will be chopped down (an ecological angle for sure).
Your eyes will be thankful (contrast is better in an eink device than in a real book, if you want to read outside, with sunlight).
CONS:
a bit on the heavy side (it is an all metal construction) ... I imagined it to be lighter ... but it is like holding a 300-400 pages mass paperback book. You have to switch hands / positions while reading.
contrast is a bit funny. You might find the screen to be lighter or darker NOT necessarilly according to the subjective light in the room. It is an angle thing, I asume.
speed: it might be a bit slow formatting documents view (internal processor might not be the fastest in town)
Anyway, overall, I am quite impressed. I can read whenever I want, wherever I go ...
Extremely terrible software May 06, 2008
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!
Excellent... to a point Apr 30, 2008
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.
1 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Too Bad 0 Stars Isn't An Option! Apr 26, 2008
According to Sony's ads - you get 7,000 page turns out of one battery charge. Sounds like you can read several books with one charge. Great!
So I charge it up and start reading. 400 pages later - the battery is dead. Hmmmm... must be a problem here. So I make a phone call to their tech support. This is where the product drops from 3-STARS to ZERO STARS!
Tech Support: "Did you charge it up fully?"
Me: "Yes, I charged it per the instructions, until the light went out."
Tech Support: "Oh no. You have to charge it for 16 hours. Do a reset and then charge it up fully and it should work fine."
This conversation took 30 minutes because he had to fill in my name, address, serial number, etc over the phone first.
ME: "I did all that when I registered the unit online so I could buy books. Why can't you look it up?"
Tech Support: "That registration is just for our marketing information. We don't have access to it in tech support."
The conversation went downhill from there, basically ending up with me asking for a supervisor.
Tech Support: "We don't have any supervisors here.... blah blah blah".
(Side note: Having managed a call center of 120 employees I KNOW that you staff 1 supervisor for every 10 to 20 agents.)
So I followed his instructions, reset, charged fully, and used it. For another 400 pages and a dead battery.
I called the tech support back (now 15 days after the first call). The new tech support monkey can't find any record of me or my first call. I explain the problem and the details of the last conversation. He "registers" me again with all the same info, serial number, etc as last time.
And even though I've already gone through this before, I get the same questions as before... "Did you fully charge the battery?" etc.
Bottom line -- the 7,000 page turns is a "fuzzy" number. It means that you can turn the device on and press the page turn button 7,000 times. However, if you READ THE PAGES between those turns, you don't get 7,000. You only get 400 or so. Note though - a paper book with 300 pages will probably be 700 or so pages in ebook format. So you can't read a complete book without recharging it at least once in the middle. For 16 hours.
I WISH I had recorded the phone calls to tech support. It would make a very entertaining YouTube video. Almost as stupid as the famous AOL phone call recording. I'd call them back and record it but I don't feel like wasting another hour of my time.
I've ordered a Kindle and it arrived yesterday. Too bad I gave Sony any of my money and I now have ebooks that I can't transfer over to my new Kindle. But at least I won't be giving Sony any more money.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Amazing Little eBook Device Apr 26, 2008
Opening
I am going to be moving in the near future. As I was looking at some massive piles of books that were cluttering my room, which would surely cost a lot of money to ship a few thousand miles from Hawaii to Maryland, I thought it might be about time for me to make the jump into eBooks. With that in mind, I went and bought myself this amazing little machine; the Sony Portable Reader System (PRS-505).
Screen
First thing I would like to write about is the screen on this device. The PRS-505 features a 6-inch, 170 ppi resolution, 600x800 pixel, 8-level grayscale E Ink electronic paper screen. Technical jargon aside, this screen looks great.
For those who are not familiar with the E Ink electronic paper technology, basically it is a means of mimicking the appearance of paper on a electronic screen without the use of backlighting; saving battery power. The screen will display one an image of the screen and the image will remain on the screen without using any additional power. If you wanted to, you could display the same image on the screen indefinitely without charging the battery.
Button/Input Layout
I really like the button layout and the layout of various inputs are positioned in a smart way. Flipping through pages is easy. There is are buttons on the right side of the screen or buttons to the bottom left of the device that you can use, depending on how you like to hold the device. min and out is as easy as pushing a single button. Marking bookmarks is that simple s well. Volume buttons, USB, power and headphone inputs (as well as a little slot for a wrist strap) are on bottom of the device, giving easy access to them when you have the include leather book cover on. Power button is on the top of the device along with the SD and Memory Stick Pro Duo slots. The number button on are the side of the decide, which are used for assigning content and jumping to a specific page. Going to page 364 in a book is as simple as hitting `3-6-4-Enter`.
Other Features
Along with the primary feature of reading books, the PRS-505 as a numerous of other features. The Sony Reader does have the ability to display images (JPRG, BMP, GIF and PNG format). Pictures are obviously not displayed in color, but still are very detailed. It also can display text (LRF, PDF, RFT and TXT, as well support for DOC files, which are converted into RFT). It also has the ability to play audio files (AAC and MP3). I have some classical music loaded on my Sony Reader which I like to listen to when I am reading, which works great.
Ease of use
It is a very simple device to use. The eBook Library software makes it very simple to load up books, files, pictures, or audio onto the device. I have it setup right now so each time I plug in my Sony Reader, it will automatically sync any music and book files I have added to my library. You can turn off any setting you wish in that respect. You can tell it to sync all files, some files or no files.
The eBook Store content is easy to navigate and easy to purchase. I have already bought and downloaded a number of books. If you happen to accidentally delete any content from your computer, getting that content again is as simple as logging in and redownloading your purchased content from your Transaction History (no charge of course). You can also have your purchased content on a total of 6 authorized computers or Sony Reader devices.
Closing
I am very happy with my purchase of the Sony Portable Reader. I would highly recommend the purchase of it to anybody who likes to read or anybody who might read more thanks to this convenience.
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